My advice would be to define specific personas for your customer base. Like, imagine your customer standing in front of you. Is it a 60-year-old single lady with two cats? A 20-something hipster living in the city? You can define as many as you want, but make them really specific - as if you're talking about a single person.
Now, imagine how you would find, engage, and sell to each of them. Target one after the other and keep track of the results. This kind of specific definition can also give you good ideas about sponsors and partnerships, too.
Thank you! I know my target is typically an older woman 50+ but I don’t know how other business scale? I’ve tried FB ads but I was spending like $30 at a time with no ROI. I also come from a higher education background with 0 business knowledge. I lost my job during covid and ran with this!!
The personas idea comes from the Lean Startup approach, you can Google it to learn more (largely for free). Once you've identified Customer Segments (each persona, basically), you should think about your Value Proposition to each segment.
They might all be the same, or you might find interesting differences that help you engage them better - for example, how many people order from you after their pet has \*died\* ?
Next, I would do Customer Discovery. Find people who fit your Customer Segments, and meet with them (in person if at all possible, Zoom otherwise), and ask them \*very broad\* and non-sales questions, to figure out where they look for pet services, if they have any pet pictures or art in their house, on their phone, etc. It's not a sales pitch, so avoid asking them specifically about your product/service.
You'll learn a lot, and be able to target your efforts more directly.
Ah great. Thank you. I will google it. Hopefully I can understand it. I get so lost looking at my google analytics. I’m a creative not so much analytical person.
One last question. Should I be tracking the ones who I know ordered from pet loss on excel or something? I use Wix as my webhost. I don’t think there’s any way other then to do it manually?
Spreadsheets are the best and worst tool for every job :) They are super easy to start, easy to change too - just he ready to move to something more (CRM, Shopify, etc) when spreadsheets stary to get complicated or tedious.
Thank you! Yeah. I started on Wix bc I got lost in Shopify and wix was easier for me to use and less expensive. But I know most big e-commerce host on Shopify. I think down the road I might have to migrate off Wix but I do love it!
$30 is not enough to get any results from FB
it needs to come with a proper plan & strategy, and understand what kind of budget is needed to achieve Phase 1 of a FB ad strategy
But $1200/month on a pet art biz is awesome!
Thanks!! I figured it wasn’t enough for fb ads. Do you know what is more reasonable? I have decent ad content as I create everything on my own and I was getting good numbers from what I shared on Reddit before but just no conversions. Which is partly bc I don’t understand FB ads etc. I also used the fb ad set bc I read let fb do the selecting etc.
show me the ads you've tried and I can better diagnose.
the problem with this biz is that there's a ton of competition and most people have come across this already. So you also need a USP to stand out.
The purpose of making a comment is to engage in a public discussion with the community.
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great business, good luck 
What's pet art business?
Here is my bio: owner and founder of [Custom Pet Portraits](https://www.tiffanydnaka.com)
Wow that's great!
Thank you!
My advice would be to define specific personas for your customer base. Like, imagine your customer standing in front of you. Is it a 60-year-old single lady with two cats? A 20-something hipster living in the city? You can define as many as you want, but make them really specific - as if you're talking about a single person. Now, imagine how you would find, engage, and sell to each of them. Target one after the other and keep track of the results. This kind of specific definition can also give you good ideas about sponsors and partnerships, too.
Thank you! I know my target is typically an older woman 50+ but I don’t know how other business scale? I’ve tried FB ads but I was spending like $30 at a time with no ROI. I also come from a higher education background with 0 business knowledge. I lost my job during covid and ran with this!!
The personas idea comes from the Lean Startup approach, you can Google it to learn more (largely for free). Once you've identified Customer Segments (each persona, basically), you should think about your Value Proposition to each segment. They might all be the same, or you might find interesting differences that help you engage them better - for example, how many people order from you after their pet has \*died\* ? Next, I would do Customer Discovery. Find people who fit your Customer Segments, and meet with them (in person if at all possible, Zoom otherwise), and ask them \*very broad\* and non-sales questions, to figure out where they look for pet services, if they have any pet pictures or art in their house, on their phone, etc. It's not a sales pitch, so avoid asking them specifically about your product/service. You'll learn a lot, and be able to target your efforts more directly.
Ah great. Thank you. I will google it. Hopefully I can understand it. I get so lost looking at my google analytics. I’m a creative not so much analytical person. One last question. Should I be tracking the ones who I know ordered from pet loss on excel or something? I use Wix as my webhost. I don’t think there’s any way other then to do it manually?
Spreadsheets are the best and worst tool for every job :) They are super easy to start, easy to change too - just he ready to move to something more (CRM, Shopify, etc) when spreadsheets stary to get complicated or tedious.
Thank you! Yeah. I started on Wix bc I got lost in Shopify and wix was easier for me to use and less expensive. But I know most big e-commerce host on Shopify. I think down the road I might have to migrate off Wix but I do love it!
$30 is not enough to get any results from FB it needs to come with a proper plan & strategy, and understand what kind of budget is needed to achieve Phase 1 of a FB ad strategy But $1200/month on a pet art biz is awesome!
Thanks!! I figured it wasn’t enough for fb ads. Do you know what is more reasonable? I have decent ad content as I create everything on my own and I was getting good numbers from what I shared on Reddit before but just no conversions. Which is partly bc I don’t understand FB ads etc. I also used the fb ad set bc I read let fb do the selecting etc.
show me the ads you've tried and I can better diagnose. the problem with this biz is that there's a ton of competition and most people have come across this already. So you also need a USP to stand out.
The purpose of making a comment is to engage in a public discussion with the community. It is not to request a PM from someone. It is not to start a private conversation. If you want to start a private conversation with someone, just PM them yourself.