Internet marketing doesn’t have to be boring.  There are plenty of creative ways you can market yourself online.  And you know what?  The more creative ways are more likely to attract potential customers, anyway.

For instance, you can use your pets to promote yourself and take advantage of people’s animal-loving tendencies to spark their interest.  I remember a story a successful copywriter — I think it was Bob Bly – told in a book once.  It had something to do with a pet graveyard, I think — his son’s pet had died, or something like that.  In any case, he turned it into a promotional opportunity by giving away free booklets, which generated awareness of his writing services and brought him more business.

The Internet provides plenty of opportunities such as this one.  For instance, I once wrote and distributed a press release having to do with the horse I rescued: As a result, I’d decided to donate a percentage of my income during a specific time frame to a local horse rescue.  A colleague of mine also had success with a similar marketing campaign, though she was donating to any charity of her choice, rather than limiting herself to an animal-related charity.

Here are a few other ideas for how pets can play into your promotional campaigns:

• Make your pet the company mascot.  Name a product or even the business after him.  Even better yet, make a customer’s pet the company mascot, and hold a contest to decide whose it should be.
• Post pet videos on YouTube.  Cute videos that customers will forward to friends and family — and that include your company name in the credits — spread the word about your services.  Same goes for cute pictures.  You know those email forwards with pictures of dogs and cats sleeping, playing with dog and cat toys, dressed up in Halloween costumes, etc?  Just think how much mileage a company’s name would get Photoshopped onto one of those pictures!
• Distribute cheap dog and cat toys with your name on them.  Why give people pens — something they have lots of, lose, and never use anyway because of computers?  Instead, how about giving people little ball cat toys with your company name on them?  Okay, it’s not Internet-based, but it’s fun — and you can order bulk cat toys for pretty cheap!

What other ideas can you think of that allow you to creatively market your company online and target people’s interests?

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