November 30, 2022

How to Sell Dog Food (or anything else)

If there’s something I’ve learned after decades as a brand design professional, it’s this:

“Simply communicate your relevant and unique offer.”

Sounds easy, right?

Let’s have a closer look. There are 3 major components to this, and if you don’t nail each one, I can pretty much guarantee your offer will fail.

1. “Simply communicate”. This means instant clarity for your audience about what’s in it for them. They need to understand the key benefit within seconds of reading your message/page/ad. Don’t make them work for it.

2. “Relevant”. It needs to be obvious to your audience that your offer FITS INTO THEIR LIFESTYLE. This is often overlooked and relates to knowing your audience. A good example of this is coffee. Starbucks for instance appeals to a certain demographic who see the company as a PART OF THEIR IMAGE. They are proud to associate with the brand – it adds to their self-image and displays their taste to their world. This is the ultimate brand loyalty. Don’t just think selling dog food to dog owners is “relevant”. Every dog food seller does that. Sell a particular kind of dog food to a particular kind of dog owner.

3. “Unique”. If you aren’t unique, you’re simply a commodity, and competing only on price. That’s a losing strategy, so uniqueness is today’s most important marketing strategy. And it doesn’t just apply to your offer – it needs to permeate your entire marketing system. Your copy has to communicate that uniqueness, your visual identity has to instantly support your difference. The images you use on your pages and ads need to highlight that difference. Otherwise, you are lost in the noise of thousands of other marketing messages your audience is bombarded with daily. True uniqueness identifies you unmistakably in the market.

Focus on these three strategies and you’ll save yourself a lot of time and money later.

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