Never pet a dog when it’s sleeping (a marketing lesson)

My wife and I are dog lovers. We currently own two dogs and foster others. And we donate both time and money to our local shelter.

So I’ve been surprised at how bad much of the experts’ advice is on how to properly care for your dogs.

Oh, and don’t worry, this is definitely going to include a marketing lesson.

Anyway, the bad advice can basically be divided into two camps.

Camp #1 is the “too restrictive” camp.

Camp #2 is the “too touchy feely” camp.

Let’s take a look at both and see how this can help you market more effectively.

Bad Advice Camp #1: Too restrictive

Here’s an example of overly restrictive advice I see many experts touting. They’ll tell you to “always make your dog heel and walk at the rear of your left foot”.

OK, so I have just one question…

Why?

Supposedly, making your dog heel and stay tightly close to you establishes you as the “pack leader” and teaches your dog discipline.

But my problem with that is that a dog’s keenest sense is it’s sense of smell. So for a dog, the greatest joy in taking a walk is being able to smell every leave, blade of grass and dead
insect they come across. And I’m not about to make my dogs’ walks a joyless lesson in
useless discipline.

So I let them stop and smell just about anything they want to. And you know what? They’re still happy, come when called and well behaved.

So much for the “experts” advice!

Bad Advice Camp #2: Too touchy feely

On the other end of the spectrum are the experts who are illogically lenient. Their working
philosophy is that you need to respect and treat your dog exactly the way you would a person.

For example, you wouldn’t want your sleep interrupted by someone petting you, so respect
your dog’s right to privacy and never pet it while it’s sleeping.

No kidding – I’ve seen and heard this advice from a number of “animals are human” experts.

But here’s the problem with that foolish load of bull. One of our dogs lives to be petted. And
she actually gets so relaxed from petting, that it frequently causes her to fall asleep. Plus, if
you pet her while she’s sleeping, she rolls over on her back to give you better access.

Our other dog doesn’t give a hoot about being petted any time. He can take it or leave it. So
we don’t pet him as frequently.

Now, here comes that marketing lesson…

So what does all of this have to do with marketing?

Quite simply, there’s a lot of bad and often contradictory advice from the experts.

One expert says Google Adwords is dead, the other says it’s the only way to build your list.

One expert cautions against sending email to your list too frequently, another tells you to
send it out daily.

And on and on.

So who do you believe?

No one – and every one.

What I mean by this is that each expert is working from their own experiences and
their own biases (except for me, of course :-).

And some are even trying to use their advice to steer you toward purchasing their products or services. (Me? Never!)

But even assuming that they all genuinely believe their own advice, my recommendation
is to take anything new with a grain of salt and test it in a very limited way at first.

The fact is, some strategies and tactics work better for some businesses than
others. And some forms of media work better for some businesses than others.

And the only way to know for certain is to conservatively test new ideas for your
own business.

You’ll soon discover that “petting” one sleeping dog of a marketing tactic works wonders. And “petting” another dog of a marketing tactic falls flat for your business.

But at least you’ll know for certain what really works and what doesn’t.

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