Your love for pets and passion for business might have drawn you to start a pet business, but just passion won’t make it successful. To succeed in the pet business or any business in general, marketing and advertising are crucial.
Steuart H. Britt put it best: “Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does.”
Marketing is the light in this context.
A few fundamental and “easy on the pocket” marketing tips can help you improve your pet business significantly. Five of those tips are:
1. Give the best service possible.
“The best marketing strategy ever: Care”.
Caring about the customer and giving the best service is the basic thing you can do to increase your chances of recurring customers and new ones. Word of mouth is powerful- so, if the dog or cat owners find your work worthy, they will share with other pet owners. And the chain continues.
Moreover, giving a better service doesn’t ask for much effort. Maybe a bit of investment in a better product, for instance, purchasing the best dog hair dryer, or something as simple as talking to customers with a genuine smile, can go a long way.
2. Setup Google my business.
Another almost no-cost online marketing effort you can make is setting up a Google my business account.
When you fill the details of your business during registering for Google, it gets added to the list like in the screenshot above. The screenshot is the result of the “best pet service” in New York.
Similarly, if you signup and do local SEO for your pet business, you can rank for local keywords such as “pet sitting near me” or “dog wash near me”.
3. Social media.
One of the most cliched things about social media is: “Dog pics and Hot pics get more engagement”.And there’s a truth to this statement.
People adore cute pet pics, and you can use it to advantage.
For no-cost marketing, you can post pics and videos of pets and pet owners on your Facebook & Instagram pages. Here are some ideas for consistent posts:
- Before and After (grooming, bathing, etc.) pics.
- Customer testimonials
- Dog or Cat of the week.
- Industry news and advice.
4. Collect emails.
Build an email list of clients and prospects for better recurring rates or new clients rate.
You can ask the clients for emails using a registration form/ landing page when they come to your facility/website. As for prospects, you can organize giveaways, offers, coupons, etc. to build the list(all these techniques can also increase social media followers)
Use these emails for sending exclusive offers, monthly newsletters, affiliated product heads-up, etc.
5. Cold DMs.
One of the marketing techniques that doesn’t need any money but a lot of time is cold DMs.You can find prospects and message them about the services you provide.
An excellent way to find potential clients is using hashtags on social media. You can search for hashtags like ‘#dogsofinstagram’, ‘#cutepupplies’, ‘ilovemydog’, etc. and search based on location to find the best fit. Alternatively, you can use local hashtags such as #dogsofny too.
Either way, find people with pets and pitch them.
Final words.
Your passion for pets can be turned into a profitable business. For that, you need awareness and credibility. And for both of those, marketing is the best way to draw customers. In this article, we discuss five almost no-cost marketing tips to grow your pet business.
Which one’s your favorite?
