SEEKING FREELANCERS | Coding mentor (for high school students) | paid/side-hustle/contractor | Remote | US citizen or work authorization
Polygence is looking for software engineers to mentor high schoolers in webdev, gamedev, app development (iOS and android), and more. Data analytics projects (especially sports analytics) are also quite popular!
Polygence serves tons of students with 2-5 years of coding experience who want to take on a passion project. We match them with a mentor to help guide them in their project (https://mentor.polygence.org/projects). You could be that mentor!! Students are generally 15-18 years old. Most have taken AP CS or equivalent and are comfortable in Java or Python. They love learning. And can’t wait to build fun projects.
Time commitment: varies (min. 2 hr/month) Compensation: $75-$100/hour
American pet owners are some of the biggest spenders online, pet food and pet supplies being second only to vitamins for e-commerce.
Online spending for this $70 billion industry is growing year over year.
In fact, direct-to-consumer (DTC) pet brands have exploded in popularity: Over five years, the online pet product sellers saw a compound annual growth rate of 24 percent.
From special-diet foods to raincoats for dogs, desirable pet products can be very specific. Paid ads on search and social let you bid on relevant keywords to hyper-target an audience that perfectly fits your brand.
In this article, I’ll give you nine ways to use paid ads you could effectively market to pet owners.
9 Ways to Target Pet Owners Using Paid Ads
Downtown Pet Supply, an Illinois-based company that makes its own products and sells them both online and in their store, wanted to improve its e-commerce sales and expand customer reach.
They turned to marketing firm Tinuiti (then called CPC Strategy) to help them do that through Amazon. Tinuiti decided to utilize Amazon Coupons targeting pet owners based on their Amazon search histories.
After one year, Downtown Pet Supply’s revenue increased by 40 percent, and its advertising cost of sale (ACoS) decreased by 18 percent.
That’s the power of using paid ads to target pet owners.
Common Thread Collective reports 13 percent of pet supply sales happen via e-commerce channels—and that’s expected to grow drastically over the next several years.
The anticipated increase in e-commerce purchases for pet supplies is largely because of convenience and value. However, shoppers also appreciate being able to find a larger selection and compare prices more easily than in brick-and-mortar stores.
Even for brick-and-mortar establishments, paid ad campaigns can extend customer reach and raise awareness of their brands.
Here are the best ways to harness the power of paid ads to help your company boost revenue.
1. Answer Pet Owners’ Questions
When pet owners go online, they’re looking for a solution to an immediate problem. It may be their pet is sick, and they want to know why. They may need chew toys or a scratching post. Or, they may just be looking for a convenient place to buy everyday pet supplies.
The most common question pet owners ask is, “Why?”
Each of these questions presents a micro-moment brands can address through ads or content marketing. They also create starting points for keyword research.
2. Use Content Marketing
Typically, your content marketing addresses those micro-moments for your users. Blog posts and articles can answer those health, feeding, grooming, and other questions.
But, you don’t have to rely solely on SEO to get those posts found. You can also promote your posts through social on platforms you know your audience is using.
PetPlate, a meal plan subscription service for dogs, created this promoted pin on Pinterest to boost a blog post called “Tips for Welcoming a New Puppy Into Your Home.”
By directing users to their blog posts through Pinterest ads, PetPlate not only raises awareness of their brand but sets themselves up as a thought leader in their space.
3. Research Keywords Pet Owners Use
One major benefit of paid ads is the reliability of keywords. With organic search, you’re essentially making a well-researched guess about which keywords will perform.
With paid ads on Google, Facebook, and other platforms, you bid on keywords that already perform. High-performing keywords cost more, but they may not even be the keywords you want.
Instead of getting lost in a sea of ads vying for the most popular keywords, try going after less expensive keywords with lower, but steady performance.
For example, “pet beds” is a generic, popular keyword a lot of companies are bid on. However, if you sell, say, “machine washable cat beds,” consider going after those keywords instead.
Whatever you do, make sure your keywords match your target audience as well as your product or service.
Pro Tip: If you want to direct traffic to your products, insert the word “buy” in front of a keyword. For example, for “pet beds,” try “buy pet beds.”
APPA President and CEO Bob Vetere says, “We know this generation is willing to pay more for quality products and services to improve the health and well-being of their pets. Today more than ever, pet owners view their pets as irreplaceable members of their families and lives, and it’s thanks to this that we continue to see such incredible growth within the pet care community.”
According to a study by online retailer Zulily, 77 percent of millennials prefer to buy certain pet products—toys, accessories, and food—online. However, there are no pet products strictly bought in-store these days, so it’s important to know where you can reach this audience.
Luckily—or unluckily, depending on how you look at it—”Millennials utilize a diverse range of platforms since many platforms were released while they were growing up. Facebook is the platform that they utilize most frequently, often multiple times a day, followed by YouTube and Instagram,” according to GenGuru.
However, since they grew up as social media started taking steam, they’re also on pretty much every other social media site. Trying out all sorts of new media is normal for them.
This all means you should not just look at the age group but also try to discover where products like yours fit the best. Then, put your money where it’s more likely to reach your target audience.
5. Use Images or Videos in Pet Ads
Purina wanted to learn if in-stream ads on Facebook could lift brand awareness with mobile users for a new product in their Fancy Feast line of cat food, Fancy Feast Savory Centers.
In the first phase, they tested a variety of videos for other pet brands they owned, playing with length and messaging. They learned short, clear ads lifted brand recall, video views, purchase intent, and offline sales.
With that knowledge, they repurposed an existing TV ad for Fancy Feast Savory Centers to a web video. In the process, they shortened it to fewer than 15 seconds and ensured it had a clear message with or without sound. They tested it against the TV ad to see which better raised brand awareness.
They ran the test for six weeks through Facebook In-Stream Reserve, a line of premium ad spots, and found an 11 point lift in brand recall, 12 point lift in brand awareness, 91 percent video completion, and 1.5 percent incremental lift in sales.
You don’t necessarily have to target the most expensive video packages online as Purina did, but video and images can have a big impact on your paid advertising online.
Consider another example.
Below, there are paid ads for pet beds on the left and right sides of the Google search results. On the left are text-only ads, and on the right are Google Shopping Ads that feature images.
Google found 50 percent of online shoppers are more likely to purchase if there’s an image of the product.
6. Provide a Service
To convert and keep new customers, you have to build relationships with them. Offer something that makes their lives, and the lives of their pets, easier.
If you’re already a service-based brand, that’s pretty easy to do. If you’re product-focused, you can still provide a service.
Let’s take another look at PetPlate.
Their paid ads for their product actually spin it as a service. They provide fresh-cooked food for dogs so owners don’t have to.
This ad showed how PetPlate could solve a problem for its audience.
7. Target Pet Owners in a Specific a Geographic Area
Brick-and-mortar stores and services might consider targeting a particular geographic area, something that’s very possible with Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms that allow for hyper-targeted advertising.
Of course, veterinarians, groomers, and other service-based businesses can benefit from geo-targeting on social. However, boutiques and small businesses that sell pet food and other supplies shouldn’t overlook the power of location-based social media ads.
According to Zulily’s study, millennial pet owners prefer to shop for some products in person at smaller, locally owned pet shops. Those products include treats, bedding, and clothing items.
If you want to get super local, check out a social platform made for your area. A commonly-used app, Nextdoor, lets advertisers both pay for ad space and engage with users in their immediate areas.
Nextdoor may be a good choice because they report 45 percent of users have at least one dog and 25 percent have at least one cat. They also note that pets are a regular topic of conversations on their platforms. Why not become part of the conversation with paid ads?
9. Use an Influencer or Celebrity to Target Pet Owners
There are plenty of human celebrities and influencers across social media who include their pets in their content.
Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Nick Jonas, for example, regularly feature their dogs Diana, Gino, and Panda on their Instagram accounts.
The second type of pet influencer is the furry, scaly, and feathery type. Pet influencers, particularly cats and dogs, have a huge presence on virtually all social media platforms.
In fact, pet influencer content has a higher engagement rate than overall global engagement. While cats rule the internet overall, dogs are actually more popular on Instagram.
There are all kinds of pet celebrities out there, from cats and dogs to pigs and hedgehogs.
For instance, Waffles the cat is a celebrity on Facebook with 2.4 million followers.
Meanwhile, on Instagram, Tuna the dog commands a following of 2.1 million.
Take a look at your audience and their social media habits. Who are they following? Do they have two legs or four? Then, choose the influencer that best fits your brand and your goals.
Conclusion
Paid ads on search and social media are an effective way to market to pet owners. It gives brands the opportunity to reach very specific audiences for their products and services, and then measure the success of each campaign.
Pet owners spend a lot of money online, and knowing where and how to reach them could help you increase conversion rates to your own pet supply site.
Business Grants for Minority Women and So Much More
Are you a minority woman in business? Or are you starting a business? Money is always going to be an issue. What if you could get what is essentially free money? That’s what grants are – for the most part. So it would behoove you to look into business grants for minority women.
Business Grants for Minority Women and More Funding for Minority Businesswomen
How do you find the best options for you? How do you know if you need to be looking for grants or business loans for minority women? We recommend that you explore every option. This is because it will probably take a combination of funding options to fully fund your business.
There are business loans for minority women. But they’re often not for them exclusively. But there are other funding choices out there. Loans, crowdfunding, and even angel investors are all viable options. More on those later.
Business Grants for Minority Women
The government and private organizations want to GIVE you money! They’re highly competitive and rarely enough to fund a business on their own. Still, grants are a great way to supplement other business funding. And they are still worth the effort to apply. There really isn’t anything to lose except time – it’s free money. Here are a few you can start with.
Amber Grant
The Amber Grant awards one prize of $10,000 per month to a woman-owned business. One of the recipients also receives an additional $25,000 grant at the end of the year. Applicants only need to tell their story and turn it in with a $15 application fee. See ambergrantsforwomen.com/get-an-amber-grant/apply-now.
Cartier Women’s Initiative Award
This award is for women but there’s no specification that a woman be a member of a minority group. The Cartier Women’s Initiative Award has a regional category award and a science and technology award. The regional award is $100,000 for first place, and $30,000 for second and third place.
The award goes to three women from each of seven international regions. This award is a grant to 21 female business owners from around the world each year. Women business owners who are just getting started may qualify. Look over the complete application for more information. See cartierwomensinitiative.com/about-us.
The Cartier Science and Technology Pioneer Award
The Cartier Science and Technology Pioneer award is new as of 2021. With this award, three more women impact entrepreneurs at the forefront of scientific and technological innovation will get recognition. Open to women entrepreneurs from any country and sector. This award will highlight disruptive solutions built around unique, protected, or hard-to-reproduce technological or scientific advances. The laureate will get a $100,000 grant. Each of the two remaining finalists will get a $30,000 grant.
Cartier Fellowships
Cartier also offers a fellowship program. The fellowship is an educational program geared towards the 24 fellows selected each year. The fellowship program aims to equip the fellows with necessary skills to grow their business. And it helps them to build their leadership capacity. It does so by drawing upon the experience and expertise of many academics, practitioners, industry experts, and entrepreneurs.
The fellowship isn’t exactly a grant. But while it’s not a monetary award, the mentoring and networking opportunities could be worthwhile to apply for. See cartierwomensinitiative.com/fellowship-programme.
National Black MBA Association Scale-Up Pitch Challenge
Also known as NBMBAA, the Scale-Up Pitch Challenge has cash prizes from $1,000 to $50,000. The association’s purpose is to help newer businesses with African American ownership. This is a pitch competition for startup businesses. See nbmbaa.org/scale-up-pitch-challenge.
The Minority Business Development Agency
The US Department of Commerce runs the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA). It works to help minority-owned businesses get the resources they need to grow and succeed. The MBDA is not just for women. Grant competitions are regularly changing.
Visit the MBDA’s website for info on all current opportunities. Currently, the MBDA helps its members apply for grants via Grants.gov. This involves help with how to apply for government grants. See mbda.gov/grants.
The MBDA oversees the Enterprising Women of Color (EWOC) Initiative. The initiative focuses on the fast-expanding minority women entrepreneur population as a revenue generators for families, communities, and the nation. Minority women are the fastest growing population of entrepreneurs. While many women are making tremendous strides in the business world, they still face obstacles as entrepreneurs
MBDA is an advocate for women’s economic empowerment. They support efforts to advance women’s equality and promote women economic advancement programming. The vision of EWOC is to ensure women worldwide reach their economic potential. See mbda.gov.
Business Grants for Minority Women – Native Americans
First Nations Development Institute Grants
The mission of this group is to offer grants that help Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Native Americans. These grants are for any gender. So you would be competing against Native Hawaiian, Alaskan, and Native American men. They help in the application process in addition to funds.
First Nations also helps point individuals to appropriate grants offered by other organizations, including the US government. This includes help with writing grant proposals. See firstnations.org/grantmaking.
The Native American Business Development Institute (NABDI) Grant
The NABDI Grant is funded by the US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs. It is not just for women. It provides funding to business owners of Native American or Alaskan Native descent. In 2019, the program provided more than $727,000 to 21 indigenous tribes. So this was to support economic feasibility studies for specific economic development projects or business startups.
For 2020, NABDI planned to award 20-25 grants. There is no minimum or maximum amount of funding you can request. But most awards range $25,000 to $75,000. They only fund projects for one year at a time, which is when they expect projects to be completed. To apply for a NABDI grant for your proposed economic development feasibility study, go to bia.gov/service/grants/tedc/apply-nabdi-grant.
Indian Affairs
There is more available via the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Businesses owned by Native Americans can get financing from the federal government through the Indian Affairs branch. These are not just for women. An individual can fill out an application for up to $500,000. But business entities and tribal enterprises may apply for more.
Potential borrowers can apply with any lending institution, they just have to use the application for Indian Affairs. Additional requirements are in place if the funds are used for construction, renovation, or refinancing. In general, you must supply a list of collateral, a credit report, and an analysis of business operations. See bia.gov/as-ia/ieed/loan-guaranty-insurance-and-interest-subsidy-program
Business Grants for Minority Women – Asian Woman
The South Asian Arts Resiliency Fund
If your business is in the arts, and you’re of South Asian descent, then check out this fund. The fund is operated by the India Center Foundation. It is designed to support US-based South Asian arts workers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic
The fund will disburse grants up to $2,000, depending on financial need to US-based arts workers of South Asian descent. This includes those in the performing arts, film, visual arts, and literature. It’s for people with heritage from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Initial funding for the program is $20,000. But the India Center Foundation is soliciting donations to expand the grant program.
Applicants must be of South Asian descent, work in the arts and demonstrate loss of income due to COVID-19. Additionally, applicants must be at least 21 years old. You can’t be enrolled in a degree program. Plus they must be able to receive taxable income in the US. Grant funding can go toward any artistic project you can develop, create, and present within 4-6 weeks of getting funding. See theindiacenter.us/artsfund.
Business Grants for Minority Women – Grants for All
Grants.gov
The federal government gives out grants to all genders and all races. Grants.gov is a running list of over 1,000 available government grants. So this includes minority business grants. The website compiles grants from more than two dozen government agencies. These are agencies like the SBA, USDA, and the US Department of Commerce. To find grants right for your business, use the Search Grants tool on the site. Sort the list of grants by keyword or opportunity number.
Once you have located the grant you wish to apply for, click the hyperlinked opportunity number for more detail. There, you will find more information about the specific grant as well as any associated documentation you might need. To apply for a grant through Grants.gov, you must first register. Then, you will be able to download an application package for the grant you want. Be ready for a lengthy process. See grants.gov.
More Types of Funding
Crowdfunding
If you’d rather not rely on grants so much to start and run your business, crowdfunding is a viable option. Still, not everyone with a campaign on a crowdfunding site is successful. This is because more unique products and services tend to do better. Kickstarter and Indiegogo are two of the most popular crowdfunding platforms to use. Some platforms may have higher success rates for women than others.
Angel Investors
Angel investors are informal investors. So essentially, you are selling a part of your business to them. They tend to not want a huge percentage of your business. And they won’t pass by more conventional businesses, like with crowdfunding and venture capital. Hence they can be another supplement or replacement for grants.
Business Center for New Americans
If grants aren’t an option, loans might work. So if you’re an immigrant, try the Business Center for New Americans. They offer a pilot program for microloans up to $75,000. They work with immigrants, refugees, women, and other minority entrepreneurs. The goal is to help minority business owners who have not been able to get traditional financing. Terms are 3% interest. Loan repayment term goes up to a year. See accompanycapital.org.
Business Grants for Minority Women: Takeaways
So there are several options for grants for minorities and for women. Minority women should apply for grants they feel they are most likely to get. Other options for funding include crowdfunding, angel investors, and loans. Credit Suite can help you get the funding you need.
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