I recently wrote up an email pitch, about a service I'm willing to provide for all the big breeders and dealers in the trade. (mostly rodent/cage/supply guys) I only sent 1 email to 1 company, but right after I hit submit, I wondered if it was a mistake.
If you've been hanging out in the reptile community for any amount of time. Whether its in the forums or in the flesh at a show, you know that reptile folks are some of the nicest people out there.
My concern...
Can certain marketing strategies ruin the communities vibe by becoming more cut throat, or would it help, in a cold market, for people to start utilizing more Internet marketing strategies? The more marketing, the more lucrative businesses will be, right?
The exotic pet trade, well actually, I'm not familiar with certain categories of the exotic pet trade, I'm going to talk more about the breeders and dealers that do most of their business on the Internet.
Firstly live animals are unlike any other products because there is no guarantee you'll have them to sell. You surely don't want to spend money on a website or advertising before you
have something to sell. This makes the marketing time frame a lot smaller.
The Great Debate - is taking more of an "Internet Marketing" approach in the rare exotic pet
business a good idea. Is affiliate marketing a strategy that has no place in the community?
The positives, it may result in more sales actually it should.Utilizing certain strategies would give you a lot more time to market your animals in a way, that even if you didn't have them it wouldn't matter. If it happen to get real popular your snake websites are going to get a lot more traffic, which would result in them being worth more money, the market place would be more lucrative, and a lot of folks could be making more money.
There in lies the major issue, money is a crazy thing...
Would this make the trade more 'cut throat'?
Would it bring the thieves & scammers outta the wood work?
The "Big Time Breeders" are making a decent living, still, even though the market has cooled off substantially, does exposing that fact to the general public, attract all the webscum from here to kingdom come?
Whether you know it or not, there are already multiple marketing strategies being carried out all over EVERY market, even snakes and lizards. Mr. B-n-Aach seems like an awesome guy, I'm willing to bet he's the same way in the real world as he is on camera, seriously a quality human. I'm also being sincere when I say I'm sure he really does get joy outta showing people an operation like his, which is an operation most folks might never get a chance to see. However, the driving force to make those video's is marketing his business.
Here's the difference he's marketing his own business, but embracing Internet marketing methods to the fullest, would mean other people promoting other peoples businesses and that's were it could start to get messy. The Facebook, Twitter, blogs, the birthing records, the adverts, some forum posts, websites, articles obviously all marketing, but again in exotic pets their all self promotional methods.
Marketing is already going on in every Businesses to some extent, and the Snake business is no different, but sometimes marketing strategies go on behind the scenes and you may not catch it.
Example, (not using real names, to lazy to look up if I'm allowed or not -lol)) big Mitch with the BoasX, he produced those awesome lil'creatures in 2004. I personally would have busted with excitement, I would have foolishly been on every forum spilling the beans. Why Follishly? Big Mitch, some how, was able to keep the entire project completely under wraps until 2007 his third year in a row of producing them.
What did this strategy accomplish?
1. Big Mitch didn't have to guess, assume, or wonder anything when it came time to sell them. Buyers wanna know what their buying, last thing you want to hear as a buyer is "Gimme 5K, their either co-dom or recessive".
2. Through 3 years of breeding trials he knew exactly how the trait was inherited, & they were 100% proven. Now he can decide on the price, and the market can't question it. The people don't have to pay it, but by shocking the masses (brilliant) and announcing a NEW BOA MORPH when you already have a bunch to sell, was genius. This also gave him 3 years to market them in code, while planning a perfect way to finally break the news. The timing was, the icing on the cake of a perfectly executed marketing strategy.
Like any and everything else, there's more than one side to this issue, and the negatives may out weigh the positives which is why I'd like to get everyone's take on the subject.
I love the reptile community with all my heart, its exclusive to some of the most awesome people. Of course you get your occasional sleeze ball, but that's a give-in, in ANY community. For the most part the people are awesome and love to help out their fellow enthusiasts.
Is it the NOT, using certain Internet marketing strategies that keeps the community so friendly?
I'd certainly hate myself for being the guy that sets of a chain reaction that ends up potentially the market place. I love the community, both in the vibe, and the way people carry themselves, just the way it is.
On a more selfish note, I surely wouldn't want e-mail's I send out to be posted on a forum saying watch out for (me) this guy! Because when my financial situation starts looking up again, I WILL be breeding Boa's again. I'd much rather just not make the money, if the money making method doesn't fit into our community.
If I get enough votes, and the votes favor negative, I'm going to drop it all together and never mention it again, I will not offer my services to a single other repti-biz.
For you guys new to trying to sell your snakes or reptile services, enter your email and follow this for monthly tips on better ways to sell, and increase traffic to your blog or website. White hat, ethical marketing strategies no one can get mad at you for.
The reptile market is a good one, stuff sells, people spend money, and it's just small enough to where competition doesn't have to be a major issue. If your producing enough 'in demand' babies, maybe you can quite your job sooner than social security kicks in.
Please post your comments below, I'm real curious to know what my fellow herpers think about the subject...
Vinny Bock
Another Site with great info, and a lot of "Do It Yourself" guides:
SSScales.com
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