Five Marketing Tips to Elevate Your Breeding Program
As a breeder, I know that marketing is often the last thing on our to-do lists when it comes to running our dog breeding businesses. We just sit around all day and play with puppies, right? If I had a dollar for every time someone has said that to me…
Marketing seems insignificant when we spend our days raising animals in need of constant emotional and physical care, but I see it all too often–breeders waiting until the last minute to market their puppies. In reality, you can (and should) begin to implement your marketing strategy before your very first litter is even born, and your marketing efforts should continue every single day for the rest of the life of your program.
Most seasoned dog breeders already have great marketing strategies in place and may not even know it, because they have learned over the years what their customers want and how they’re finding the breeder. Though it may not seem like it (even to them), they are, very effectively, marketing their programs every single day.
Great marketing requires constant and consistent effort.; I didn’t say that it requires a lot of effort, but effort is certainly required. And when a marketing strategy is developed carefully and correctly, your effort should be minimal. Constant and consistent, but minimal.
Many dog breeders do not have the time or know-how to properly market their programs in our current digital age. Online marketing is more important now than it has ever been, which is why the tips that follow in this article focus on digital marketing efforts.
Below are five things that you can do right now to streamline your marketing efforts so that you are spending less time spinning your wheels, and more time with your puppies.
If you want to do in-depth research on any of these tips, please read the articles that are cited throughout. I have found them to be particularly helpful.
TIP #1: Get a website! And keep it up to date.
Do you have a website yet?
For many breeders who have been in business for more than 15-20 years, hearing about having an online presence can be exhausting. You didn’t need a website (or social media) to sell your puppies in the past. Why do you need one now?
Business in every industry is quickly moving online.
63% of all shopping begins online, even if the purchase itself happens in a store.
Having a website today is more important than ever. Even word-of-mouth referrals will do a Google search for your business before they call you (but, they will probably email you rather than call, right?).
Your website is your storefront.
So, you have a website already? That is awesome! You’re a step ahead of the rest.
Is the information on your website currently up to date (updated within the last month)?
Keeping your website up to date is extremely important. Frequent updates to your website not only improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimization, which affects your Google ranking), they show your customers that you are an active, relevant business.
Keeping the content up-to-date on your site helps build trust between you and your customers.
I update my website weekly. Many of my customers visit my website weekly because they are waiting for new updates. These updates are as simple as new puppy pictures, planned litter announcements, or a new blog post.
As a modern day consumer, if a website has content that is clearly not current, it immediately loses some credibility in my eyes. Remember, your website is your storefront! How would you feel about a business, if you visited it again after two years and it was still stocked with the same exact items that were there the first time you visited or the signage was outdated? This is what your website will look like (and how your customers may feel) if it is not up to date.
Your website is not a valuable marketing resource for you if you don’t keep it up to date. .
Websites are set apart from each other by their appearance (most customers are viewing websites from a mobile device), user friendliness, and content value (images and written content).
Breeders understand that if a potential customer is looking for a quality puppy, an ethical breeder is the person to seek out. If you’re looking to have a relevant and professional online presence (which is now your business’ primary overall presence), I suggest hiring a professional that can not only build your website, but help you keep it up to date. You can also find other breeders on TellTail that are knowledgeable about building and maintaining websites by searching here.
TIP #2: Be active on social media
Did I mention we are living in a digital age? There is more to having a great online presence than having a good website. For many of your new potential customers, if you are not active on social media, you are not active in real life. Weird, right? Weird, but true.
Our younger generations (your new potential customers) will decide whether or not you are a relevant business based on your activity level online. And our younger generations are about to be your primary customer base. It might be time for you to learn some new skills (or hire a virtual assistant). You can also reach out to other breeders through TellTail who are knowledgeable about social media here!
By the way, I am part of your younger generation. I was born in 1990. I am an active consumer, contributing to the world’s economy on a daily basis. So when I offer advice on having an online presence, and stress the importance of digital efforts, I am speaking to you as one of your potential customers.
Staying active on social media can be as simple as posting puppy photos a few times a week. If you really want to stand out, post something daily. Change it up occasionally too – post photos of your adult dogs, puppies all grown up, new puppies, or ask questions that require people to comment on posts (creating engagement).
Do a quick Google search for social media planners to get some ideas for how to stay organized and plan your content. For the best experience, I recommend purchasing a social media planner from an Etsy shop.
TIP #3: Take better photos
Hey, by the way… We are living in a digital age. It won’t hurt my feelings if you’re tired of hearing this. I’m going to continue to stress the importance of having a relevant online presence because it will make or break your program in the near future as our younger generations become your primary customer base.
It’s time to amp up your photo game.
Quality images are extremely important to modern-day consumers, who primarily shop online, or at least begin their shopping experience online.
Every single image that you publish online (website or social media) is a representation of your business. One single quality image is far more valuable to your online presence than a hundred mediocre images. This is where the saying quality over quantity comes into play.
I define a quality image as an image that is sharp and detailed (no grainy photos), contains subjects that are in focus, and has a neutral, pleasing background. Make sure your dogs and puppies are clean and well-groomed before photographing. Use natural light (outside lighting, at dawn or dusk) to your advantage, or purchase a ring light and learn how to use it. Pay attention to what is in the background of your photos, and try to keep backgrounds as neutral and boring as possible. I’ll say it again – find other breeders on TellTail (link here) who are knowledgeable about photography and open to helping you learn.
I recently purchased a new smartphone. I made the decision to purchase the model that I did based on camera specs. The camera on my new smartphone is so good that I sold my Canon EOS digital camera.
This is a photo taken with my new smartphone! I didn’t apply any filters, or edit this photo in any way:
There are no excuses anymore for not having quality photos, y’all!
TIP #4: Highlight the value of your product
Customers choose products based on overall value. Much of what a customer perceives as value is not tangible. The perceived value of a product is largely dependent on the marketing efforts of the seller.
While most of us hate to refer to them this way, your puppies are a product of your program, which is a business. I’m not at all suggesting you start treating your animals like objects. But, when it comes to developing effective marketing strategies, I suggest marketing your puppies just like you would any other high value product.
It seems like it would be obvious to customers what the value of your product is, but I don’t think it is safe to assume that all customers do. For example–what makes your puppy more valuable than a puppy from a pet shop? This isn’t always immediately clear to first-time puppy buyers, and it isn’t clear to many repeat buyers, either.
You know the value of your puppies but your customers might not. Make it obvious! While implementing your marketing strategy, answer these questions everywhere and anytime you can:
What sets your puppies apart from other puppies?
When a customer purchases a puppy from you, what are they really buying (lifetime support, community, mentorship, etc.)?
What tangible items are included in the customer’s purchase, other than a real-live puppy (new puppy supplies/puppy packs)? (real items that people can hold add value to your product, too, even if they are not expensive items)
All of these things can add perceived value to your product.
Using your website and social media accounts is the easiest way to make customers aware of the value of your product. We are living in a digital age! Wait, did I already say this?
Educating customers is another huge part of an effective marketing strategy for dog breeders. I suggest making an effort to gently educate your customers about how they can make informed decisions within the industry. If you are not educating them on making informed decisions, then who is? They could end up gathering information from an animal rights activists, uneducated friendsfriend, or a puppy mill.
In your effort to offer free education and help to customers, you are adding another level of perceived value to your product.
TIP #5: Consider altering your pricing structure
Take a deep breath. My last tip has nothing to do with your online presence.
I don’t want to offer advice on how you should choose the price of your puppies. I want to make some suggestions on how to structure your pricing in a way that will instantly enhance your marketing strategy by increasing the perceived value of your products.
Perception is reality. Lee Atwater
Placing the same purchase price on all of your puppies is a huge way to enhance the perceived value of your product. I’m not arguing the ethics of pricing puppies differently based on gender, color, or other attributes. I’m simply pointing out what I consider to be a significant marketing flaw. Pricing some of your puppies lower than others immediately lowers the perceived value of the lower priced puppies in your customer’s eyes.
When you implement uniform pricing to all of the puppies in your program, you are telling your customers that all of your puppies are equally valuable. You are also making it obvious to your customers that all your puppies are more valuable than similar puppies from other breeders.
This strategy applies to discounts, too. If you want to do even more to increase the perceived value of your puppies, I suggest that you stop discounting your puppies.
Breeders discount puppies for different reasons, and again, I’m not arguing the ethics behind this practice. Discounting a puppy, for any reason (the most common reason is that the puppy is getting older), immediately and significantly lowers the perceived value of the puppy to your customers.
I’ve done it– I have discounted puppies. As a newer breeder, you begin to panic when you feel like your last puppy isn’t going to sell. The first time I discounted the price of my puppies, I experienced an unexpected phenomenon (unexpected since I did not attend business school). All of a sudden, my primary inquiries were coming from people that wanted to haggle my price down even lower! When I placed a discount on my product, I began to attract customers that I did not wish to work with because they did not respect my product, program, or my puppies. Discounting my puppies did not help sell them any faster, and in fact, I think it made me lose some credibility with customers early on in my breeding career.
Conclusion
I know that this article might be very overwhelming for dog breeders that were not born into our current digital age – and, I’m not going to lie to you, forming a marketing strategy can be legitimately overwhelming even for those that were. My advice to you is to start by implementing strategies from just one or two tips in this article–I promise you will see results quickly! Those results could simply be increased engagement on social media, increased visits to your website, or an increase in new correspondance. But all of these results should ultimately lead to an increase in credibility and sales. Good luck!
If you don’t have experience in any or in most of these subjects discussed in this article, or just don’t have the time to deal with them, I would suggest hiring a virtual assistant. A virtual assistant is like a personal assistant inside your computer. Virtual assistants do as much or as little as you want to pay them for. But a good virtual assistant, at minimum, should be able to keep your website up to date and keep your social media accounts active and up to date. Some breeders even hire virtual assistants to answer customer emails, schedule appointments (customer, vet, etc.), and edit photos.
If you are a “do it yourself-er,” like me, then you’re in for a wild ride. Have fun with it!
