4 Ways Dog Brands Leverage Influencer Marketing

Social media has become a powerful way for dog brands to connect with consumers. There are numerous doggy influencers out there who can help promote your products and help dog parents find you. In this blog we take a look at how you can leverage so-called dogfluencers for your business.

To be clear, for some of the things we mention you can use this site already, however some of the things we describe below are conceptual and not built yet.

What does your dog brand need?

Depending on what your business does, the business stage it is in, or depending on the product lifecycle stage, you have different goals that you want to achieve with influencer marketing. We discuss four goals:

1. Market research

2. Product testing

3. Content creation

4. Product promotion

1: Market research: what do dogs want?

When you develop new products for dogs with your team, then you probably have specific questions about the market. You need answers based on current market data. Better yet, actionable insights.

💭 Example questions:

• Which dog products are in demand?

• Which new products are a good follow-up to our current range?

• How is this 'dogsumer trend' developing?

• How do product needs differ between different segments of dog owners?

• Which exact groups of dogs are interested in our products?

We can think of dozens more questions that your product development team may be struggling with. What could be a solution to answer these questions?

📈 Dog market intelligence dashboard

At Dogfluence, in the not-too-distant future, we intend to aggregate data from thousands of dogfluencers and translate that data into actionable insights for product development teams of dog brands.

For example, these teams could see to what extent smaller dog breeds also need strong toys. Or they could see which dog food ingredients and flavors are most appreciated by puppies under six months old.

This kind of information is indispensable if you want to develop the very best products for certain segments of dogs. Or if you want to improve an already existing product for certain dogs.

With the best data and insights, you can distinguish your future product lines from competitors.

This dashboard is not live yet - help us build it!

Would such a dashboard be valuable to your team? Register your dog brand at Dogfluence and start your first campaign. More adoption of the platform allows us to build the dashboard described above in due course.

2: Product testing: do dogs love your product?

After the market research phase, you will actually develop samples or full-sized products. When the product is developed, there is a good chance that you will first want to have a number of dogs test your new products, before selling the product to the wider public.

How do you manage your product testers now?

Maybe you have some sort of customer test team. Some companies gather testers in a Facebook group, send them the products and then ask for feedback from the owners via a different survey tool.

If this works for your team, great, but we think there is a better way to go about this. How could this process be more efficient and more valuable for your team members?

📋 Start a dog product feedback campaign

The Dogfluence community consists of highly influential dogs. Their owners are super active on social media and always ready to test your products.

You can leverage this community to get valuable product feedback.

Test products in 3 simple steps

1. Create your product feedback campaign;

2. Reject or approve participants;

3. Ship your products and get feedback.

1. Create your product feedback campaign

Create a new campaign here. As a brand, you decide what incentives you offer. At the moment of writing, it is only possible to sponsor dogfluencers with 'free' products, but we will soon enable brands to offer a cash reward as well.

Determine the schedule, choose the product(s) you want to test, determine which dogfluencers can participate and clearly indicate that campaign participants are expected to complete a product feedback survey.

You can create your own questions or ask participants to complete an external custom product feedback survey.

2. Reject or approve campaign participants

Once the campaign registration period starts, Dogfluence automatically sends out invitations to all dogfluencers who qualify for your campaign participation requirements.

Wait for the dogfluencers to register for your campaign.

Once your product test campaign registration period ends, you can choose the dogfluencers you want to work with for this campaign.

Coming soon!

In the near future, you are also able to invite certain dogfluencers yourself via the upcoming dogfluencer search engine. This way, you can make the invitation more personal and compelling.

We will add a search bar and filters to this screen, so you can compose your ideal group of testers yourself. You will be able to search and filter through the list based on geographical location and dog attributes, for example:

• Country of residence;

• Dog size;

• Dog's favorite activities;

• Dog's product preferences.

3. Ship your products and get feedback

Easily export addresses of dogfluencers to ship your products to your doggy testing squad.

Once they receive your product, the dog will test it. Depending on your instructions, the owner will fill in your survey or you can export their product feedback from your account.

Start a product test campaign on our free plan.

Experience what it's like to receive product feedback from owners with dogs that fit well with your product. Register your dog brand at Dogfluence and start your first (test) campaign.

3: Content creation: dogs using your product

Let's say your product is finished. You know for which dogs the product has been developed. Now it's time to show the world what you've made. How will you market this product?

Receive high quality photos and videos

In this age of digital media. Good content can make or break your brand.

You are probably looking for high quality photos and videos of your product that are being used or endorsed by dogs that are a reflection of your ideal customer. This is going to appeal to new potential customers with the same kind of dogs.

To achieve this, you can hire an expensive dog modeling agency, but are there more economical and faster options available?

Start a dog product content creation campaign

How it works in 3 steps:

1. Create your content creation campaign;

2. Reject or approve participants;

3. Ship your products and get high quality content

1. Create a content creation campaign

You can decide for yourself which dogfluencers can register for participation in your content creation campaign. Soon, you can indicate that someone should have a special interest in dog photography, for example.

When you create the campaign, you can choose the campaign rule 'media upload'. You are in control of what kind of photos or videos you get back, because you can describe exactly what you are looking for, for example:

"Create at least two videos, one landscape (for posts) and one portret (for stories). Also, please upload five HQ photos of your dog using our product. It's important that our brand name is also visible."

2. Reject or approve participants

Once the campaign registration period starts, Dogfluence automatically sends out invitations to all dogfluencers who qualify for your campaign participation requirements.

Wait for the dogfluencers to register for your campaign.

Once your product test campaign registration period ends, you can choose the dogfluencers you want to work with for this campaign.

Uploaded content (photos and videos) will be stored in your Dogfluence.com company account. You can download a zip-file easily once all campaign participants submitted their content.

When a dogfluencer has not uploaded his or her content on time, you can easily send a reminder from the campaign management dashboard.

4: Product promotion: create doggy ambassadors

Start a dog product promotion campaign

How it works in 3 steps:

1. Create your promotion campaign;

2. Reject or approve campaign participants;

3. Ship your products and get exposure.

1. Create your dog product promotion campaign

It's super easy. It only takes a few minutes. Just create a new campaign here. Schedule your campaign, select the product and set promotional rules that dogfluencers must meet in order to participate.

Example Dogfluencer requirements

• At least 7.500 followers;

• Dogfluencer lives in the Netherlands or Belgium.

At the time of writing this piece, the criteria below are not available yet, but we will add them soon. You would be able to set requirements like:

• At least 75% of the following from the UK;

• Only small dogs;

• Dogs with the interest: 'strong toys';

• Only dogs 18 months or younger;

• Only 4-5 star reviews by other brands.

When an influencer does not meet your requirements, they simply won't be able to register for your campaign.

2. Reject or approve campaign participants

Once the campaign registration period starts, Dogfluence automatically sends out invitations to all dogfluencers who qualify for your campaign participation requirements.

Wait for the dogfluencers to register for your campaign.

Once your product test campaign registration period ends, you can choose the dogfluencers you want to work with for this campaign.

3. Ship your products and get exposure

Once the dogfluencer receives your product, they will generally go above and beyond to create engaging posts and stories about your product and your brand. Your product will be seen each tens of thousands of potential customers.

Dogfluencers will follow the promotional guidelines that you have set as a condition. They also stick to the campaign period that you have planned.

In this way, your product is authentically brought to the attention of hundreds of thousands of potential customers on a large scale.

When a dogfluencer has not uploaded his or her content on time, you can easily send a reminder from the campaign management dashboard.

Summing-up: four ways to leverage dogfluencers

Although the market research dashboard is not yet live, there are already three purposes for which your company can use the Dogfluence community:

1. Product feedback campaigns

2. Content creation campaigns

3. Promotional campaigns.

Of course you can also put together multiple campaign rules, so that your campaign is organized for multiple purposes.

And because we have just started, we invite you to think along. We would like to hear what other things you would like to use our platform for.

Good luck, and if you need any help; feel free to schedule a (demo) call.