Hey ! Welcome to the first edition of Pet Friendly Growth (PFG) Club, a newsletter focused on helping entrepreneurs in the pet space grow more organically and create better content through firsthand + crowdsourced inspo, tips, hacks, and tools. 

I’m Elsa, co-founder of pet e-commerce brand - GNight Fetcher, owner of marketing agency - Pet Friendly Birdie, and content creator for my adorable Pomeranian - Birdie’s account. 

We’ve worked with over 50 pet brands, and have so much to share from the consumer, brand, and content creator perspectives. 

Your Product Image looks great. But does AI agree?  

Increasingly, the key to e-commerce success is selling to the algorithm first, then the customer. 

As e-commerce platforms and search engines implement AIs to understand and rank listings – such as Amazon’s use of AmazonComprehend – it’s imperative for product images to “win” the AI over first in order to show up top in front of the right consumers.

Here’s what I do to optimize images for AI comprehension (I use Midjourney, but there are other tools):

• Step 1: Upload an image into an AI image generator, request for possible prompts behind the image to get inspo for new product images.

• Step 2: Adapt or create a very detailed prompt to get the ideal lifestyle images, and insert product via photoshop after.

• Step 3: This step is key and often overlooked – upload your image back into an NLP tool to understand how an AI algorithm might comprehend this image. 

The goal is to make sure the image is not only visually appealing to the human eye, but conveys positive benefits experienced by smiling / satisfied customers.

This way, we incentivize any AI algorithm to recommend this product to target consumers.

Case in point: 

My pet memorial brand – GNight Fetcher’s lifestyle image

Before (image shot with iphone)

After (AI generated image + photoshop)

Prompt: Two women sitting in a simple, modern but cozy living room area having a conversation over a cup of tea. sitting on the wooden coffee table is an elegant, perfectly round, pure white urn made of matte ceramic, and topped with a flat gold lid. the urn is about 5 inches tall and wide. the focus is on the urn. the women look somber but comforted by the presence of the urn. the overall color scheme is light and natural. interior style is japandi.

Granted, both BEFORE and AFTER images are visually appealing to the human eye. 

However, there are subtle and game-changing differences that may signal more favorably to both algorithm and consumer:

1. BEFORE shows no other lifestyle objects - such as cups or home decor - which may seem staged. I mean, who really places just an urn for ashes on their living room coffee table? 😅

2. BEFORE models are smiling but body language is slightly uncomfortable. AFTER models are leaning toward each other and have more relaxed body language.

3. BEFORE models look younger but our target audience range between 30-60.

By curating a detailed, goal-oriented, and instructive text prompt, you ensure your lifestyle product images are able to showcase your target users visibly enjoying the benefits of your product (in the above example, I promoted AI to make users look “solemn but comforted”).

Social Media Hack - Engagement pods

If your brand’s on IG, join an engagement pod to trade follows, likes, comments, and shares.

What is an IG engagement pod? It’s an IG account managed by a small group of admins where members need to engage with other members’ content in order to receive. 

Pods tend to be theme based, so all members of the same pod tend to have something in common e.g. moms, or pet owners.

As an example, if you join a “likes” focused engagement pod, you would need to like 1 day worth of posts by that pod’s members in order to be on the receiving end.

There are other goal-focused pods that focus on other engagement metrics, such as following each other, and commenting or sharing each other’s posts.

Yes, it’s a lot of work. If you’re looking to add free social proof from verified accounts that share your interest, this is one option.

This week’s Pet Content Inspo 

Pet parents are fed no shortage of me-too ads involving a brand or a actor talking at the camera about how great something is and why they need to buy it.

Move away from “what is my brand & product” and “unboxing” videos, to sharing your target audience’s visibly enjoying the benefits of your product through a unique, firsthand POV. 

To make your content actionable, pick a theme – is this video funny, emotional, fictional, weird, shocking, inspiring, or educational?

Case in point: 

My agency was hired to make this UGC video for a brand offering goat milk powder for pets.

After reviewing the brand’s social media, I knew we needed to make content that is truly different to draw more eyeballs to the new profile. 

We told a fictional story about this cool new farm-to-table restaurant offering gourmet cuisine with a “gut-health twist”, by integrating fresh goat milk foraged by tiny French Pomeranians (played by our very own Birdie) as a core ingredient.

I uploaded a copy to my private YouTube space so you can view it:

While this is far from reality, it is funny, different from existing social media content in the niche, and a fresh (pun intended) take on how the product’s benefit is experienced by a consumer. 

Do you have a tip to share with fellow pet brands?

Enter your top hack, tip, or tool here now: Winner gets free advertising on the next newsletter we send to pet parents in the US - our consumer facing newsletter is called "Pet Friendly Deals Club".

What topics would you like to see more of? 

Take 5 seconds to let me know here, so I can bring you better, more useful content to fuel your pet brand’s growth.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts! 

Elsa