FE770: Business End of the Dog: Marketing for Pet Professionals
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Course Details
We’ll cover how to create a marketing budget, how to successfully experiment with various marketing channels, and, ultimately, how to create a custom strategy that gets real results.
** Please Note: There are likely to be additional expenses involved in implementing the advice in this class. Students should be prepared to invest in their marketing during the course of this class above and beyond the cost of the class itself. Exact budget will vary by business, location, and company’s specifics. However, the exact options you choose will be up to you and you can choose to work within whatever budget you may have available.
Teaching Approach
This class is largely comprised of written lectures, with the occasional mix media (usually a presentation from a famous marketer, or a podcast; most, if not all, of these are publicly available and most have publicly available transcripts if you prefer to read) piece added for discussion purposes to encourage deeper thinking about the ideas being presented. Assignments are all written assignments.
This class is largely a concept class — the first half of the class is focused on understanding the core concepts presented and then the later half goes into implementing what you've learned. The number of lectures per week varies from 3 to 5 — ALL lectures are listed below in the syllabus.
Syllabus
Pre-Work: 4 Things to do Before Class Begins
Intro: Name, Business, Website and a bit about your goals
Prelecture: Seth Godin TED Talk Discussion: What's REMARKABLE in dog training?
Week 1:
What is Marketing
Creating Paths to Purchase
What works? What doesn't?
Bonus lecture: Copywriting & Gathering Testimonials
Bonus lecture: Features v. Benefits
How People Make Decisions
Week 2:
Free v. Paid: How to Decide What is Marketing & What's a Paid Service
What You Need to Know About Your Website
Your Guide to Google Analytics
Discussion Topic: It's All Behavior
*NEW* Strategically Free: How to Turn Freeloaders Into Paying Customers
Bonus Lecture: How Websites Work
Who Are Your Ideal Customers?
*NEW* Making the Most of Those Who Already Love You: Converting Existing Clients
Week 3:
Bonus Lecture: What is SEO and How Can I Rank on Google?
How Much Should I You Spend on Marketing (Part 1)
How Much Should I You Spend on Marketing (Part 2)
Creating Your Marketing Plan
Standing Out from the Crowd: How to Sell Online Services When COVID is Driving Everyone Online
Virtual Services vs. In Person Services: What’s Different When It Comes to Marketing?
Bonus Lecture: Setting Up Yoast
Week 4:
Email Marketing: Advantages and Download Incentives
Bonus Lecture: Confirmation Email Template
Discussion Topic: Visual Branding
Email Marketing: What, When, and Why
Social Media: Choosing Platforms
Social Media Part 2: Getting Started
Social Media: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Ongoing Engagement: Keeping Top Of Mind When Not Seeing Clients In Person
Week 5:
Paid Advertising: Facebook and Google
Blogging 101: Words Matter
Implementing Your Marketing Plan: Tips and Tricks
Week 6:
A closer look: Additional marketing channels
implementing your marketing plan part 2
Sample Lecture
Week 1, Lecture 1: What is Marketing?
There’s an S-word that I’ve found most small business owners think of as a dirty word… they cringe when they’re asked to do it and they avoid talking about it any more than they have to.
But in this class, we’re going to get it right out there in the open.
What word am I talking about?
Sales.
While not every marketer on the planet will agree with me, I think marketing and sales should be very closely tied together. If your marketing isn’t eventually helping you make money, I think it’s probably not marketing worth doing.
So we’ll be talking a lot in this class about how the marketing techniques we discuss tie back to getting you more customers or clients, what you’re selling those dog owners, and how to tell whether or not things are working.
Most of you probably fall into 1 of 3 categories:
You’re new to dog training or marketing and aren’t sure where to start.
You’ve been doing this a while, but are struggling to get enough business or aren’t really sure your marketing efforts are doing anything.
You’re successful, and know your parts of your marketing work (because you have more than enough clients!) but you don’t know which parts and are looking to drill down into it so you can spend less time on marketing activities overall.
Regardless of which situation fits you best, my goal in this class is to help you develop a plan to move forward — and give you the confidence to work through that plan and keep with it even after this class has ended.
So, let’s get to the heart of the matter. What is Marketing?
Marketing is the process by which we can take someone who has never heard of you or your business before and get them ready to buy.
Google defines it a little differently, but has a similar idea: the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising.
I like my definition better, of course. Why? Because the word process implies that marketing is about getting someone to take steps toward the end goal of buying a product or service.
In fact, there are three basic steps we need to think about.
Step one: You need to take people who have never heard of your business before and make them aware it (and you!) exist.
Step two: If you’ve ever had a friend recommend a product to you and then thought to yourself later, “Now what was the name of that again?” you’ll understand why this second step is important. This step is about getting those potential client’s names and some sort of contact information, so you can begin to build a relationship with them.
Step three: Finally, in comes that S-word. Once you’ve had a chance to build up some trust, it’s time to sell them something. In marketing, that’s often called a “conversion.”
Homework Assignment 1: I want you to take and list out all of the things (or anything) you do for marketing now, and then think about where each of those things might fit into these three stages. If you’re brand new, and aren’t doing any marketing yet, I want you to list out marketing ideas and what step you think those ideas might fit into.
Instructor
Melissa Breau
Faculty
Melissa (she/her) is FDSA's resident marketing geek. She teaches several marketing classes here at FDSA, including: Marketing for Pet Professionals and Building a Wordpress Website. In addition to her marketing classes, Melissa teaches FDSA's Treibball Classes and workshops. (Click here for full bio and to view Melissa's upcoming courses)...