Campaign Proposal: Nature's Variety

Some 1-On-1 Time

By: Zak Priest

We've spent a bunch of posts comparing Purina and Nature's Variety, and their current digital marketing strategies. Today I want to switch gears and focus on Nature's Variety and what I think they should be doing.

The Problem

Nature's Variety does not have a strong social media presence, period. They have low follower counts, low post interactivity, and extremely inconsistent posting patterns across the big 3 social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube). Nature's Variety is one of the biggest providers of raw dog food and they have passionate community of dog lovers behind them. They just need to harness that community.

The Solution

The Puppy Love Club

The plan is to have customers send us their pet pictures and/or stories. Every day we will feature a "Puppy Love Club Member" on our Facebook page. At the end of the month we will put all the featured club members in a draw for a free bag of food of their choice.

It's a simple idea but I really think it accomplishes what we need to get done:

1. Increase page traffic
2. Incentivize frequent posting
3. Connect more with our community

This strategy can and should launch anytime but I think it will be most effective in February (less days means less entrants).

So what do think? Let us know your thoughts by hitting us up on Twitter @MarketingKennel.

Hero Dogs

Content Marketing for IAMs

Mark Faber

Retrieved from www.dailymail.co.uk

IAMs social media presence used to be very strong with a large following and loyal fans, lately they have fallen off the wagon and been posting less often without a strong engagement. I want to explore an idea to return IAMs to the alpha dog position with a new content marketing strategy. I would dedicate the month of June to Hero Dogs. To start the new promotion would be a Tweet sharing the news that all service dogs receive 50% off a bag of dog food by simply tweeting a picture in their service vests with the hashtag #IAMsFeedsHeroes. On Facebook I would share as many articles and news stories about dogs saving or helping others and encourage our followers to share personal stories and any other articles they might come across.

Engaging with our followers in a positive way by highlighting the great deeds that dogs are capable of it will create a feeling of positivity that will be associated with IAMs. By the end of June I would expect Facebook posts to average 250 likes, 100 comments and 75 shares (all organic). Twitter will be our other major outlet for releasing images of service dogs that have been tweeted to us for the discount. My goal is to average 50 retweets and 50 favourites per tweet by the end of June.

Retrieved from www.funcage.com

Kickstarting IAMs social media posts with these positive and heartwarming stories will be the best way to re-engage the once loyal brand following IAMs had without annoying consumers with advertisements. Converting those feel good tweets into a positive association with IAMs will translate into a positive feeling when buying IAMs products, causing an increase in sales. 

Link Metrics Matchup: Purina vs Nature's Variety

Do It For The Fans

By: Zak Priest

Digital marketing isn't just about what you as a company put out on the web; it's about what people are putting out their about you. We're going to take some time, having a look at what the web thinks about Purina and Nature's Variety

Purina

Not a whole lot going on for Purina in this category. Every mention on twitter is just in passing and not by dedicated pet/pet food accounts and all inbound links to their site are singular news stories, again, not by dedicated pet/pet food sites. Purina does get a lot of mention this way for good reason though; they sponsor/hold a lot of charity and awareness events. I'm going to post a few of these news stories here so you get what I mean.

Canadian Pet Heroes Celebrated for Going Beyond the Call of Duty

Media Advisory - Family Day Funderland - Presented by Purina® Dog Chow®

New research chair aims to reduce pet abandonment

Nature's Variety

This is where Nature's Variety shines. They might not have the best social media presence but people still love their brand and it shows. I'm going to show you some inbound links just like above, but unlike above I'm going to explain to give you a brief description of each link to really drive home that this is the kind of stuff we're looking for as marketers.

Suzanne Dean AKA: @dogtraininglady

Ok, I know this isn't really an inbound link but I had to include this Twitter account. Not only is she the top listed influencer for Nature's Variety but she runs a really great Twitter. If you are a dog lover, definitely consider following her.

Stray Rescue of St. Louis

The title says it all. It's really great to get constant recognition from a community leader like this one.

Martha Stewart

Nature's Variety has had quite a few mentions on Martha Stewart's website. The site is in a blog format and talks about a whole bunch of homemaking topics, from making a bed to making pork.

Conclusion

I knew Nature's Variety was going to have great link metrics but I was really surprised at how awful Purina's were. Winner: Nature's Variety.

Twitter Showdown: Purina vs Nature's Variety

Round 2

By: Zak Priest

Last time we looked at Facebook and both Purina and Nature's Variety did pretty bad. Maybe they put more time into their Twitter accounts? Let's find out.

Purina

Purina has a pretty alright page, nothing spectacular, but alright. They have 45,000 followers and they post frequently. On average about once a week. Ever so often they will do an event over Twitter and will post many times within that event period. Just like their Facebook page, they don't follow the 50/50 rule and mostly post pet pictures and articles of interest to pet owners. This is their most popular post...

It's not that outstanding but it's pretty in-line with the rest of their content.

Nature's Variety

Nature's Variety reminds me of a college student. They work really hard for a short stretch and then they aren't seen until finals. It's a shame because they have a budding little Twitter community. They only have 5,331 followers but they are all dedicated. They could get more followers but they just don't post. They had a ton of activity in January and then they go silent until May. They don't follow the 50/50 rule but I was pleased to see that majority of their posts are customer interaction about their products. Their most successful post is a great one.

I recommend you watch the video to get the full effect but it's so awesome to see such a high like and retweet count for a page that gets about 5 on average.

Conclusion

Both companies did a lot better than I thought they would after what I witnessed with their Facebook accounts. Both of their top posts are there because of the cute factor (as it should be). I'm giving Purina the win on this one because I found their content more consistent.

Twitter Showdown: Petcurean vs. Canidae Pet Foods

A look at the twitter pages of both Petcurean and Canidae pet food brands

Kelsey LeCoure

Petcurean and Canidae both have twitter accounts. Petcurean currently has 6,444 followers while Canidae has 13,500 followers. This means that Petcurean has Less than half of the follows that Canidae has received. Upon scrolling through their pages, I notice that Canidae posts a lot of original content whereas Petcurean posts some original content but mostly re-tweets content from other pages. Both brands do not seem to follow the 50/50 rule on Twitter. Some of the keyword sentences used by Canidae are Pet Nutrition, Free Treats, and Giveaway.

Petcurean's most popular recent tweet

The most recent and successful tweet from Petcurean is the one shown above. It received 2 retweets, 3 likes, and 11 comments. This was most likely due to the fact that for every comment received, the company agreed to donate 1lb. of food to the NOAH animal shelter. They ran the exact same post on their Facebook page as well.

Canidae's most popular recent tweet

Canidae’s most recent successful post received a total of 177 retweets, 63 likes, and 23 comments. This post was for a contest that was giving away free treats to people who retweeted the post AND followed their account. This is a great way to gain new followers and increase engagement on your twitter content. They run this contest every Friday!

Overall, Canidae is the winner of the Twitter Showdown. They have weekly contests that receive a large amount of engagement, their posts are more frequent, and they post mostly original content.

Twitter Showdown

Communicating with Consumers

Mark Faber

Twitter is the World’s second largest Social Media platform and if you have not heard of it or don’t have an account, sign up now and then read the rest of this blog. Twitter is a great platform for instant communication, from technical support to questions about products or just putting news out into the digital world. All companies should have Twitter and monitor it regularly to find out what consumers are saying about their brand or products. Today we are going to look at IAMs (@IAMS, active since 2009) and Blue Buffalo’s (@bluebuffalo, active since 2012) Twitter accounts.

Quick Facts

	Blue Buffalo	IAMs
Followers	10,600	18,000
Number of Tweets	4,310	15,100
Average # of Retweets and Favourites	5 Retweets and 6 Favourites	1 and 1
Post Frequency	3 times a day	Once every 8 days

IAMs Tweet for #CatHerdersDay

These numbers are just a quick glance into their Twitter accounts, the past 25 posts to be precise. Both brands follow the 50/50 rule (one content post for one promotional post) which is good, consumers don’t want to have their Twitter feeds being spammed with advertisements or they will unfollow you. IAMs makes good use of their tagline in their tweets, using the #IAMsDifference in almost all their tweets. Unfortunately Blue does not take full advantage of the hashtag for keywords, except for #EndPetCancer. May is Pet Cancer month and Blue Buffalo is doing an excellent job with content that is helpful and relatable to pet owners.

Tweet for #EndPetCancer

IAMs is missing the whole point of Twitter by only posting every 8 days, taking the instant and quick updates completely out of the picture. Blue Buffalo takes full advantage by posting and retweeting multiple times a day. Top tweets from IAMs (3 retweets and 9 favourites) and Blue Buffalo (9 retweets and 52 favourites) were not promotional, but sharing fun pictures. This is exactly what people are hoping to see on Twitter; short and informative tweets with engaging visuals. So remember Twitter is designed for instant communication, sharing news and up to the minute information, not just a free form of advertisement.