With the millions of marketing avenues out there, it can be hard to know what to focus on to market your equine business. Should you spend a bunch of time on social media? What about holding events? Sending emails? Having a YouTube channel?
First, let’s look at what category your business is in so we can determine what types of marketing are going to be the most effective. Then, we’ll take a look at the pros and cons of each marketing method.
Service
If you offer a service such as training, coaching, boarding or farrier services, there are a few marketing methods you can use based on how large your business is and whether or not you want to scale it.
Local
If you offer services within a local area, things like word of mouth, social media, flyers in local feed shops, a user-friendly website optimized for the local area, local events and local media coverage are all methods you can use to spread the word.
Nationwide
Perhaps you’d like to scale your coaching methods into a nationwide business and book clinics all over the country. You can use all of the things listed above, plus blogs, podcasts, videos or just a really nice and helpful instagram account. Having some type of content to promote via your website and social media will be the main driving force to promote this type of business. Additionally, make sure that you have a good marketing funnel in place to take people from content consumption to paying client.
Paid ads can be successful for this type of business, but you need a really good ads manager, lots of capital upfront and need to be sure your profit is going to exceed the cost of the ads.
Product
If your business sells a product such as supplements, horse blankets, saddles or riding apparel, you should focus at least some of your efforts on e-commerce. Having a physical store is great, but e-commerce truly allows your business to grow and scale outside of your local area.
Nationwide
Some great ways to market equestrian e-commerce items is through social media, creating content in your area of expertise (i.e, saddle fitting or equine nutrition), and when you’re ready, paid ads. Remember to have a marketing funnel in place that leads people from seeing, trusting and investing in your product.
Animal
I’ve listed animals separate from products because they are a little different. When you market an animal, you primarily need good photography and videography. Show the animal’s worth, whether through his show track record or through his parent’s genes.
Post pictures and videos of the horse on your website and social media accounts. Make sure to market your horse to a crowd of people who have enough interest and money to buy him.
Comparing 10 Avenues to Market your Equine Business:
Now let’s look at some top ways to market your equine business and see which one is right for you.
Building Relationships
Pros:
- Free
- Easy
- Literally just asking people about their business, then telling them about yours
- Creates an uplifting business environment
Cons:
- Rejection; they say no to referring you to people. Just because you didn’t gain anything, doesn’t mean you lost anything either.
- If you’re shy, talking with people. Try to turn this into a pro by thinking of it as exciting rather than scary
Social Media
Pros:
- It’s free
- Easy to learn
- Simple to use
- A personal way to connect with your target market
- Facebook and Instagram live (again, more personal)
- Facebook groups (a form of building relationships)
- Valuable business insights for free
- Being discovered by new people organically (without paying $$)
Cons:
- Takes time to grow
- Takes even more concentrated time to grow quickly.
- If you want to run ads, they cost quite a bit in the beginning to test and perfect.
- Takes some time out of each day to run a page that people interact with
- You need to keep up with news about the algorithm. This way, you can post things that the algorithm likes and not get penalized. (ie. posting an engaging image and text vs. posting a link that takes people off of Facebook)
Events
Pros:
- Really gets the word out about your business
- Allows people to experience your training/ coaching style first hand.
- Builds tons of relationships
- You can make money
Cons:
- Takes a lot of planning and preparation.
- You need multiple people to run it
- Renting facilities
- Will the profit outweigh the costs?
User-friendly Website
Pros:
- People don’t look in the yellow pages anymore. You want to be found online
- A professional website communicates that you are also professional
- All of your information in one spot
- You own it
- The place where your social media and other online marketing should lead
- Having a website makes it easier to build a marketing funnel.
- Your web hosting and domain name are very affordable to purchase
Cons:
- Costs quite a bit to have professionally designed
- Yes, you do need it professionally designed. Please trust me on this
- Ignore point two if you are a web developer or designer
- A slow-loading website can turn people away quickly
- The need to purchase legal documents, especially if you’ll be collecting emails or selling products.
Emails
Pros:
- Plenty of free email automation systems to start with
- A key piece of many sales funnels
- Can encourage your warm market to keep investing in services or products
- Can market events
- A great way to share blog posts and podcast episodes, driving traffic to your website
Cons:
- Often has a high rate of unopened emails
- It takes time to craft good emails and email sequences
- You must have legal opt-in boxes that follow GDPR guidelines
Video
Pros:
- You can literally just talk about things that interest your audience, rather than writing
- Can be very engaging, especially if you’re energetic on camera
- Can be used on almost all social media platforms
- Catches people’s attention the most
- One of the most powerful marketing mediums
Cons:
- If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll need to hire someone to help make the video
- Videography equipment and/or hiring a company costs $$
- Editing software or editing services cost $$
- Yes, you do need professionals
- Or, you’ll need to take the time and money to learn how to create great videos yourself
- Even with the large initial expense, videos can make you your money back by being such versatile marketing mediums.
Blogs
Pros:
- May show up in search results
- Can build your authority with Google
- An excellent part of a marketing funnel
- Can be shared with email and social media to get more web traffic
- Offers answers to your client’s questions
- Free, unless you hire a professional
Cons:
- Can be boring and do absolutely nothing for you if writing isn’t your forte
- Can do absolutely nothing for you if you don’t optimize for keywords
- Takes time to distribute and build backlinks
Podcast
Pros:
- Great way to recycle video by splitting the audio and posting it as a podcast
- A great way for people to consume content. They can listen while on the go
- A good way to market if you enjoy talking
- Can be uploaded to your website
Cons:
- Takes time to market and distribute
- Can be crappy if you don’t have a good quality microphone
Contests
Pros:
- One of the best marketing methods out there
- Relatively easy to do
- People like free stuff
- People also like competing against one another
- Effective for growing social media and getting in front of new eyes
- Automatic engagement
Cons:
- Spending money (or losing profit) on the valuable prize that people actually want to win
- The time it takes out of your day to run an online contest
- Hiring a few people to help you, depending on the scope of the contest
Media Coverage
Pros:
- Free
- Gets your name out in the local area
- Can help promote events
- Helps everyone involved including the station.
- Getting to be on TV or radio
Cons:
- Having to market your appearance on social media beforehand so that people will actually watch.
So, are you a natural talker? A natural writer? How do your ideal clients like to receive information? Are there any particular social media sites where your ideal clients like to hang out? Asking yourself these questions will help you weigh the pros and cons to come up with the most effective plan to market your equine business.
Following through
https://www.equestrianprofessional.com/public/department75.cfm
https://www.equinechronicle.com/building-a-marketing-plan-for-your-horse-business/
https://stablemanagement.com/articles/what-you-should-market-in-your-equine-business
