Why User-Generated Content Crushes Polished Ads

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0:21Brett Stapper:Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Future of Consumer Marketing. Today, we're speaking with Hannah Keyser, Vice President of Marketing at Centown. Hannah, how are you? Good. How are you doing? Thanks for having me. Of course, really excited for this conversation. How would you like to begin these conversations is with a big question. Why and how did you end up in this world of marketing? Wow, that is a good question. You know, growing up, I didn't know that much about marketing. I always knew I wanted to be in communications. For a long time, I wanted to be in broadcast journalism, sports anchor, news anchor.

0:51You know, it was cool. It was awesome. And then I started college and realized that's pretty hard to do. Pretty hard to get there. and I took some marketing classes, some advertising classes and just fell in love. I also had a double major in psychology. So really understanding the psychology behind marketing, behind how people think, how they operate, got me into being like, this is cool. I love being able to see the results, the impact, what you can do. And you really have that direct impact with marketing.

1:20Brett Stapper:Was that hard studying psychology? Like, did you find yourself like analyzing every person that you interacted with? Yes and no. Well, I mean, you get a baseline level of understanding in classes. It was more of like just really understanding like how much different psychology goes into it and every different behavior and segment, less on studying and analyzing people, but more of like how it can impact you and like the psychology behind my brain. So like why I think about things was really what made a difference. And I didn't get into actually practicing. So I think you get a little bit deeper analysis once you practice that.

1:56Brett Stapper:Yeah, that's fair. I've always wondered that for people who practice. It must be a tough existence. I feel like you would just sit there and like analyze every single situation to the point that you'd probably drive yourself insane. Obviously, people have some way to cope with that, but I've always wondered that. Yeah, I mean, it's good to know for marketing, you know, I mean, as you know, marketing is a lot about how people think and how you can connect with them and how you can connect with them on a deeper level and a different way and the messaging and what they're saying. So it's nice to have that ground and at least that understanding.

2:27But yeah, I'd prefer to put up some good marketing campaigns.

2:31Brett Stapper:Yeah. Now for Scent Hound, can you tell us a little bit more about the company? Yeah, of course. So Scent Hound is focused on routine hygiene and wellness care for dogs. So in Scent Hound is actually an acronym that stands for skin, coat, ears, nails, teeth, but just all the basic care that every dog needs. So come in, we're actually a membership-based model. So you sign your dog up for a membership and your dog gets the basic care it needs on a regular basis. Our founders really started this with their aha moment of realizing that not all dogs need like traditional grooming. You know, grooming tends to be focused on looks and aesthetics.

3:10So those dogs like a Labrador or French Bulldog that are short-air dogs that don't need traditional grooming still need routine hygiene in order to stay healthy and happy and really give them a longer life. So we give all dogs the care that they need. Of course, you can add on haircuts and blow dries and specialty treatments, but everything that we focus on is for routine hygiene and wellness care for dogs and really preventive care.

3:37Brett Stapper:And let's give a shout out to your dog. Tell us about your dog. My dog is an 11-year-old golden retriever. He's actually the perfect Sunhound dog. I'm not just saying that. He is perfect because he needs regular hygiene care. He needs his teeth brushed. He needs a bath. He needs his ears cleaned on a regular basis, but he needs a haircut maybe every third month, let's say. So I bring him in every month for his normal bath and keep him clean and healthy. And then every three months I add on a haircut for him. So it's the perfect mixture of making sure he's getting that care he needs, but also So now giving him the haircut, which is also really good for him as a dog.

4:15And I hear you have a dog.

4:18Brett Stapper:I'm jealous. We have to go every three months to get a haircut. We have to go every month for a haircut. Otherwise, we have to shave her, which is brutal. Yeah, you have the doodle. And yeah, there's nothing worse than having like a shaved doodle. You see like behind the scenes, like what's underneath the dog. And there's that much there. Yeah. So somehow it is really it's same for all dogs. All dogs need routine hygiene. As I said, you get a bath, you're cleaning, nail clipping, teeth brushing on every visit. And you also get a mini report card. It's called our scent check. So at the end of every visit, you can see how your dog is doing for skin coat, ears, nails, teeth, and glands.

4:55So you're getting a report card saying really like this is the areas you should focus on and helping to prevent any issues that could potentially occur.

5:02Brett Stapper:Did you ever get the report cards from your dog when you like put it in? It wasn't a kennel. I can't remember what the name of the company was that I used in San Diego at one point, but they would give me these little report cards when she was a puppy. We'd leave her there for the weekend and they'd come back. Oh, like behavior. Yeah. We didn't do that. But I mean, yeah, this, I guess you can call it similar, except for just looking at making sure that all of those core areas are being taken care of. And if we notice anything so special, like we might see an ear infection coming, we'll call it out and flag it and make sure you get addressed with a vet, which is just really helping.

5:35our mission is to help dogs live longer, happier lives. And so that's really what we're trying to do.

5:40Brett Stapper:Is there a viral component built into that at all? Like when I was taking our dog here, they would give us access to video clips and they would be branded. And they wanted us to, of course, share those on social, which we always did. And same with those report cards, they wanted us to share those on social. It was like packaged up in that way. Yeah, that is what it is. So through our app, well, at the end of every visit, you get an email of your sent check. You also get it through our mobile app. So we've built a proprietary mobile app that has quite a few features, one of them being the scent check.

6:07And right at the top of that says share and it directs you right onto your Instagram or to share with one of your friends. And every visit I send it to my husband and share and brag about the scent check that our dog Bear, his name's Bear, that he got. So, yeah, I mean, we run social contests quite a bit of show us your scent check or tell us why you love our brand. And people love it, right? You love bragging about your dogs and your kids, and especially when they're continuing to improve. It's fun.

6:35Brett Stapper:Yeah, 100%. That's awesome you're doing that. I feel like that's anything with pet owners. I feel like they're going to share it. If you give them anything, they're going to want to share it. So it's very, very smart. Yeah. The pet industry is a fun one to be in. I mean, as a pet parent, you're a pet parent. I'm a pet parent. Like, you just don't even realize how much unconditional love they give you. There's also so many health benefits of like having that dog. and, you know, we just want the best for them. And then they're really like your family. And so you're bragging about them. You just want to continue to make sure that they have the best life.

7:05Brett Stapper:Yeah, I got to the point that I was probably annoying everyone on my Instagram. Like all I was posting were dog pics at one point. Now it's baby pics, which you'll soon be doing. But it was all dog pics for a very long time. And like, in my mind, it's hilarious. She's doing this new thing, but no one cares. You know, it's like every year for his birthday, we make him like a steak dinner. It's like more. It's like better than the way we're eating. I'm like, whenever he wants, that's what he's going to get. Yeah, 100%. I think anyone who has a dog can relate to her, even just in general, they can relate, but especially dogs.

7:36Brett Stapper:I feel like people really love their dogs in the way that people I know with cats, like it's not the same. They really love their dogs. It is. It's true. And that's why it's been a great business to be in and great company, great brand. I mean, I love it. I really am very passionate about what we do. And, you know, you can't even explain how much of an impact we're making and continue to make on a regular basis. I don't want to insult you and say that you have an easy job, but I have to imagine it's a little bit easier because you're probably marketing to yourself in a lot of situations, right?

8:04Brett Stapper:Like you're marketing to another dog owner and you know how they think, you know what they care about, you know what they're going to share. So you have a high level of empathy with your target customer, I would assume. Yeah, you know, marketing is never easy, which I know you're not saying it is. And marketing is fun. And I love marketing for a brand that I really believe in. And I do think it's fun. I think it's fun every single day you learn something new. You know, the interesting thing is it's like millennials, Gen Z, like that's the highest population of pet owners and pet parents. So there's so much opportunity in like millennials.

8:35You know, there's stats around millennials waiting to have kids or not having kids because dogs are their family. And that's what's cool is it's like, cool, we can impact them. Like we know how much of an impact they're making. You know, there's also the audience of those dog parents who are used to traditional grooming who are, you know, maybe a little bit older. They've just been static, like I'm just getting my dog groomed every week or every month or every other month, whatever that looks like. And so there's also that balance of like you got to target to them differently and message them differently because their needs and wants and desires are different.

9:10Some really are focused on what the price is. A lot of millennial and Gen Z want convenience and technology and like, how can I make it as easiest and the connection? So it's fun. It's easy-ish, but it's also like every day is a new like, how are we making sure that the different audiences are speaking the same language? We're saying the right things to the right channels. And so that's kind of what makes it challenging and continues to get exciting every day.

9:36Brett Stapper:Yeah. I don't know. Like I said, never easy, but maybe a little bit easier than if you're trying to market like enterprise cybersecurity software. I like to imagine giving your dog your relationship with your dog. It makes it a little bit easier. You can definitely connect more with the brand that you're marketing for in my situation. Yeah, 100%. Now, what about your marketing philosophy? So let's just zoom out at a high level. How would you describe the marketing approach, the marketing philosophy? Yeah, you know, for me, it's a lot of testing. Like I strongly believe in test, test, test, test quick, learn quick, test again, learn again, continue testing and continue to iterate off of what you're doing.

10:13I think you can get really stuck in like, this has worked for me for so long. And, you know, you experience that, like, let's just keep it going. It's working. And I'm not suggesting you don't change something that's working, but you got to keep trying new channels. There's new audiences coming. There's new channel. There's new creative. There's new tactics. There's new platforms. There's new, I mean, you name it every day, there's something new, right? So however you can best test it. And for me, it's like, just identify clearly, what are you testing? What do you want out of it? What is the KPI or KPIs you really want to measure?

10:47How long can you test it to make it impactful and test, learn from it, admit when the test didn't work, try again, test again, and keep going and going and going. So I mean, it's like, I don't think you can be successful in marketing without constantly testing and constantly evaluating what you're doing and if it's working and if it's successful.

11:08Brett Stapper:Whenever I do testing for my ads, I'm always completely wrong. Like the ads that I think are going to be a complete hit are like just comically bad. The other day I was coming up with some like meme ads that I thought were just like so clever and so funny. And then we compared that to our product ads and it was just a disaster. It's so funny. And you just asked the question about like, I'm marketing to myself, which I partly am. So I'll look at an ad, I'll be like, oh, I love that ad. That's going to be awesome, right? Yeah. And then of course I have a team and we have a lot of ideas. We're like, all right, let's put this one alongside this one.

11:38And sometimes I'm wrong and in a good way. I'm like, we've tested this and just the different language, the different messaging. I mean, for us, it's like what dogs resonate best. And so you can just get into a testing wheel. And I think it's really important. I think that's what makes it better and it also makes it, you know, more impactful, of course.

11:58Brett Stapper:Well, I have to ask then what dogs perform best? It's not as easy as that. I mean, the golden retrievers and this is not biased. Like people just can relate to the golden retriever. It's kind of like America's dog. Yeah. But really, you'd be surprised like different dogs in different markets. And for us, part of our brand is that, you know, we're accessible, meaning we're open to all dogs. So we actually find that often like pictures of big dogs, like a Bernice Mountain Dog or like a big doodle perform well because people are like, oh, that's my dog. I can relate and I can bring my dog in, which sometimes you can't get that at other maybe traditional groomers.

12:36So it's market specific too. So of course, different dogs are popular in different markets based off where you live. And so we tailor some of our content and messaging based off the market.

12:47Brett Stapper:That makes sense. Now, how much of your role is focused on franchise support versus promoting the corporate brand and the corporate locations that you have? Yeah, both. I mean, my job and my team's job is really split into, of course, education. Like that's the first part at a high level. I mean, brand awareness and education is key for us. I mean, this is a whole new space we're really in. Like people know dogs. They don't really know the concept of like routine hygiene and wellness care for dogs. So, you know, we're creating this whole new space, this whole new category. So that requires a lot of education.

13:20You know, it's what are we doing? why does your dog need this? Why should you come in on a regular basis? So education is really important, which is really like high level brand. How do we educate? And then a lot of what we do is local marketing and franchise support. So we're really focused on building the connection with our audience and our communities. And you can't do that unless you're really on the ground and getting out in your community and explaining what you do. And we do that through our franchise partners in all of our locations. So our job is to make sure that they have the support, the training, the resources, tools, everything they need so that they are relaying the exact same messaging that we are doing at a brand level and they're getting out into their local communities.

14:07Brett Stapper:Do they typically have a marketing leader on their team or is that the operator that you're officially training on marketing and helping with the marketing? Yeah, most of them do not have a marketing leader. In the case that they would, it would be maybe if there was a multi-unit, like they owned a few different units and they started to bring that in. But most of the time, it's just your franchisee, their manager, and some of them have a marketing background. Some of them don't at all, don't know any of it. So you're really dealing with diverse portfolio of franchisees and locations. And that's where our job comes in is really reaching them where they're at and understanding how much they know, how much they need to learn and how we can train them.

14:47Brett Stapper:I see. So is that a big part of the value prop then is that you provide that marketing support? Yeah, when we're talking to franchisees and bringing new ones on, I mean, there's a lot of support. And that's kind of part of joining a franchise in general is like, you get that support. You're not creating your own business, you're not creating all the tools from scratch, you get it. So that is definitely part of the value proposition of bringing new franchisees. And I think customers, our franchisees are also partly our customers and they understand the mission we're on together. So we're all working together to educate the marketplace and make sure everybody knows what we're doing.

15:20Brett Stapper:From a content creation perspective, then what does that look like? Are you creating, for example, like a TikTok video and then they can take that TikTok video and push it out on their local TikTok page for that specific location? Or is there like a master page and everything goes through there? Yeah, very good questions. Most of our accounts are master pages that we just run from Scenthound. So TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. I mean, X. I'm still back in the Twitter phase. But same by the way. I don't know why, but I still draw Twitter. I can't change. I grew up with Twitter. I'm like, that's what it was.

15:53So yeah, you know what I mean? We do. So we run mostly everything nationally through a national account. We actually ran a test. Speaking of testing of, you know, impact on having different like local pages and just the amount of effort and work that it takes to maintain those. Of course, you need quality content. You need to tell the story. And we felt that effort was better put into different channels. So we run everything at a national level. We do have local Facebook pages, which is a lot due to like reviews, comments. You can structure it that way. And that's how we scale that side of it.

16:29But most of our accounts are done nationally.

16:32Brett Stapper:In terms of driving traffic and driving leads, is there a social platform that you see the most from? Like, is it Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, X? It kind of depends on where our locations are along their journey. And I'm sure that sounds like a really basic answer. Like, it depends. But, you know, for example, when a location first opens, you can get a lot of reach and scale running through Meta. So Facebook, Instagram, I can get a lot of reach. You know, of course, we have dog pictures. The imagery is good. The videos are good. You get a lot of really good reach, which helps you get leads and customers in the door.

17:08As you start to mature, your location starts to mature. You know, you've reached a lot of the audience on Meta and that's where diversifying your channels is really important. And actually the number one thing that we preach all day, every day is your customer experience. So we say, you know, you invest early on some of these channels that get you the mass reach. And then if you can deliver that customer experience, every person that walks in your door, you're going to generate word of mouth, referrals, and a referral engine then helps operate and just run on its own, which is the best form of marketing anybody could ever do.

17:44So, you know, it does vary. And we've learned a lot through the data we have to say, at what point are you? Where are you in your journey? What are your goals? Let's make sure you have the right plan in place. I hope that answered the question.

17:58Brett Stapper:Yeah, it definitely does. And word of mouth, what's interesting about your market is, you know, I can just imagine, you know, whenever I have found a new place to get my dog groomed, it's always at the dog park. And, you know, you're sitting there, you see a dog at 12 rooms, you ask them where to go. And like, that's always been like the guiding path. Whenever I move to a new city, you go to the dog park. So that has to make that word of mouth engine work a little bit better. There has to be like this most built in virality or place where to spread. I'm just where they come in. Yeah. You know, that's part of word of mouth.