Dog Emporium/Sit Up Doggy Treats - Richard Massafra
Sit Up Doggy Treats owner Rich Massafra was a manufacturing engineer prior to making all-natural dog treats in his kitchen. About 4 years ago, he had a single oven and a dehydrator, and began making the treats and selling them at small festivals. This past February he set up a retail location in New Eagle, PA called the Dog Emporium. We asked Rich about his marketing efforts, and how he’s coping with the effects of the current pandemic.
“We just hustled a lot. We had our whole family working.”
Tell me how your company has grown.
How did you make the leap from festivals to retail?
We started with county fairs and festivals in small towns, and we’d sell out of everything we made.
From there, we started attending bigger events, some that had over 100,000 people. We just hustled a lot. We had our whole family working. The grandkids were helping!
We were beginning to see a lot of the same people, they’d buy from us at festivals 3 to 4 times per year. Although not too many people were buying things online. The one thing that was selling well online were CBD products. We’d get a lot of re-orders for oils and supplements. So to expand, we decided to open up the retail store.
So you opened up right before the pandemic hit. I’m assuming that changed things?
Well, it actually didn’t change much in the way of marketing because we hadn’t really been doing too much! Our online marketing was minimal, and paid ads weren’t getting the results we wanted. So we were already transitioning to doing more on Facebook and LinkedIn, posting more images and videos, trying to see what works best. We still use our email list and have been trying different offers.
What’s the plan for the second half of the year?
To do what we do, but better. We’ve been successful using flyers to reach the local community and get people in, and we’re looking at direct mail. Possibly try some new Facebook advertising. A lot of word-of-mouth.
What’s your favorite thing about running the business? Do you enjoy that marketing portion?
Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to make things. As a network engineer, I would learn how to make things faster or better. It’s a game, finding out where the bottlenecks are and eliminating them, making improvements. And the marketing is new, it’s pretty exciting!
Who is your taste-tester? I’m guessing you have dogs at home?
We just have one, and she’s a horrible taste-tester because she’ll eat anything that falls on the floor. So we can’t rely on her! We actually test them ourselves, the kids will test them. We want to make sure our products taste good!
Get Cookin’ with The Dog Emporium
Shop: https://www.dogemporium.us/
Visit: 118 Main St. New Eagle, PA 15067