Effective Marketing for Pet Business – A Proven Way to Actually Increase Your Sales
You’ve ordered your supplies and trained your employees. Now you need to sell your pet services. YOU know you have great solutions for pet owners. But for some reason, they haven’t walked in the doors yet.
Marketing isn’t just about throwing a couple of sales up on social media and then reaping the benefits. So how DO you get customers into your business?
Wildwood Copywriting brings you marketing solutions to jumpstart your business's online traffic. Whether you need done for you copywriting, or tips and tricks to do it yourself, we’ve got you covered.
Marketing for pet business services doesn’t have to be hard. Today we’ll talk about some basic strategies to build your marketing funnel and get the sales you need to survive – and thrive!
Let’s start with the basics…
Identify Your Target Audience to Create Effective Pet Marketing Strategies
If you’re speaking to everyone, you’re speaking to no one. There are many different ways to say this. And a lot of really smart marketing gurus have said it. But it’s as true the last time it was said, as the first.
The first step to effective marketing is to understand who your target audience is – and then speak directly to them.
For pet marketing, your target audience is going to be pet owners. Obviously. But you can take it a step further.
Are your pet owners:
Families or singles
Young adults or soccer moms
Multi-pet owners or single-pet owners
Rural, suburban, or city dwellers
Part of the agricultural world
Apartment dwellers, renters, or homeowners
I could continue asking these questions for the rest of this article. But you get the idea. Just this small list outlines how different your message could be.
You aren’t going to send the same message to a rancher as you would a renter for example. So getting clear on who you’re marketing to is very important.
It’s also important to remember, even if you discover your target audience and market to them, it doesn’t mean that you won’t provide your services to others. People are smart enough to know that.
You don’t have to worry that being specific will lose you any sales. It will gain you sales to your target audience, and maintain your traffic from everyone else.
Now you’ve sat down and determined who you’re marketing to, it’s time to outline your marketing for pet business strategy.
Building Awareness With Your Pet Marketing
You’ve thought about who you’re talking to. Now you need to get your services to them. So how do you do that? If you’ve ever heard the term marketing funnel, then you know where I’m going next. 1
Let's talk first about what a marketing funnel is.
What Is a Pet Marketing Funnel?
A pet marketing funnel is a representation of your customer's journey. The funnel starts wide at the top and slowly narrows down. Finally, only the people who really need your services are left at the bottom.
How does the funnel work for your customer?
The top of the funnel builds customer awareness. Your client is introduced to your brand and your services.
Once the customer is introduced, the middle of the funnel is for building interest and desire. Your potential customer is intrigued by what you have to offer them and starts to want it.
Finally, the end of the funnel is typically a sale and – if you’re doing it right – a repeat customer.
But what does this look like when it’s put into place? Let’s go over a basic marketing funnel.
The Top of the Funnel – Marketing for Pet Business
Creating your audience can be done in many different ways. Both organic and paid. Let’s talk about the differences.
Organic audience building: When you create valuable content for your audience to build trust and authority in your niche. While there is an upfront cost, it will pay off in the long run.
Paid audience building: When you pay for exposure for your pet business. Such as ads, influencers, and features on other businesses. The cost is ongoing, and there is a steep learning curve. Often the cost to gain your client negates what you make on the sale.
Paid marketing strategies and organic marketing strategies are often effectively used together. However, they both take a lot of expertise. If you’re new to marketing it’s best to start with one until you understand the methods well.
Today we’ll focus on organic methods to grow your pet marketing.
Organic marketing requires an upfront investment. But once you make that investment, organic marketing will pay off for years. This makes it an attractive option for a lot of companies.
However, the time it will take you to gain your organic traffic is significant.
This is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Which is why it is so underutilized. But that gives you a huge opportunity to capitalize on organic traffic. There is a lot of space in the pet services niche to gain a lot of authority quickly.
Let’s discuss how to make people aware of your business.
Strategy for Getting Organic Traffic Into Your Pet Marketing Funnel
What are some methods to build brand awareness for your pet business?
Start by writing blogs in your niche. These can include a ton of topics that your target audience is looking for. Things like,
How often should I have my dog groomed and why?
What are the benefits of supplements for my dog?
Do cats need their claws clipped?
2. Share your content on social media. To get the most benefits from your blog, you’re going to want people to see them – even before you start ranking on Google. This can include,
Facebook
Instagram
Pinterest
X
Threads
LinkedIn
Unfortunately, you can’t just write a blog post and immediately get traffic. It’s important you make sure your blogs are optimized for search engines. Getting Google to rank your posts is critical for driving traffic to your site.
Using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tactics takes some skill. This is why it can be a good idea to hire a pet care business copywriter who knows SEO tactics. You want to get the most out of your marketing dollars and your time.
Building organic traffic to your site is an investment that will work for you for years. You can’t go wrong with this funnel strategy.
Once you have the traffic, how do you keep your new audience in your funnel and coming back for more?
The Middle of the Funnel – Marketing for Pet Business
Now that you’ve built up awareness, where do you go with your pet marketing strategy? There is a key element to your blog posts and social media posts that we didn’t cover. That is the Call To Action (CTA).
In order to prevent your target audience from reading your blog and then bouncing off your site, you need to have a CTA. Your CTA can be anything from ‘join our email list’ to ‘hire our services’.
The middle of the marketing funnel is all about capitalizing on that CTA that has been woven throughout your blog posts and social media.
Email Marketing Strategies for the Middle of Your Pet Marketing Funnel
One of the most important ways to build interest and desire for your pet services is through an email list. Nurturing your target audience is a great way to share about you, your business values, and finally what you have to offer.
People want to support and buy from companies they trust. By showing up in your customer's inbox regularly, you’re proving you are there for them.
Your emails shouldn’t be all sale-focused. They should include:
Company news
Employee features
Policy changes
Small asks (like social media follows).
By providing a range in your email marketing, you keep your audience interested and engaged. Which is exactly what you want to get those conversions.
Of course, some of your emails should be sales-focused:
Sales you’re running
New services
Holiday deals
Special sales for repeat buyers
Etc
Email isn’t the only way to nurture your audience in the middle of your pet marketing funnel.
Building Trust With Your Audience – Social Proof
Another key strategy for building out the middle of your funnel is collecting lots of social proof and sharing it with your audience.3 When your audience is in the middle of your funnel, they are still actively deciding whether to trust you.
Collecting reviews, success stories, and testimonials can be critical in your pet business being able to book clients.
This doesn’t have to be a hard process. It can be accomplished by giving your client a two-question survey when they come to pick up their animal after a grooming session. Or sending out a quick email.
If you’ve done a good job for your client and you make sure you aren’t asking for a time-intensive survey, chances are, your clients will want to return the favor.
Post your social proof on social media and on your website. Make sure people know you do quality work and value your clients.
Building trust is the best way to get people to keep coming back to your site. Which leads us to making the sale.
The End of the Funnel – Marketing for Pet Business
You’ve now made your audience aware of your pet business. And you’ve nurtured trust and gained authority with them. The next step is to convert your audience from browsers to buyers.
Some people will arrive at your product or service pages naturally. Going through your funnel when you add CTA’s like check out our service or book today to get the best deal.
But not everyone will make it to the bottom of your funnel by going in at the top. If someone is searching for a specific pet service because they know they need it, they may come directly to your site through organic searches.
If they don’t naturally enter your funnel at the top, it may be a good idea to create a sales page to convince people of why they need your help.
Sales pages contain Direct Copy that speaks to your client's wants and needs. It touches on their pain points and emotions to get you a sale. The best way to create an effective sales page for your pet business is to hire a pet copywriter.
Good web copy can have a huge impact on whether people actually hit buy. If they have any doubts or questions, a pet copywriter will clear them up.
But just because you’ve made a sale, doesn’t mean your funnel is finished.
Converting a Browser Into a Client Is Not the End of the Funnel
At this point, you may think you’ve successfully completed a marketing funnel. But you’re missing one of the most important steps.
Did you know that getting a new client can cost you up to 25% more than keeping a repeat client?4 The end of your funnel is continuing to nurture your previous clients.
Whether through:
Special discounts
More email nurture sequences
Continuing to create quality content that speaks directly to them
Referral programs
Loyalty programs
Creating special resources for your clients lets them know you value them. This is where the funnel should end.
Hiring a Pet Copywriter for Your Pet Marketing
Reading through this, it’s easy to see what a big job marketing for pet business success is. Quite frankly, it’s almost impossible to do it all yourself.
Pet marketing can make or break your business success. If you’ve heard the saying you have to spend money to make money, this is what it’s referring to. Get your business brand and name out there. The hardest part is starting.
Once you set your marketing processes in place they just require fine-tuning and maintenance. But it’s important to start them right. That’s where a pet copywriter can streamline your pet marketing success.
At Wildwood Copywriting we approach every marketing project differently. Your pet business has individual needs. We’re here to make sure your needs are met.
Schedule a call today so we can get started on your project tomorrow. Let’s get your audience to your website so you can continue to serve your community.
Guest Blog by Maggie Shlegel of MWC