Ever the small business owner, I will often be aware of how things relate to marketing and my business. Which brings me onto the time my cat went missing. In this blog post I share what my missing cat reminded me about marketing.
I went on holiday to Greece back in June. While my husband and I were away our house cat managed to get out of the house. This was 2 days before we were due to fly home. There wasn’t a lot we could do apart from panic and expect the worst. I quickly went onto all the local Facebook pages, sharing photos of our cat and asking people to look out for it.
On our return, at 1am, we started searching the local area and calling the cat’s name. We were being as quiet as we could, so we didn’t wake anyone. The last thing you want to do is upset the neighbours and find yourself named and shamed on the local community pages! At around 4am we decided we weren’t going to achieve anything at this hour, so went home, showered with plans to go back out at 7am.
7am comes round and the plan is to divide and conquer. We spoke to dog walkers and people walking their kids to school. The great thing about dog walkers is that their dogs would go mad if they saw a cat. Therefore, if they have seen a photo of our unusual cat, they would recognise it. This quickly went into the local dog walkers WhatsApp chat too, thanks to a kind dog walker.
We stayed out all through the day. People were beginning to recognise us. We were being told that they had seen the missing posted on Facebook or that their friend had told them to look out for the cat. At school closing time we were being asked by families if we had found our cat yet. Our cat had quickly become a local celebrity with everyone keeping their eyes peeled.
Long story short, our cat was found by a neighbour a few streets away at 1am the following day. Massive relief all round and we quickly went to Facebook to thank everyone for their help.
So, what has my missing cat go to do about marketing?
Telling everyone that my cat was missing, was like marketing my missing cat. I wanted as many people to be aware as possible. By targeting the right people, local neighbours, dog walkers and school parents, I was opening my missing cat to more people. These people began doing my marketing for me. My network came in handy too as I had more connections to reach out to.
Even today I am still spoken to about how our cat is getting on when walking locally. This is marketing that has lasted, and people have remembered.
So, with that in mind – how can you market your business like I marketed my missing cat?
