How to pitch your product as a pet business?
On this episode, we talk with Pamela Mitchell, Editor-in-Chief of Pets+ Magazine. Pamela gives pet businesses tips on how to get in national publications like Pets+. Mary, Alex and Pamela have a great conversation talking about the role of AI in press release writing, strategies to pitch your product, and the rise of pet influencers. Whether you’re a small pet business owner or simply curious about the inner workings of pet media, this episode is packed with valuable insights and advice. Don’t miss it!
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And if you can’t listen to our episode about pitching your business to pet publications, here is a recap!
Alex: Hi Pamela! Welcome to the show. Can you tell us what you role is?
Pamela: I’m the editor in chief of Pets Plus Magazine, and we are a publication for independent pet retailers and service providers. But we are read by the entire industry.
Mary: And can you talk a little bit about what kind of pitches are you looking for when it comes to Pets Plus Magazine?
Pamela: So in a sense, we have two audiences and that we have the retailers and service providers who are direct to consumer, dealing with consumers and customers in their stores. And then we also have the brands who read our magazine and the many of them who are our brand partners. The retailers have great access to us in the sense that they can join our brain squad and contribute to the magazine that way. So that’s kind of how they get their stories out there through the contributions for hot sellers, for inbox, for the main stories that we do. So that’s how they pitch themselves in a sense. So they’re saying, this is my business. I would love for you to write about it. And here are the many reasons why. So for brands, we make it really easy. We and Mary, you know this, got a call for pitches before every issue, about six to eight weeks before every issue. And we let them know what our category rounds are going to be. And we say, just tell us about your products. And it’s really that simple. As long as the products fit our audience, which they have to be available wholesale to independent pet retailers, to pet rich retailers. So we don’t feature any direct to consumer products. We don’t feature products that are available only through online retailers. But that’s it. We have a form that is petsplusmag.com/submit a product. Fill out the form. It feeds into our system and our email. And then our product writer, Melissa Kaufman, and I get together and we go through the pitches and we pick what’s going to run the magazine. But I will tell you that we try to make sure that every product that fits our specifications gets featured. When we have too many pitches, then I’ll figure out, all right, can it run a new notable? Can we run it in an upcoming section because it’s a better fit if it’s like a category specific product? But we really try to make sure that anybody who wants to tell our readers about their products has the opportunity to. And so what I’m looking for, and like I said, it has to fit our specifications, so available wholesale to independent pet retailers, new and notable, and then like I said, we have four to five categories for each issue that they fall into, and that’s all available on our website at petsplusmag.com, under Advertise and you can see our media kit with all of the categories for the coming year.
Pamela: And one bit of advice, I’m going to plug Mary’s team here, one bit of advice I would offer to brands is to work with an agency that specializes in pet. It is so much, it makes my job and the other editor’s job so much easier if you’re working with a Mary or Mary and Alex or the half a dozen others in the industry who have a focus on pet. They know who are audiences, they know who every magazine’s audience is, and they make sure to get you pitches directed to that so that it makes it easier for us to digest those hundreds of pitches we get every week.
Alex: What about the rise of social media influencers in the pet industry?
Pamela: You know, for the brands and for the retailers, because our retailers ask us, should we be working with influencers? And what we tell the retailers is, if you have an influencer in your area who can prove to you that they have local reach, not a TikTok that got 2 million views, because you know what? That’s not gonna bring people into your door. That’s not gonna result in sales. It’s just not. You could be famous for a hot five minutes, but it’s not gonna bring in revenue. So we tell retailers to if you have somebody who is like the dog mom of Pittsburgh, I don’t know if that’s a thing, but if you have someone like that who can drive traffic to your store and to drive sales, figure out an arrangement that works for both of you. Stores tell us all the time that influencers walk in the door and they just want free product. Feel like we’ve graced you with our presence, give us free product and we’ll talk about it. But unless that influencer can prove to you that it’s going to benefit your business, it’s not worth your time. We’ve heard from retailers who have had good success if they are in tourist areas working with travel bloggers. So they’re not just hitting people in their area, people in their community and opening that up, but they’re getting tourists who are following these travel blogs. But again, I would ask for proof and to set up a relationship that benefits you both and that is minimal risk on your part until they do prove themselves to the extent that they are bringing sales to your door. With brands, I would actually say the same thing. And this is kind of what I was talking about in terms of being just a little bit negative. I have friends who are influencers in the pet space. I think they do amazing work. The one thing that I would say is that at trade shows, if a brand is going to be open to talking to influencers and having those meetings, that they have enough staff in their booth so that a retailer is not waiting behind an influencer. Because the retailer is in your booth, the retailer wants to know, hey, can I buy your products? Tell me about your products. I want to bring your products in. I want to be a partner with you. Let’s sell your products. And it’s a little bit different for an influencer. So my advice to brands would be, I think it’s great if you set up these relationships, especially if you’ve got strong direct-to-consumer programs. But please don’t make the retailers wait behind you, wait behind them because they have a limited amount of time. They spent a lot of money and a lot of time. They’ve left their stores to come to a trade show and to talk to you about your products in the hopes of bringing them into your store. And if they have to wait for 15, 20 minutes because obviously somebody’s filming a TikTok and it’s not someone that you… They’re going to walk away because they’re going to say, this is how you treat me in a trade show when our entire purpose of being here is to do business with each other, then I don’t know how you’re going to treat me outside of a trade show. So that would be sort of… That would be my advice that I offer to brands.