As dog ownership in the United States continues to increase at a relentless pace, society’s constant requirement for effective dog training can lead to substantial growth for dog training businesses. Dog owners will usually be on the lookout for some form of training, whether that takes the form of foundational obedience, puppy classes, behavior modification, or specialized training for activities like dog sports.
With the proliferation of the internet, marketing strategies in various sectors have evolved in the past couple of decades – and dog training is no different. A website is now a necessity. A presence on various social channels such as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, while not essential, can also expand your business’s reach and help to build your brand. The option for paid advertising on search engines like Google offers another avenue for growth.
These opportunities, however, come with potential pitfalls. In a crowded marketplace, how do you differentiate your business from competitors? What do you do when everyone is executing similar strategies? What marketing approaches can you implement to ensure your business continues to grow?
At the School for Dog Trainers, we have always emphasized not just how to train dogs, but how to structure, run and grow your business. Marketing plays a fundamental role in the success your business will achieve. In this article, we’ll review the primary digital marketing channels and how your dog training business can take advantage of them.
Do-it-yourself or work with a specialist?
First things first, before determining what your digital marketing mix actually looks like, you should decide who is going to be directing these initiatives. Are you going to be the one guiding the strategic direction and executing it, or will you look to outsource to a vendor who specializes in marketing?
Essentially, your decision will be based on a number of factors, including:
- Your marketing budget – How much can you afford to spend on marketing? Research suggests you should invest up to 8-10% of your annual revenue into your marketing activities. If you are just starting out, you may not be able to estimate this accurately – but this will be critical in determining if outsourcing is an option for your business.
- Your level of marketing expertise – Do you have any marketing experience? This is a specialist function where someone with dedicated expertise can make a big difference. That isn’t to say you can’t teach yourself, but perhaps a good comparison is another specialist business function – accounting and taxes. After all, you can do your business taxes yourself – but a good accountant should save you enough money to pay for themselves (and then some). A good marketing agency or specialist should be able to add enough value to do the same.
- Your time – Even if you have the expertise, do you have the time? You likely entered the field of dog training because you want to train dogs for a living, not because you enjoy sitting in front of your laptop working on the intricacies of putting Instagram posts together. Effective marketing is time-consuming. With that said, it is certainly possible to find time outside of your dog training lessons and interactions to schedule posts or work on your website.
- Your goals – How do your marketing efforts factor into your long-term vision? A marketing specialist will be able to construct a strategy for each phase of your business – which is crucial as your business scales. You can also start off by doing your own marketing, and then utilizing an in-house marketing specialist once you get to a sufficient size.
There is no right or wrong answer here – the answer will depend on your circumstances. If you have the funds, but not the expertise or the time, then outsourcing is likely the best option. Conversely, if you have marketing experience and hours to spare, but no budget to work with, you may be better off trying to do it yourself (at least to begin with).
Beware the myths, the scams and the charlatans
There is an unfortunate reality associated with outsourcing marketing efforts – some of the vendors who pitch their services to you will not be honest. Remembering the mantra ‘if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is’ will serve you well as you evaluate potential partners.
The problem is that you aren’t the only one who has seen the potential for growth in this industry. There is a subsection of self-proclaimed marketing ‘gurus’ who have spotted an opportunity and are trying to sell their services meant to ‘help’ your dog training business.
These people want you to pay money to work with them, and that is about where it starts and ends. To convince you, they will often make wild and unsubstantiated claims, such as the return on investment (RoI) your business will achieve upon working with them, or conversion rates (in other words, the number of people who sign up for your services after interacting with your site or social media channel) that are 100x what the industry average is. Essentially, these people over-promise to get you through the door, and then under-deliver when it really matters.
Here are a few tips to protect your business from wasting money on a vendor who may hinder – as opposed to help – your marketing efforts.
Educate yourself
We’re not suggesting you need a college degree in marketing, but even if you plan to outsource, getting yourself acquainted with marketing fundamentals can be highly beneficial. To use the taxes analogy once again, as a business owner, you don’t need to know every line of the tax code before you work with a CPA – but you do need to know which questions to ask them to determine their level of knowledge regarding the nuances of your business.
You can take short courses on platforms like Udemy or Coursera covering any and all facets of digital marketing. YouTube has a lot of great video resources, too (although again, make sure that the information provided coincides with other reliable sources). At the School for Dog Trainers, our ‘Business Week’ module explains aspects of running your business, including how to set pricing and introducing marketing concepts.
Look for case studies
Make sure that any claims made by a company can be backed up with verifiable proof. Has the agency or freelancer worked with dog trainers before? What were the results? What do their reviews look like? These answers can help to determine the potential results you can expect from their work, and verify that they are legitimate.
Wild claims are a red flag
Numbers are a compelling argument when presented in a marketing context, but they are often manipulated – or simply outright false. A conversion rate in excess of 20% is not realistic for any type of marketing campaign. Bringing you 50 new leads a month if you’re just starting your business in a rural area with a small population? Also unlikely. These claims likely mask the fact that there isn’t a sustainable strategy under the hood.
Ask for help
You may know fellow dog trainers who have worked with marketing agencies, or have done marketing work themselves. If you have friends or trustworthy colleagues in the industry, use them as resources to help evaluate potential agencies. You can also ask them for recommendations of vendors they may have worked with successfully.
Your digital marketing channels
There are four main channels which you can leverage for growing your dog training business. We break down each of them below, and analyze the pros and cons of each.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
When you type a search term into a search engine like Google, the results are driven by their algorithm (or, more accurately, a series of algorithms). The engine analyzes and compares a number of different elements (including website content, technical infrastructure, user experience, site links, and several other factors) to determine the overall ranking of websites for a particular search term.
The science behind increasing search engine rankings is called search engine optimization, or SEO. As search engine algorithms are ever-changing, SEO requires constant tweaking to be effective. SEO converts visitors to customers at a higher rate when compared to paid advertisement. This is because unlike other channels, the nature of SEO involves potential clients searching for a solution themselves, as opposed to having one presented to them through advertising. The caveat, however, is that success can take longer and requires an investment of time and resources.
Adjacent to SEO, content creation and marketing can help to position your brand as an expert in its industry. Writing blog content to rank for ‘informational queries’ – search terms where people are looking for information or guidance, as opposed to a solution or service – can help to expand the reach of your website.
Pros: Higher conversion rates than other channels; allows you to expand your business reach through informational/blog content; builds your business as an authority on dog training; potential to rank for ‘near me’ search terms.
Cons: Takes more time; harder to bridge the knowledge gap due to complexity; can be difficult in competitive markets against established competitors.
Search Engine Ads
A search engine ad is what you’ll typically see at the very top of your search results on Google or Bing, denoted with a small ‘Ad’ to separate it from natural (or organic) results. To run search engine ads, businesses typically bid on a keyword (or series of keywords) and are then charged per click when users visit their site via that link. The main advantage of this approach is that businesses can pay to get their site in front of potential customers.
While it may seem that placing your site at the very top of search results would be advantageous, users have been conditioned to see these Ads at the top and are aware that businesses are paying to be there. This results in users scrolling past these advertisements. Additionally, awareness that businesses are paying for these Ads means that even if users do click the link, the offer must be compelling to convert the visitor into a client. All of this means that conversion rates are lower with paid advertising on search engines compared with results from SEO.
Budget constraints can also play a role in the success or failure of your search engine advertising campaigns. In a niche which is only getting more competitive, the cost-per-click (CPC) becomes higher as more entrants bid on keywords. This means that your ad spend budget will not go as far, as maintaining your budget at the same level will result in fewer clicks over time. And, of course, if your budget is completely depleted and you run out of money for ads, your business will lose visibility entirely.
Pros: Relatively easy to get a campaign started; results can be quick; brand visibility at the top of search engine result pages.
Cons: User behavior has changed and many are conditioned to scroll past Ads, or question the validity of offers included within them; can be limited by budget constraints; can take time to test and optimize ad campaigns to achieve RoI; if you are solely reliant on Ads to drive business, you will always need to budget for that cost (and if your budget runs out, so does your visibility).
Social Media (Organic)
Facebook; Instagram; TikTok; X (or Twitter); LinkedIn. All social platforms that can be leveraged to promote and grow businesses, and each with their own specific benefits and downsides.
All of these options work well to build brand awareness, but which social platforms you decide to use will depend on your business and its goals – and, primarily, where your audience will be. Channels like Instagram and Facebook are widely used and visually appealing. They are also great for building awareness with pet dog owners in your local area. A platform like LinkedIn is best suited to an organization focused on providing working dogs to governmental or private organizations, and is often used to build connections with decision-makers.
In terms of ease of use, many business owners are already familiar with how to post on these social platforms. The trick is creating content that stands out from the competition and enables you to build momentum and grow a following. As a final note, when users are browsing social media, they are often not in the mindset to make a purchase as they are mindlessly scrolling through their news feed, which can make it difficult to convert followers to paid customers.
Pros: Free; easy to get started; builds brand awareness; potential to create a loyal following.
Cons: Lots of competition; need to allocate time to create content on a regular basis; mindset of social media users means that it may be difficult to attract paying customers.
Social Media (Paid Advertising)
Another angle of social media is to use their paid offerings to reach more users. This is most commonly seen in boosted posts on Facebook or Instagram, but all platforms allow you to run dedicated campaigns that can target users based on demographic or hobbies/interest data.
Social media advertising can be successful. The amount of information that users provide to these platforms can make targeting efforts more successful than other paid advertising mediums because you can refine your messaging to meet the needs of your target audience. However, there is still a financial consideration: it costs money to get your advertisement in people’s news feeds. Whether or not users will actually convert based on your ad will depend on how it performs, which comes down to elements like ad creative (the visuals, such as photos/videos, used in your ad), ad copy, and your budget.
Pros: Ability to reach targeted audience; slightly easier to set up than search engine ads.
Cons: Easy to burn through budget; needs compelling offer; needs investment in ad copy/creative; successful campaigns usually require time for testing/refinement.
Where should you invest your marketing resources?
The key is to find a marketing solution that works for your brand. Putting all of your eggs in one basket increases the risk for your business, and diversifying your strategy gives the opportunity for you to test what works (and what doesn’t). For a new dog training business, you need an approach that brings you clients in the short-term to keep funding all aspects of your business, but also allows you to build a sustainable business in the long run.
Here are a few examples of how a startup dog training business could allocate its marketing budget. Typically, planning out marketing resources for one year out is a good benchmark, so these scenarios all envisage taking the approach outlined over a 12-month period.
- Example 1: You invest your entire marketing resources into Google Ads. You’re not developing your website through SEO or working on social media (organic and paid). You have a steady stream of clients, but you have to continually increase your Ad spend budget to keep up with bid inflation and outbid competitors. At the end of the 12 months, your business is profitable – but with no investment in SEO or on social channels, your brand is in the same place it was at the beginning of the year. To maintain this level of revenue for the next 12 months, you will have to keep spending on Google Ads.
- Example 2: You invest the majority (90%) of your marketing resources on SEO, with the remainder (10%) on organic social media efforts. You’re not investing in any paid advertising. Your website has lots of great informational content, and your social media feeds are constantly updated. You have started to build a solid brand – but where are your clients? Your business eats a loss over the course of this 12-month period, with the majority of your clients coming via word-of-mouth and referrals offline. You are starting to acquire clients through people finding you on Google, but this momentum needs to accelerate in the next 12 months if you don’t want to make another loss.
- Example 3: You invest your entire marketing resources on social media, with 90% towards organic social, and 10% towards paid social efforts. You’re not investing in SEO or search engine ads. You have built a sizable following on social media, with thousands of followers across Instagram and Facebook. Your TikTok videos always get in excess of a thousand likes, and attract tens of thousands of views. Unfortunately, nobody who has watched one of your TikTok videos has ever paid a single dollar for your dog training services. You get a few clients through Facebook Messenger, which is accounting for the vast majority of your revenue. Hardly anybody visits your website as you have made no effort or investment in SEO, and your paid social efforts do not bring in clients as your budget allocation is too low. As a result, your business has squeezed out a small profit over the past 12 months, but there is no way to reliably predict that this will continue in the coming year.
- Example 4: You invest 40% of your marketing resources on SEO, with 30% on Google Ads, and 30% on organic social. You have made a decision to invest in some high-quality informational blog content on your website as part of your SEO work. The results of these content efforts are minimal to begin with, but the content starts to drive traffic to your site towards the end of the 12 months – and will continue to do so in the future. Your Google Ad spend has brought in enough business to allow you to remain profitable and allow you to reinvest in other areas of your business. Your efforts on social media have allowed you to retain and grow a presence with your target audience, and you now have a moderate following on Instagram and TikTok which is lending credibility to your brand. Your business is profitable, and the signs ahead point to an upward trajectory in the next year.
These examples highlight why allocating your budget across a mix of marketing channels is vital. The first three examples brought varying degrees of short-term success, but because the focus was so intently on one marketing channel, there were gaps in the marketing strategy that would have affected the long-term growth of the business.
Instead, the fourth example took a more balanced approach – bringing in immediate revenue from a smaller Google Ads campaign to help financially sustain the business, but building brand authority through continued efforts in SEO and social media. As time progresses, it is likely that the business would be able to wean itself off of paid advertising and allocate that budget towards SEO efforts, which converts at a better rate and helps to establish the brand as experts in their field.
Tips for established dog training businesses
The examples above looked at a startup scenario, but established dog training businesses have a built-in advantage – they already have hard data which they can use to guide their marketing efforts.
Businesses can evaluate their current marketing offerings to identify strengths and weaknesses. Carrying out an analysis of which channels are driving the most revenue – and tying this back to the investment in them – gives business owners hard data on which to guide future decisions. To some extent, this removes any guesswork – it is easier to reallocate marketing resources when you can use your own numbers to validate your conclusions.
In summary
This article covers a lot of ground – but in the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing, this valuable information can make a huge difference to the success of your business.
Understanding which marketing channels are working for your business – and making sure that you are optimizing your budget to maximize your RoI – is what will help to separate your business from its competition. This is why we’ve always taught our students not just to understand the fundamentals of dog training, but the fundamentals of business, too. Remember, you can be the best dog trainer in the world – but if you don’t know how to market your skills and services, how will anyone else (i.e. your prospective clients) know that?