Marketing Your Dog Biz

If you’re like many dog trainers, dog walkers, dog daycares, and the like, you’re in near-constant search for clients.

It may seem an obvious statement on the surface, but one way to get more clients is to provide what potential clients need. This goes beyond “dog training” or “dog walking” or “dog daycare.” It goes beyond taking good care of their dogs (though of course you should!). Providing clients what they need is about understanding what drives someone, whether a dog lover, a car owner, a home owner, etc., to hire a service provider.

Usually people turn to professional service providers to solve a problem. We also seek convenience. I could probably figure out how to fix that leaky faucet, or I could read my auto manual and do my own oil change. But what I want isn’t just a solution. I also desire convenience. And then there’s the peace of mind of knowing that my problem—say filing my taxes—is being handled by a professional; that I don’t have to worry about things being done wrong. In short, services providers are supposed to make our lives easier.

Straightforward enough, but too often dog pros miss opportunities to better align their services with potential clients’ needs, making themselves less likely to be approached and hired.

Here are three ways to make yourself a more attractive option and get more clients:

1. Do it for them

Remember, busy people spending money to hire service providers are looking for a solution and for convenience. How can you offer more of both?

If you’re a dog trainer offering coaching services, or training people how to train their own dogs, you know how challenging it can be to sell training services. People want a well trained dog, but learning how to make that happen themselves does not fit the definition of a convenient solution. No one would hire a CPA to teach them to do their own taxes, or a lawyer to teach them how to represent themselves in court, or a plumber to teach them how to fix their own leaks. Day training, a service in which the trainer does the training and then transfers the results, is a far easier sell, making it easier to get clients. (It has many other benefits as well, including increased client compliance, better training outcomes, and improved and more consistent income to name just a few.)

Services like dog walking and dog daycare provide solutions and peace of mind for busy dog lovers struggling with long schedules and longer to-do lists. These are clients for whom convenience is paramount. Are you doing all you can to provide it? Pick-up and drop-off is a key place to look for daycares (and for boarders, too). Offering to do it yourself is one way to increase convenience. If that’s not feasible, make sure your pick-up and drop-off hours make it possible for clients to reach you in time with a minimum of stress.

Walkers and daycares can also add convenience service features, like monthly supply pick-ups or drop-offs coordinated with a local pet supply store, or settling dogs in with a stuffed Kong or safe puzzle toy post-walk to add additional mental stimulation for a truly relaxed dog in the evening. Walkers can also pop a Kong into the freezer for mom or dad to give to Fido in the morning to reduce the guilt of the morning routine and keep Fido gainfully occupied until her walk.

2. Make it inclusive

Solution, convenience, peace of mind. Make this your mantra. Everything you do should contribute to providing these for your clients. At its core, whether you train clients’ dogs, exercise them, or care for them, your job is to make clients’ lives easier while make dogs’ lives better. And that shouldn’t cost extra.

A la carte services are a common mistake in our industry. While they may seem like a good idea on paper in a business plan, they run contrary to the mantra of care for clients and their dogs. What message does a daycare or boarding facility send when they charge extra for exercise or play or treats or providing medication? Not one of solution, convenience, and peace of mind. A daycare’s job is to care for dogs during the day, and a boarding facility’s is to do so around the clock; everything that goes into doing so should be included. Rather than nickel-and-diming clients, and undermining your mantra message by telling people you’ll only provide comprehensive care if someone pays extra, raise your rates and set yourself apart with an all-inclusive message.

Dog trainers tend to include support services in their fees, features like written instructions, video lessons, and phone support. This is great, but do make sure you’ve set your rates to cover the work and time you put into these activities.

3. Focus on the client

Take a good look at the messaging on your website and other marketing materials. Your messaging should talk about what you do for dogs, and the benefit of those services for them, but not at the exclusion of your paying clients—the human ones. The core of your marketing message should be built around the mantra of solution, convenience, and peace of mind. Make sure your website and materials highlight the ways your service is designed to make human clients’ lives easier.

Here’s some more reading on crafting your marketing message, 5 Ways Dog Pros Get Their Marketing Message Wrong

Stand out

These sorts of service adjustments and touches, plus a marketing message that displays your understanding of and empathy for clients’ needs, make you a better match for those needs. The result? You’ll stand out from the field, making attracting and getting clients easier.

 

For more ideas on how to add value to your services:

Read The Case For Day Training

Look at the dogbiz University course Mastering Day Training

 

You hate it. Marketing. It’s uncomfortable. Expensive. So far removed from what you really want to be doing—helping dogs.

Even when you manage to do a bit, it just doesn’t seem to work. Without strong reinforcement for your efforts, it’s hard to keep going. It can all be pretty discouraging, especially when you know you could be helping more dogs if you could just get more clients.

If any of this sounds familiar, it’s time to try thinking outside the marketing box, to learn an approach to marketing that you can not only stomach, but feel good about—and maybe, possibly, even enjoy.

Inside vs. outside the box
Most marketing in the dog training and care industry is too old school, with expensive print materials and awkward cold visits to vets and pet supply stores at its heart. Not only are these approaches largely ineffective, they require dog pros to step too far outside their natural comfort and skill zones.

One outside-the-box marketing concept we teach dogbiz clients and dogbiz University students is community education marketing. This approach involves sharing your professional knowledge as a way of helping dogs and their people while raising awareness of your services. It pulls marketing in line with your primary mission, making it a worthwhile endeavor instead of a distasteful one.

Another tenant of our marketing philosophy is doing for others instead of asking for ourselves. Good, active referral sources are a key to success as a dog trainer, dog walker, daycare operator, or the like. But referral relationships are challenging to begin. Most of us are understandably uncomfortable asking busy fellow dog professionals we’ve never met to do us favors. But it always feels good to do something for others—and doing so forms a much more solid relationship foundation.

Why market outside the box?
Here are our four favorite reasons to teach our clients and students to think outside the marketing box:

1. Stand out. In a sea of business cards and brochures and informational fliers, good content really stands out. It shows off your expertise and professionalism instead of talking about it. And it gives people a more compelling reason to both pick up and hang on to your materials.
2. Take the pressure off. Let’s face it. Singing out one’s own praises is just flat out squirm-inducing. When you change your angle to thinking about how you can serve your community and potential referral sources, marketing becomes about fulfilling your mission rather than self-promotion. That’s marketing you can feel good about.
3. Make more difference. Sharing what you know gives you a chance for broader impact. You can only train or walk so many dogs (and not all guardians will hire a care provider). But when you use your marketing for community education, you expose many more people to concepts with the potential to improve their understanding of and relationship with their dogs.
4. Get more clients. Community marketing is powerful. Sharing your expertise builds trust and brand loyalty and a much deeper awareness than traditional marketing in our industry. Dog lovers exposed to your knowledge and professionalism through your marketing efforts are far more likely to reach out to you when the need arises.

What it looks like: Two outside-the-box examples
This kind of marketing is limited only by one’s creativity. There are truly endless ways to share what you know with your dog-loving community, or to assist fellow dog pros dedicated to serving the same. Here are two examples to get your ideas flowing…

Example 1: Leave those brochures under your bed. You know the ones we’re talking about—the box gathering dust under your bed or in your home office closet. The ones you printed with such high hopes but haven’t been able to get yourself to distribute far and wide after watching the initial batch sit untouched at your local vet clinic.

Lesson learned. Shake it off and then let’s do something to stand out and make a difference. Instead of brochures, think about a series of useful tip sheets. 8.5 x 11 or A4 do the trick nicely, or you can have rack cards printed if preferred. Think about what services you’re looking to promote, and choose your topics accordingly—basic manners cues, an explanation of leash reactivity or separation anxiety, tips for helping a new dog settle in, etc.

You can take the tip sheet approach instead of traditional fliers, too. Marketing your puppy class? Put out tip sheets on puppy socialization, puppy biting, and housetraining—all with information about your class on the back. Looking for new dog walking clients? A tip sheet or rack card about how to choose a dog walker is invaluable education in this age of on-demand dog walking apps, and shows off your professionalism.

Example 2: A quick interview. Been putting off stopping by to introduce yourself to local vets? Afraid to step foot back in the local pet supply store after having your request to put out business cards rebuffed? Try this: Drop by during a less busy time of the week (or call if you just can’t bring yourself to go in person) and ask for 5-10 minutes to interview the doctor or store owner for a feature in an upcoming edition of your free print newsletter, produced as part of your mission to provide sound educational material to pet lovers. (Who would say no to free publicity plus an ego boost?) Once you’ve got your edition printed, bring it by with a plate of goodies and a nice stand, point out that you’ve put them on the front page, and suggest a spot on the counter where everyone will be sure to see it.

Once you’ve got your foot in the door with this act of service, it’ll be much easier to bring in subsequent editions and build the relationship from there.

Ready to step outside your marketing box?
If you’re ready to take a more comfortable, effective approach to marketing as a way to both grow your business and help more dogs, start by setting your marketing goals. With goals in mind, put your creative thinking cap on to brainstorm project ideas to share with your community, and ways you can be useful to fellow dog pros you’d like to build referral relationships with. Next, build a marketing calendar to maximize your efforts by spreading them consistently throughout the year.

If you’d like more personalized guidance or support getting your outside-the-box marketing off the ground, we invite you to work with a friendly dogbiz business coach, or join us in dogbiz University course Marketing Made Easy for a fun, step-by-step guided process creating and implementing a marketing plan that really works for you.

“I’ve been thinking about working with you since I saw you speak at the PPG Summit,” she told me.  

“Oh, wonderful!” I replied. “How did you enjoy Portland?”  

“Unfortunately I didn’t get to the Portland summit—I saw you back in 2016. I turned in a card for a free webinar at your booth and I’ve been reading your Monthly Minute ever since.”

This conversation isn’t unusual. At its core marketing is about relationships, and good ones take time to build and nurture. While marketing your dog business doesn’t require the same lead time as ours might, it’s still best played as a long game. Building loyalty, trust, and connection means dog lovers who instinctively reach out to you when it’s time to hire a dog pro.

One of the best ways to build potential client relationships is through an email list. Growing your list is key, because the more relationships you’re nurturing, the bigger your pool of potential clients.

Lead magnets are an effective, fast, and fun way to build that email list. Here’s how lead magnets work, and how to put one to work for you…

What a lead magnet is, and how it works
Think of a lead magnet as a gift exchange. You offer something of value in return for a potential client’s email address. It could be a dog-related e-book or a PDF article or a video or a webinar, for example. Visitors to your website are asked to input their email to gain free access to your offering.

In addition to featuring your magnet on your website, you can (and should) do additional marketing to drive people to it there—social media posts, postcards in local pet supply stores, a call out for it in your print newsletter, etc. This also helps drive more traffic to your site.

An extra benefit
We R+ dog pros love to educate dog guardians in our quest to improve the lives of dogs. Lead magnets are not only a powerful marketing tool—they’re also an opportunity to use your knowledge and expertise to serve dogs and their people.

Choosing the right lead magnet
Start by thinking about the service you’d most like to drive people toward.

Looking to get more students into your puppy class or more clients into your puppy day school? You might produce an e-book or video on house training for your lead magnet.

Need to generate interest in your trail hikes? Perhaps a nicely designed PDF article or infographic to share your favorite local trails and top tips for safe, enjoyable weekend trail adventures.

Specializing in serious behavior issues? You might create a webinar or e-book on living with an aggressive dog, in which you provide insights and management tips while sharing client success stories to illustrate the value of working with a professional trainer.

Don’t forget the CTA
Your lead magnet has two end-goals. One is to educate. The other is to sell your services—so don’t forget to include a clear CTA or call-to-action. What do you want people to do when they’ve finished reading your e-book or watching your webinar? Be sure they understand you’re there to help, a bit about how your services work, how they can find out more, and how to reach you.

But don’t be discouraged if you don’t see a flood of inquiries right away. Remember we’re playing a long game. Some people will be ready to reach out right away. But most will require a longer period to get to know you—that’s why the next step is so important.

Take care of those relationships
Think of your lead magnet exchange—someone giving you their email and downloading your offering—as an initial introduction. It’s the moment you say hello, shake hands (well, maybe not these days), and tell each other how nice it is to meet. It’s just the beginning. If you want the relationship to progress, you have to keep in touch.

That’s where your email newsletter comes in. As part of your side of the gift exchange, let people signing up for your lead magnet know they’ll also be receiving your newsletter—or you can give them the choice of opting in.

Continuing to be helpful, share your expertise, and entertain through your newsletter not only keeps you in potential clients’ center field of vision, it deepens their interest, trust, and loyalty to your brand over time. When the time comes to hire a dog trainer or dog walker or choose a dog daycare, you’ll be their default choice. (And they’re more likely to think to refer you to others in the meantime as well.)

You can also use email to offer your followers additional perks from time to time, like special offers or new lead magnets you’ve put together—because once you start using magnets you’re likely to get hooked!

Oh, the time vortex that is social media! The black hole! The hamster wheel! The endless worry and fretting over what to post, the constant search for ideas, the daily back-of-the-mind nagging to find time to sit down and post something brilliant…

It’s easy to spend a lot of time on social media getting very little done. But when you run a small business, efficiency is key to sustainability. Here are our top tips for creating great content with less impact on your busy schedule. (We’ve included some content ideas for you, too.)

Create your content framework
Giving yourself a content framework makes generating your posts much easier, because you’ll know how many you need, as well as what kind.

One way to construct a framework is dedicating days of the week to particular types of posts. You might have one day for answering training questions, a day for sharing your favorite training or walking tips or mental enrichment toys, a day that you always post a client success story, etc.

It will also help to decide on the number of posts you’ll share each week. For example, your weekly content framework might include 2-3 dog-related meme shares, a client testimonial, 3 training tips, daily captioned walk or daycare floor or class photos, etc. The idea is to have a set “routine” of posts to avoid the pressure to make it up as you go.

Make things easy on yourself
Once you’ve decided on your weekly framework, carve time out of your schedule to get your content planned and created in batches. This is far more efficient than scrambling for time each day to put your posts together. Batch at least a week at a time, creating your posts for the week ahead. Or, if you really want to get off the social media hamster wheel, set aside a larger block of time once a month to get all your content planned and created for the month ahead.

Once you’ve decided on your posts and their timing, schedule them to go out automatically via apps like Hootsuite or software like Trello. This leaves your daily social media time for responding to questions or comments, rather than searching for post ideas.

What makes good content good
People are busy. Your followers have unlimited choices for how to spend their time and attention. Your posts must engage and provide value by educating, inspiring, or entertaining your audience. When crafting a piece of content, ask yourself: How might this post make my audience feel? How does or could it encourage them to engage? How will they benefit from this?

Good content is also varied content. Mix it up—some fun posts, some tip or other educational posts, photos, graphics, short videos, etc.

And good content is easy to consume. Keep things short—share one idea, concept, or point at a time, use as few words as possible, edit videos to hold them under one minute. The better you get at brevity, the more success you’ll have. 

Never miss a CTA
Social media is supposed to be social! The most successful pages are generally those with high engagement. Actively encourage your audience to engage with you by adding a call-to-action (CTA) to all of your posts. Depending on the nature of the post, invite people to click a link, answer a question, share their input, leave a comment, post a picture of their dog, message you for more info, email you now, sign up for your mailing list, etc.

Some content ideas for you
To make building your content framework a little easier, here’s a list of content ideas to get your brainstorming off to a quick start:

Re-share. Watch for funny dog memes or gifs, or graphics or tips from other dog pros you admire, to re-share with your audience. Every re-share is a post you don’t have to create! (Be sure to give credit where it’s due!)

Share links. Collect links to articles, products, info-graphics, etc. to dole out. Add a short caption to provide context or explain what you like about what you’re sharing.

Post client testimonials and reviews. Turn your clients’ glowing words into graphic posts using an app like Canva or Adobe Spark. If your clients have a lot to say about how awesome you are, be sure to edit down first!

Tell client success stories. Use captioned photos, short videos, or Instagram stories to show potential clients what working with you can do for them.

Invite your followers to ask you questions. Make it open-ended or give them a topic. Then answer each question in a separate post. (Remember that brevity is your friend—keep your answer posts short. You can always include a link to a blog post or other resource for a more in-depth version.)

Invite your followers to share. Ask your audience to share a favorite themed photo (their dog taking a nap, their dog with his or her favorite toy, their funniest photo of their dog, their dog’s Halloween costume, etc.) or video (best trick, most embarrassing moment, cutest thing ever, etc.). Invite them to tell a story or share a milestone (their best training achievement, most frustrating dog moment, biggest training breakthrough, favorite puppy story, etc.).

Share your go-tos. For example, your go-to training tools, online resources, treats, etc. (Remember to dole these out one at a time!)

Share your favorites. Your favorite dog tricks, dog sites, puzzle toys, hiking trails, books, etc. (Again, one at a time!)

Recycle content you’ve created for other purposes. For example, break points in a blog post or article you’ve written into multiple social media posts. Mine any presentations you have for post inspiration, too.

These are just a few ideas—we hope they get your creativity whirring!

Get off the content hamster wheel
If you’re ready to make managing your social media channels easier while also increasing their success, we urge you to grab or pull up your calendar right now and commit to two blocks of time: 1. Choose a 2-3 hour block of time to sit down and create your content framework. 2. Choose a regular weekly or monthly block of time to batch and schedule your content.

Getting out in front of your content creation and posting gets you off the social media hamster wheel, results in better content, and leaves more time for engaging with your audience. It also means more time for other aspects of running your dog business—and perhaps more downtime outside of it, too!