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How To Make News With a Press Release

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How To Make News With a Press Release

Press releases are an easy—and free—way to draw attention to your dog training, walking, or daycare business. A good press release gives local news outlets the chance to see what you’re up to and possibly cover your story, providing you publicity and adding credibility to your status as a local canine expert. You can also post press releases online, expanding your marketing reach for any virtual services you’ve added to your repertoire this last year.

Here are some tips for taking advantage of this easy, free marketing strategy:

When to Write a Press Release
Too often dog pros miss opportunities to engage with local and online press. Here are some times to take advantage:

When you launch a new, interesting product or service.
Perhaps you’re offering an online group class focused on something particularly timely, like teaching pandemic manners aimed at professionals and families trying to get through Zoom work meetings and home schooling without canine interruption. Or a walking service that includes dropping off puzzle toys, chews, and other modes of mental stimulation to keep dogs gainfully occupied while not out walking with you. Maybe you’ve created a Facebook support group for dog lovers living with leash reactivity. If your services don’t look like everyone else’s, shout that from the roof tops.

You can use press releases to help navigate the pandemic, too. For example, you might put out a press release to let people know you’ve restarted in-person training services. Or, conversely, that online training has proven so effective that you’re continuing virtual training despite the easing of Covid restrictions in your area.

When you host an event.
Once it’s safe to plan a fundraiser, seminar, trial or other competitive event, or a fun canine-related outing for your community (movie night with your dog at the local theater, a guided weekend hike or camp trip, a holiday dress up party at your daycare) a press release can help spread the word beforehand or brag about the event’s success after the fact.

While we’re still maintaining careful distance, a creative online event can be a great way to draw some attention with a press release—an online tricks party, for example, or a Zoom canine talent show to give clients and local dog lovers a way to break the monotony and enjoy their dogs.

When you receive an award, scholarship, or other professional recognition.
Did you take advantage of time in pandemic lockdown to add some new professional letters to your name? Have you recently been acknowledged as one of the best and the brightest by a professional organization, your local Chamber of Commerce, or a “Best Of” contest in a local publication? Congratulations! Be sure to take full advantage by letting your community know. 

Writing a Great Press Release
The key to getting your press release picked up is making sure it’s well written. In addition to impeccable spelling and grammar, a press release should have a few key elements to grab the potential publisher’s attention:

  1. A catchy, informative title. No need to be funny, clever, or cute here. Just encapsulate what your press release is about in a clear and succinct way. Instead of “Wagsworth Manor Has Gone to the Cats!” try “Wagsworth Manor Expands to Include Cat Playroom and Daycare Services.”
  2. A first paragraph that clearly outlines the key points of the release. Whoever is reading your press release has a lot on his or her plate, so offering up the most important elements of your message in the first few sentences will vastly increase the chances that your release gets picked up. This first paragraph should answer those classic six questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How? You can expand upon these details in subsequent paragraphs, but provide the essentials right up front to make your recipient’s job easy.
  3. Quotations that lend an air of authority. If possible, include quotes from two different people related to the news item. If you are a company of one, don’t hesitate to “quote” yourself. This is fine, so don’t be self-conscious. The second quote could be from someone at a partner organization, such as the shelter you’re raising funds for, or a participant, such as a client or student sharing their experience. Make sure your quotes expand on what has already been said, rather than reiterating information you’ve provided elsewhere. They should also include the speaker’s name and position. Anonymous quotes don’t count.


Sample Press Release
Here’s a sample of what all this looks like in action:

Paws and Care Dog Training Hosts Online Canine Talent Show to Raise Funds for Local SPCA

On Saturday, June 26, 2021, Paws and Care Dog Training will host a dog talent show via Zoom to raise funds for the Springfield SPCA, which is planning an expansion of its existing facilities. The show starts at 5pm, and all dogs are welcome to share their tricks and talents. The suggested donation to secure a spot in the spotlight is $15, and $10 per household to log on and enjoy the spectacle. Students from various levels of Paws and Care Dog Training’s Online Tricks classes will be in the lineup to show off their dog’s best stunts, and all members and all ages of the dog-loving public are invited to sign up with their best friends to participate.

“This event is a wonderful opportunity for the local community to help our shelter expand,” notes Springfield SPCA’s CEO, Morgan Rockport. “We are very excited about our plans to improve our kennels and add three new outdoor play areas for the dogs in our care, as well as renovating the HVAC system in the cat facility. We are incredibly grateful to Paws and Care Dog Training for being so generous with their time and creativity.”

Paws and Care’s involvement with the Springfield SPCA dates back to 2007, when the organizations partnered to offer training classes to shelter dogs and their foster families. As part of the upcoming event, Paws and Care’s trainers will also be sharing some simple trick training pointers using shelter dogs currently waiting for their forever homes.

Paws and Care students are excited to be part of this fun event. Sarah Miles, a graduate of Paws and Care’s Level 2 Tricks & Clicks class, says, “Trixie and I are honored to help the Springfield SPCA raise money by showing off Trixie’s tricks. They are doing amazing work for homeless pets in our community, and we are pleased to be able to give back in this small way.” When asked what Trixie is planning for her moment in the Zoom spotlight, Sarah responded, “We’re still deciding. Right now she’s working on learning how to bring me specific toys I ask her for. If we get that polished in time we’re going to go big with that one.”

To register your dog for her moment of fame, or to learn more and buy tickets for the show, visit [www.websiteaddress.com]. Then put 5pm Saturday, June 24th on your calendar for some good family fun. Oh, and don’t forget the popcorn!

Turning Your Press Release into Press
Now that you’ve got a great press release, it’s time to do something with it. Start by cultivating good relationships. Even small local publications and TV news programs receive many press releases, so it’s a good idea to develop and maintain a contact list of editors and producers who are most likely to be interested in your news. Check in regularly, even if you don’t have anything to share, to see what kinds of stories these folks are looking for, and to make sure there hasn’t been a staffing change.

When you send your release (usually by email), include a personal note, and follow up in the next day or two with a phone call (or another email if that’s more comfortable for you).

You can also post your press release online using any number of free press release companies–a quick Google search will show you your options. While not as powerful an SEO tool as they once were, online press releases can still lead people to your door, and they’re free.

When the Silence is Deafening
If your news doesn’t get picked up, don’t lose hope. You may be a victim of bad timing—for example, having to compete with a big school board election taking up lots of space in your local paper the week you issue your release. Or you may be the fifth person in three days to send a release about a similar kind of story. Be persistent, and it will eventually pay off.

And even if your news isn’t deemed newsworthy at the time, you can repurpose your press release into a blog post to keep your website fresh and interesting. Share the information in your print and email newsletters, too. That way, even if you don’t make the local or online news or papers, your time and efforts have been well spent.

Want some help or guidance building a steady marketing plan for your dog training or dog walking business? Join us for Marketing Made Easy—an online dogbiz University course.

How To Get More Hours Out Of Your Day

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how to get more hours in your dayDespite all of mankind’s advancements we’ve still not found a way to add hours to the day, be two places at once, or stop time to get a few more things done. Most small business owners long for these breakthroughs. But as they don’t appear imminent, here are some non-science fiction approaches to lengthen your day. The trick is to work smarter, not harder.

Schedule it
We’ve written in the past about using a master schedule, but it bears repeating. A master schedule breaks each week into blocks of time dedicated to certain tasks—marketing, administrative work, time to see clients, etc. And also non-work blocks—time for family and friends, exercise, hobbies, errands and house cleaning, and so on. In short, each thing that needs room in your schedule is assigned a specific spot or spots.

The master schedule ensures pre-planned room for everything you need to get done or want to do. It takes the guesswork out of trying to juggle all the balls you’ve got in the air. Instead, you can concentrate on the one your schedule says to, setting the others down without worry. And for those of us with the procrastination gene, it means a structure for productivity.

Use do dates
Without a master schedule so many great ideas—marketing projects, new services, a nice handout on Busting the Dominance Myth—are wistfully pushed off to “someday, when I get a chance…” With a master schedule, you simply assign your great ideas to the next open marketing or project time slots in your calendar. These are do dates. So much more effective than traditional due dates, which cause stress as they approach and guilt as they pass, do dates allow you to get things done in the specific blocks of time assigned for them.

For example, we write dozens of articles a year for various journals, newsletters, and the like. If you were to look at our calendar you’d see the due dates in very small letters—almost not noticeable. But look a couple weeks ahead of each of those and you’ll find the do dates for each article in large type. Thursday mornings are writing time in our master schedule, so at the beginning of each year the needed Thursday mornings are blocked out to produce articles. We never have to worry about when they’re going to get done, or suddenly realize the day before that we’re up against a deadline.

Take time off
Seriously. Do it. You have to. We’re not made to run 24/7. There’s no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. We often ask, when lecturing to dog pros, for a show of hands from the audience—how many of you have two days off every or most weeks? It’s not uncommon to see five hands go up in a room of 200 or 300 people. Ask about one day a week and you may see a dozen or so arms raised. That’s not tenable, not sustainable, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

Part of using a master schedule is building in the downtime. The only way to get days off is to take them. Cross them out in your calendar and then don’t schedule over them. It’s easy to fill our lives to the point of overflowing. The only way to stop it is to call time-out. The earth will continue turning, we promise.

Prioritize
Creating a master schedule may force you to confront what you’ve long suspected—that there simply aren’t enough hours in the day or days in the week to do everything you have on your plate. It’s time to make some choices. And they get made whether you make them deliberately or not. In our business coaching work, we’ve heard many dog trainers, dog walkers, dog daycare operators, and the like lament the lack of time for their own dogs, or for the exercise regime they promised themselves this year, or for more time with family—or just time to do nothing at all.

It’s often the most precious things that get cut when we try to stuff more into our lives than can actually fit. Taking a hard look at everything you do allows you to make conscious choices about what to set aside. There may not be anything you’re happy about letting go, but putting off the decision doesn’t mean it doesn’t get made. It means that more important things fall by the wayside. It means a lack of balance between work and home (some of us lean toward working too much, some of us toward not enough) and a path toward eventual burnout.

Be realistic
There are fewer hours in the day than we think, and fewer minutes in each hour. It’s like eating at a buffet and never failing to put far too much food on the plate. We think we can squeeze a bit more in, take on another project, say “yes” to one more request. And everything takes longer than it seems like it should. Part of successful scheduling is making peace with this. There really are only 60 minutes in an hour and they go by fast. There are only 24 hours in a day and we sleep and eat our way through quite a few of those. We might as well accept that everything will take longer than we think and plan accordingly.

At dogbiz we plan emergency and flex time into each day and week and project. We assume that things will come up, that clients and colleagues will make requests, that there will be unanticipated opportunities we’ll want to pursue, that our best-laid plans will occasionally have flaws. The extra time built into the schedule keeps everything on target when the unpredictable-but-inevitable shows up.

Start by building an overflow or catch-all block into your weekly master schedule. For example, a two-hour spot that you can toss any miscellaneous tasks into or use when something else goes over its allotted time. When you’re planning something larger, such as a new marketing project, give it several more blocks of time than you expect it to take. If you finish early you can move the next project up or even treat yourself to some extra time off.

And then practice saying “no.” Go back to the step where you set your priorities and check any new requests or opportunities against them. It’s hard sometimes. We think we should do things just because we could, because we’ve been asked. But is there truly room? Does it serve your central goals? Is it worth neglecting something else? If the answers are no, take a pass.

Schedule your clients
Don’t hand clients the keys to your business by asking questions like “When would be good for you?” when scheduling appointments. Remember that having a master schedule means having set times for everything. This includes client appointments. Choose the times that you will see clients, preferably keeping them the same each week and clustering them for efficiency. Then offer clients your open slots to choose from. (And watch those geographical boundaries—don’t lose time unnecessarily in the car.)

Stand firm when potential clients say none of your times work. Simply offer them what you have open the following week to give them more choices. Do not bend if they request a day or time that’s not on your master schedule. Tell them kindly and confidently, “I’m sorry; I don’t have appointments at that time. It looks like our schedules may just not be a match. I can offer you a referral to a colleague who may better be able to accommodate you.” (You can leave that last sentence out if there isn’t anyone you can refer to.) We’d be willing to bet (and we can back it up from years of experience coaching dog pros on this) that 9.9 times out of 10 they’ll suddenly find room in their schedules for one of your pre-set times. Confidence breeds confidence. When you don’t seem to need their business you’re suddenly that much more desirable. Professionals (think doctors, lawyers, etc.) don’t ask clients what days and times are good for them; they offer set appointments.

Hire help
We know the protest—“I can’t afford it.” Our comeback, always, is “Can you afford not to?” Let go the stigma; you don’t have to be wealthy to hire help. Let go the fear; the $10 you pay someone else frees up an hour you could use to make $75 or $100 training, or to work on a marketing project to bring in more pet sitting or boarding clients. Spending money really can make you money. If you’re stretched so thin that you truly cannot fit in the time to see more clients or work on pushing your business forward, how will you break the impasse if not by bringing in some assistance to free up your time?

Start small if you feel unsure or the budget is tight. Even five hours a week can make a significant difference. Choose some things that weigh on you, that you either dread or feel are a taking up needed time. Hand them over. They could be business tasks such as administrative work, accounting, cleaning your classroom or daycare space, printing and organizing handouts for classes, returning phone calls, etc. Or perhaps help at home would free you up—some babysitting, dog walking, or house cleaning.

Stop the hamster wheel
If you’re in so deep that you can’t see where the time would come from to sit down to take these steps, it might be time for a shut-down. Take a day—a week if you can—and turn it all off. No phone calls or email or client appointments. Use the time to catch your breath and create your master calendar. To take a look at all the balls you juggle and decide which to let fall and which to protect. To look at where you might want help and take steps toward finding it. To set do dates so you know what you’re going to be able to accomplish and when. To make any other changes you need to allow you to move forward refreshed and with a new plan in place.

If you’re already scheduled to the hilt it may be difficult to find this time. Your first step, then, is to look forward just far enough that there’s a day or week not already full. Block it out. With a fat Sharpie pen. Protect it. Resist the temptation to schedule anything over it; there’s nothing that can’t wait. Because there isn’t anything as important as achieving a sustainable schedule—your business’ success and longevity depend on it.

 

If you’d like some one-on-one help getting a handle on your schedule, please consider personalized business coaching with one our consultants.

Using Your Master Schedule

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We’ve written at various points about the benefits of using a master schedule—an organizational tool that allots regular, pre-set slots of time for specific tasks. A dog trainer’s master schedule might, for example, include specific times each week for seeing private training clients, teaching classes, prepping for each, marketing, administrative tasks, and so on. A dog walker’s schedule will replace training appointments and classes with meet & greets slots and dog walks. A good master schedule also sets aside regular down time, allowing dog pros to enjoy consistent days off and a sustainable work/life balance to keep you in the dog game for the long haul.

But it’s one thing to design a schedule, and another to use it to full advantage. Here are a few tips to make sure your master schedule does all it should for you.

Don’t let clients master your schedule
Don’t make the mistake of creating a large block of time for client appointments and leaving it at that. Taking into account the typical drive time needed between training appointments, for example, break that block—say, noon to 6pm on Saturdays—into specific appointment times you’ll offer your clients. For example: 12pm, 1:30pm, 3pm, 4:30pm. If your appointments tend to run over time, this has the added advantage of providing structure to help keep them to their intended length. Similarly, daycares, dog walkers, and pet sitters should have set meet & greet appointment spots, and daycares and boarding facilities run more smoothly with set pick-up and drop-off times, too.

Short of a true emergency, never offer an appointment time that isn’t actually in your schedule. Doing so invariably means stealing time from somewhere else—marketing, administrative work, your own downtime. For your business to run smoothly, you need time for all of these things. And no need to worry that sticking to your guns will lose you work. On the contrary, you’ll find your limited availability and professional schedule makes you that much more attractive to potential clients.

Group appointments by location
Many trainers suffer the scourge of far too much time spent in the car. If you cover a large territory, schedule your clients for maximum driving efficiency. Using the previous Saturday example, if you’ve got a client scheduled for noon in the South part of town and then receive a call from someone up North, offer them the 3pm and 4:30pm slots, but save that 1:30 in case you get another inquiry from down South. Likewise, if the next call comes from down South instead of up North, offer them the 1:30, saving the later afternoon spots for Northerly clients. This kind of selective scheduling saves you from traveling back and forth all day, and allows you to tighten the amount of time between appointments.

If your area is truly spread out—perhaps you even work in two or three different towns—you may want to dedicate specific days to each location, seeing clients in town A on Tuesdays and Thursdays, for example, and offering people in town B your Wednesday and Saturday spots.

Put away the sticky notes and to do list
Creating set spots for types of activities is a great help, but it only goes so far. You may have set marketing, client prep, and project times, but if those times aren’t used well you won’t get the full benefit from your master schedule. And there’s nothing worse than sitting down to a block of work time only to face a daunting to do list or bewildering array of sticky notes. Where to start? How to prioritize? Ever had that sinking, distracting feeling while working on one thing that there’s something else being forgotten or in more immediate need of your attention? That can happen even with a master schedule if you aren’t using it to organize specific tasks.

Take the marketing related items on your to do list, for example. Prioritize them and then assign each to the marketing times you’ve set aside, literally deciding the specific dates you will work on each item. Do this for everything on your to do list or sticky note stuck to your computer screen—put every task into your calendar on the exact date and time you will tackle it. Now throw the to do list and stickies away. Ah, that feels good.

Next time a to do item comes up, assign it to a spot in your calendar. A client needs a write up and you do client prep on Thursdays from 1 to 3pm? Write a note on the next Thursday: Lisa Smith & Fido consult write up. Have an idea for a new class handout? Flip through your calendar to find your next unclaimed project time, and write your idea there. Need to produce a monthly email newsletter? Assign as many blocks of marketing time needed each month to that newsletter, to ensure it gets done without a last minute scramble. Now breathe easy, knowing that you’ve set aside time for everything that needs doing.

Don’t sweat the unexpected—just make room for it
It never fails. You just get organized, you’re purring along on your new schedule, and wham! the unexpected hits. Maybe it’s a sudden marketing opportunity—and of course they need you to produce something for it by next Monday. Or a staff member gives notice and now you need to dust off the old job posting and get it out there. Or you lose an afternoon to a call from your child’s principal or a trip to the doctor. The trick to keeping the unexpected from toppling your carefully constructed schedule like a line of dominoes is to build time in for it. Just assume there will be emergencies, odd miscellaneous tasks that rear up from time to time, or that something (most things!) will take longer than they should.

Plan for these things by building time for them into your schedule. Call it overflow time, emergency time, miscellaneous time, whatever you like. But put one or two blocks into your master schedule that are left open to handle life’s vagaries. The rush marketing material or job posting can be slotted in to one of these, as can the extra time needed to finish a project that’s taking longer than expected. If the meeting with the principal or the doctor’s appointment take over marketing time that was slotted for producing your email newsletter, just move the newsletter into the next overflow spot. Oh—and if a good friend calls, asking you to lunch while she’s unexpectedly in town for the day, move whatever you were supposed to be working on to your next overflow spot and go for it. (It’s good to be the boss sometimes!)

Every now and then things will go as planned and you’ll find that extra time empty. Your choice how to use it—get ahead on something else, or maybe just enjoy a little extra down time. Speaking of which…

Respect and enjoy your downtime
As we said earlier, a key goal of using a master schedule is to create a sustainable work/life balance. In our business consulting work, we often see clients whose schedules have gotten the best of them. They’re exhausted, at risk of burnout, and suffering from neglect of their own health and/ or guilt over too little time spent with their own dogs or families. It’s all too easy when running a business without a controlled schedule to have the things you care about most be the very things that get the brunt end of the stick. Creating a master schedule will force you to face the reality of trying to fit too much in, allowing you to make deliberate choices about what to prioritize and where to cut.

A well designed master schedule will allow you to work more efficiently and get more done in less time, but it’s not magic. It only works if you give as much importance to your downtime as to your work time. You have to build in the down time, and then you have to use it. The dogs need you to stay in business for the long haul, after all.

Do More With Less: Recycle Your Marketing

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We talk and write a lot about content or community marketing— using your expertise as dog trainers to educate your audience while subtly promoting your business. It’s an excellent strategy. While doing good, you’re also using marketing that’s more effective, often less expensive, and much less sales-y and uncomfortable if you’re a bit on the shy side about actively selling yourself.

Unfortunately this kind of marketing is time intensive. It’s not called content marketing for nothing—it’s all about generating content, and that means work. That’s where recycling comes in.

The 3X Rule
At dogbiz, we follow the 3X rule: Any content we generate must be used at least three times. It takes a lot of time and energy to create a written piece or a presentation, so we try to get the most use from each effort. Recycling allows you to get more marketing done for nearly the same amount of work. This article, for example, began it’s life as an article for a professional journal. The ideas written here will no doubt make it into a PowerPoint presentation. And maybe we’ll parcel out some tips to post to our Facebook page, too.

Here are some ideas for recycling your own marketing content:

Put Pen To Paper
Most dog trainers have a lot to say about dogs, dog behavior, and training. If you have some writing skill, think about putting some of your thoughts together into an article. Perhaps about puppy socialization or understanding and normalizing aggressive displays or how to choose a trainer or teach your dog to be more focused on you. Dog walkers, you have things to say about how and where best to enjoy weekend warrior walks, the various humane anti-pull devices available, the most effective trail treats, and so on. Choose your topic and offer an article to a local paper or magazine.

Then give your content multiple lives:

  • Reprint the article in a future email or print newsletter—or both.
  • Simplify the content into a branded tip sheet to share via veterinarians, pet supply stores, daycares, and grooming shops. You can give it to private clients and class students, too.
  • Break the article into several shorter blog posts to publish over multiple weeks.
  • Post a teaser line or two and a link to each blog post on your Facebook page, and/or send out a tweet.
  • Expand your article into an e-book to offer on your website.
  • Turn your e-book into a PowerPoint presentation.

Take A Stand
If you’re more comfortable sharing your thoughts about dogs and dog training verbally, create a rich presentation using pictures, images, and video. Reading body language is a great topic for dog trainers, or maybe a little canine myth busting. Or you might put together a presentation on how dogs learn and the implications for how we interact with them. Dog daycare operators and dog walkers, you might consider a “Day In The Life” presentation highlighting all the fun and challenges you and the dogs face on a typical day.

Then use your presentation to educate and get in front of multiple audiences:

  • Work with a shelter or rescue group to put on a public talk to raise funds for their organization.
  • Publish any video clips you use on your YouTube channel (or use them to start one), and post them on your website.

Trainers, here are some additional outlets for sharing your expertise:

  • Offer vets a lunch-and-learn opportunity for their staff. You bring the pizza and the PowerPoint.
  • Daycare staff are another perfect target to benefit from your expertise. Offer your local daycares a chance to bring their people together for some free training.
  • Don’t forget shelter and rescue staff, as well as volunteers and foster parents. And in return for the free advice, ask them to send those tip sheets you’ve been creating from your articles home with their adopters.

Use Client-Generated Content
Collect the questions clients ask via social media and email—and the answers you write. Turn those answers into content:

  • Create or add them to an existing FAQ page on your website.
  • Edit as needed for blog posts. (Then see above for recycling from there.)

Also make the most of testimonials and reviews:

  • Put them on your website. If you have enough, create a whole page of them. Either way, be sure to sprinkle short excerpts throughout your site, especially on your home, about, and service pages.
  • Include these short excerpts in other marketing material, including traditional print pieces like brochures as well as content pieces like newsletters.
  • Say thank-you for testimonials and reviews via social media.

Generate Your Own Client Content
Ask clients if you can share their success stories. Write up a training narrative that spins a before-and-after tale and how they made their way from the before (hyper, distracted dog or growling over the food bowl) to after (calm, focused family member or dog who wags and drools at the opportunity to share her bowl). Or tell a story about the power of regular exercise via daycare or walking (the hyper, impossible-to-live-with dog transformed into a cuddly, calm couch potato).

Then publish that story in multiple places, with pictures showing a happy dog and happy clients:

  • As a story in your email or print newsletter.
  • As a blog post.
  • As a client case study on your website.
  • Share a short summary via Facebook or other social media that leads to the page on your site.

Marketing can feel overwhelming. Especially when your real love is working with dogs, not running a business. But when you get in the habit of recycling content, it’s all a bit less daunting. Committing to just one project per quarter and then transforming that content into multiple iterations can increase your marketing output—and client input—drastically.

Building A Balanced Marketing Plan

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Think of a three-legged stool. It stands—and supports your weight—only because each leg has been built to do its part; it’s perfectly balanced. Remove, or even shorten, just one leg and the stool topples. Like the stool, a balanced marketing plan requires three legs. Unfortunately, it’s rare to see a dog business marketing plan that gives careful attention to all three.

balance your marketing planMore often dog businesses put emphasis in one area, ignoring or underserving the others. Sometimes the focus is on marketing to referral sources, sometimes on getting out in front of the general public of potential clients, sometimes on staying in touch with current and past clients. But the most powerful marketing plans balance a bit of all three, because each has a specific role to play in the success of your business.

Referral Sources
Referral sources—other dog professionals who send clients your way— are the most critical audience when you start out, and they’re what will feed your business for long-term sustainability as well. Get a few good referral sources on your side and your business will build much more quickly.

Referral sources such as veterinarians, dog trainers, dog daycares, dog walkers, pet sitters, pet supply stores, shelters, and rescue groups tend to come into contact with people at points of need. This means that potential clients are likely to hear about your services from these sources precisely when they have need for you. They may complain to a veterinarian or dog trainer about their dog’s destructive or hyper behavior, be told by a daycare that their dog isn’t a good fit for group play, or worry out loud to a pet supply clerk about an overly long stay away from home. You want fellow dog pros to have your name on the tips of their tongues when this happens.

Court referral sources with content-rich adoption or behavioral wellness folders they can provide to clients for free (great in particular for shelters, rescue groups, breeders, and veterinary clinics), free staff training presentations, a glowing article about them in your newsletter, free or reduced-price services for them and their staff members, a surprise pizza lunch on a busy day. In short, think about what you might do for them, rather than asking for referrals. Those will follow if you make their lives easier and find ways to show them your expertise and professionalism.

Potential Clients
Marketing to potential clients is about building your brand awareness and recognition. It takes time for people to become actively aware of a new business or service, so start early and be consistent. Success here requires staying in front of people so they’re already aware of you and know just who to go to when they decide it’s time for a trainer or need to board their dog. So the more marketing you do, the more effect it will have.

Writing articles for the local paper, distributing a printed newsletter, providing tip sheets or “how to” fliers to local dog businesses, staging public demos, wearing logo clothing when out training and walking, using effective signage for your facility—these are just a few examples of public marketing projects you might employ.

Current And Past Clients
Retention marketing is key to longevity. This should be the smallest portion of your marketing plan as you start out, because you have few people to keep in contact with at first, but should grow in importance as your business grows. You’ll be spending quite a bit of effort getting your clients; it makes no sense not to keep them in your marketing loop. This is not only good customer service, it’s also how you build word of mouth over time. Get enough happy clients talking and you’ll end up with more happy clients.

E-mail newsletters, blogs, and social media outlets like Facebook are the most common forms of retention marketing. If you’re just getting started and you’ve put all your weight on this leg of the stool, back off a bit and make sure you stabilize the referral and public legs of your marketing plan—you have to get clients first before you retain them!