Petpreneur Julie Maxted started out as a PR in the 1970s and 1980s before setting up her pet care business, Pets, Homes and Gardens.

Julie now runs a franchise business with 25 franchisees all over the country caring for animals.

She'd had plenty of press coverage but when she came to launch a product, Dog-G8, she wanted to learn more about how to reach as many people as possible.

Julie was one of the pet businesses who took part in the February Publicity for Pet Businesses Course that led into the membership.

She followed the steps in the programme and secured 12 pieces of national coverage in just six months.

In this episode Julie shares how she did it, what has changed in the PR world since she left it and her tips for petpreneurs who would like to do the same.

Key timings in this episode:

2.15 - Julie's background with Pets Homes and Gardens and starting up DogG8.

3.10 - How having children and getting married led Julie to leave the PR world and join the pet industry.

4.00 - How her lightbulb moment came from when she had to farm several pets out to different places and inspired her pet sitting business so all the animals could be in one place.

5.28 - The Dog-G8 and how feedback from her franchisees inspired her to develop the gate.

6.30 - Testing the Dog-G8 ahead of the launch in September 2019.

7.20 - Her biggest challenge with the new product.

9.00 - Working with influencers to launch and gaining social proof before she focused on her PR.

13.04 - Researching PR options for national and local press.

13.40 - The benefits of working as a team each week and doing tasks.

16.00 - Landing full page articles in pet magazines on her product and how this exceeded her expectations.

18.00 - How Julie had six pieces of press in three months.

20.35 - Networking and follow up and how this landed Julie a piece in Edition Dog magazine.

22.30 - Pitching to caravan magazines - Julie landed five pieces of coverage in these magazines read by her ideal customer.

23.21 - Being mentioned in Woman's Own in a real life story.

23.45 - Using competitions to get coverage - listen to the podcast on this here.

25.45 - Why it's vital to personalise your pitches.

26.30 - PR in the 80s compared to PR now.

27.03 - Leather clad men, boozy lunches and fax machines and how things were Ab Fab in the 1980s and 1990s.

28.20 - Julie's advice to people who would like to work on their own publicity.

30.20 - How it can help if you offer products for journalists to try out.

31.02 - Where to find out more about Julie.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Julie's Dog Gate website: www.dog-g8.com

Using competitions to get coverage: Competition blog post

Learn more about The Publicity for Pet Businesses membership: How the membership works blog post

Join the Publicity for Pet Businesses membership programme: Membership Programme sign up