5 Tips for Networking At the Dog Park to Attract New Pet Sitting Clients

Filed Under Pet Business Marketing, Pet Sitting Business Tips | 1 Comment

Marketing MondayThe dog park is a place where people gather to let their pets run free and socialize with other pups. But what do the humans do while their dogs are having fun?  They chat, get to know each others dogs and network!  Really the dog park is just the real life version of online social networking and it can be just as valuable a place to meet the neighbors and market your pet sitting services locally.

Here are some tips for networking at your local dog park:

1. Visit regularly at the same times of the day so that you often run into people with the same schedule and get to know them personally BEFORE you introduce your pet sitting business to them

2. Strike up conversations with people by offering to watch their dogs, help with putting on leashes, offering them treats for their dogs, or just asking them questions about their pets

3. Make sure that your dogs are well groomed and well behaved. Obey the rules of the park and pick up after your dogs. You want to give other dog owners a good impression and look like you care for your pets and have some skill working with dogs

4. Carry your business cards at all times so that when you do get to know people and mention your buisness that you have them at hand ready to hand out

5. Wear clothing with your business logo to do some subtle marketing at the park. People will be sure to ask you about your business!

To find a dog park near you check out this national directory of dog parks - http://www.ecoanimal.com/dogfun/ 

If you don’t have a local park - why not start one?  This is a great community project that your pet sitting business could sponsor and get a lot of great PR.  Here are some tips to get you started setting up a local park or dog run.

Do you have any stories of new customers that you’ve met at your local dog park? Leave a comment and share them with us!

 

10 Spoke Marketing Model - How to Use it To Market Your Pet Sitting Business

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Marketing MondayThis week at her blog Janet Pettit introduced the Wheel and Spoke marketing model.  Put simply, Janet proposes that you use 10 marketing methods to feed new prospective clients into your business and maximize your profits.

You can get a copy of her model free at her blog post:

Wheel and Spoke Marketing Model

 or here is the direct link to the model diagram:

 http://smallbusiness-bigresults.com/MypnModel.pdf

I love this model and plan to use it when I start on my marketing plan for 2009.  I wanted to give you a few examples of how you can use the 10 spokes to attract visitors to your pet sitting business.  

1. Referral Strategy

Set up a system to encourage your customers to refer your pet sitting business to their friends and family. You could offer them a reward for each customer they refer that makes a reservation - perhaps offer a discount on their next pet sitting visits or a gift card to a local pet store so that they can spoil their pets. Let them know about your program in your regular follow up communications such as your online or offline newsletter.  You could also host a special recognition party for every customer and their pets that has referred business to you in the past year.

2. Marketing Strategy

A marketing strategy puts on paper the methods which you plan to use to market your business. Janis recommends that you choose 3 strategies for 2009.  It should outline what you are going to do to each week to implement each stategy and also detail how much you plan to spend on implementation of each strategy (your marketing budget).  Of course marketing strategies may not have any cost - take for example online social networking.

3. Time Strategy

You time strategy is a plan that outlines how you plan to spend the time in which you work on your business. It will show how much time you will dedicate to marketing tasks, customer follow-up, or actually performing pet sitting visits. How much time you spend on each will be determined by the stage that you are at in your business and whether you have outsourced tasks to a virtual assistant or have contract or employed sitters.

When you put together a time strategy keep in mind that you want to spend your time working on the tasks that make you money - and eliminate time wasting activities. The 80/20 rule states that 20% of your efforts will make you 80% of your profits. Do a time study and documenting how you spend your time each week will help you find and focus on the 20%. Focusing on these tasks next year will help you increase profits and grow your pet sitting business.  

4. Client Retention Strategy

Once you have great pet sitting clients you need to have a plan to retain their business so they always use your service when they need a pet sitter. A couple of good questions to ask yourself when forming this strategy are:

 a) What are you going to do wow your customers and make your service indespensible? How does your service go beyond standard duties to make sure the pets are comfortable and happy. How do you make their lives easier or caring for their pets more convenient?

b) How are you going to follow-up with customers so that you are always part of their pets life and you are at the top of their mind when they need your service?  A great way is to keep in touch via a regular newsletter that you deliver by post or by email. Offer them valuable pet care tips and news about local pet events and activities.  You will soon become a resource that they rely on.

5. Joint Venture Strategy

Joint ventures are partnerships formed with other pet business owners where you create a win-win relationship to promote both your businesses.  One example of a joint venture could be giving out discount coupons to a local grooming service to your pet sitting customers in exchange for the groomer giving out coupons for your pet sitting business to their clients.  Another example is partnering with other business owners to jointly organize and promote a local pet event. There are many ways that you can tap into the clients of a similar business by using joint ventures.

6. Message Strategy

You message strategy should detail how you plan to communicate with your clients to make sure that your communication is consistant with the image or brand that you want to convey to clients. Messages to clients can include the daily updates that you leave during pet sitting visits, your regular email correspondance, what you tell them in your newsletters, or how you follow up using cards or direct mail. You brand image should also shine through in your advertising that you do so that your message to clients is consistant.

Your message stategy may also detail how your communication to potential and existing clients introduces them to the upgraded services or products that you sell in addition to basic pet sitting services.

7. Viral Strategy

Viral marketing involves the use of fun videos or informational e-books that can passed from person to person on the internet or offline. The videos and e-books contain a link or promotion for your business so that they create traffic to your pet sitting website. A great example of this is the latest JC Penny video “Beware of the Doghouse” or the free ebook that I told you about last Friday in this blog post.  Think about how you can use viral marketing in 2009 by creating your own valuable information that you give away and allow others to distribute on their website, via their blog, or to their customers.  

8. Sales Strategy

You sales strategy involves the way in which you lead your prospective pet sitting clients through the process of getting to know you and your business, see samples or your work, and then make the decision to buy your services or products. This may include getting them onto your email or newsletter list by giving away a free pet resource, then showing them more about you by communicating to them in your newsletters, and then making them a special offer in your newsletter - for example offering a discount or free upgrade to entice them to buy.

9. Online Strategy

You online strategy details how you will attract potential clients to your pet sitting website and build traffic.  You can build traffic by getting others to link to your site by placing online ads on related websites, placing ads in pet related ezines, posting in pet forums, or writing articles or press releases that you write online.  Some other ideas for creating traffic and attracting visitors are to build your own blog, Squidoo lenses, or Hub Pages with valuable pet information.

You can also attract traffic using Google Adwords advertising - the ads you see in the right margin when you do a Google search. The most cost effective way to get more traffic is to optimize your website to attract natural search engine traffic. Learn how tomorrow night in the Pet Business Success Circle monthly call.

You’ll notice that I only listed 9 spokes. For some reason Janis has Time Strategy listed twice on her wheel. I’m not sure it that is intentional or a mistake.  If you are interested in getting some more information about the 10 Spoke wheel Janis is hosting a free teleseminar later this week - http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=38431133482

Don’t forget to sign up for my call tomorrow night with Jordan from Petaholics to learn how to use search engine optimization to get your pet sitting website listed in the search engines. You can find all the information you need about the call right here:

Interview with Jordan to disuss website SEO

How to Use Website SEO to Get More Pet Sitting Customers

Filed Under Pet Business Success Circle, Pet Sitting Business Tips | 3 Comments

This Tuesday evening I will be interviewing Jordan Kaplan owner of Petaholics - a pet sitting company based in New York - for my montly Pet Business Success Circle pet expert call.

Just like me, Jordan gets a lot of new pet sitting customers that find him on the web via his website.  Jordan will be teaching us how to get our pet sitting websites great rankings in the major search engines by using seach engine optimization (SEO) techniques and strategies.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to get your own business website. Markting online is very cost friendly compared to direct mail or magazine advertising. I would estimate that currently at least 95% of new customers tell me that they find my pet sitting business online by doing a Google or Yahoo search.  I have all the details, policies, and pet sitting prices on my website so it makes it easy for people to see what they will get with my service, and make a decision on which pet sitting company they want to hire.  When they make a choice they can submit a reservation to me right on my site - this offers them great convenience.

Some of the topics that Jordan will be discussing are:

1) What are search engines and why are they important?

2) What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

3) How does SEO work?

4) How can pet sitters use SEO to get ranked in major search engines?

5) How can you get links to your website?

6) Why SEO is the most important and cost effective marketing tool for your business

You can join us on the call with Jordan this Tuesday night at 7pm CT for just $7 when you sign up for your trial membership of the Pet Business Success Circle.  You $7 will also get you access to all the recordings and transcripts of all our past calls on marketing, using contractors, writing press releases, and using virtual assistants.  It’s great value! You can learn more about the Success Circle and sign up for your trial right here: http://www.petbusinesssuccesscircle.com. 

All members will also receive a very special bonus - Alice Seba’s report “75 Link Building Strategies For Increased Traffic and Search Engine Rankings”. This report will give you plenty of ideas to start using SEO with your website and is a $12 value.

If you can’t make it to the call live on Tuesday - all members will receive a recording of the call and a written transcript.  Sign up now and I look forward to hearing you on the call!

 

Get More Clients By Defining Your Pet Sitting Unique Sales Proposition

Filed Under Pet Sitting Business Tips | 2 Comments

Quick Tip ThursdayA unique selling proposition, or unique selling point, is a marketing device intended to make your business stand out to your target market. It’s the real or perceived benefit that convinces your target market to invest in your service. For pet sitters, it’s crucial to define your USP, as many pet sitting businesses offer the same kinds of services.

To define your USP, you must first evaluate how your business measures up against your local competitors. Take a look on the internet and check out some of the websites of your local competitors.

As you looked at the websites and marketing materials of other pet sitting businesses in your service area did you notice differences in the services or customer experience that your pet sitting business provides?

If nothing jumped out at you immediately here are some questions to get you started:

Do you offer free initial interviews or consultations?

Do you offer a uniquely secure key system?

Do you offer a rare pet sitting service?

Do you have more years of experience serving your local area?

Do you specialize in exotic pets?

Do you offer overnight visits or house and pet sitting?

Do you offer payment by credit card or paypal?

Do you offer text message or email daily or weekly pet updates?

Do you offer weekly or monthly dog walking packages?

Do you offer any additional convenience to your customers?

Do you offer online or email booking service?

Do you offer dog training services?

Do you have accreditation with a pet sitting association?

Do you have a disaster emergency plan?

Do you have an arrangement to have a vet on call for emergency service?

Another important question to ask is – is there anything that other competitive pet sitting services lack that you could provide in your business? Is there a customer need that is not being met in your area?

The answers to these questions and those like them can help you define your USP and give you the extra edge against your competitors.

Also consider the needs and desires of your target market. What services do your target market value? Is the need already being met by a competitor in the business? If it’s not, you may have an easy opportunity to develop a USP. For instance, if your target market contains active, outdoorsy young adults, it’s likely that they take their pets out for runs with them. In a scenario like this, you could offer an “exercise” service in which you stand in for the owner and jog along with the pet if no other business does.

Evaluate your business against others objectively. It’s easy to think that you’ve found a USP when, in reality, it’s common or existed as part of the business for years. Think outside of the box and get as unique as you can. What does your competition fail or refuse to provide? What can you only offer potential customers who want a pet sitter?

Sometimes, uniqueness in a business can be difficult to identify- especially if the market is already saturated with business offering similar services. In cases like these, you may want to make your unique selling point yourself. Consider the experience you may have in pet sitting or your familiarity with certain breeds of animals.

Have you worked at a veterinary hospital or volunteered at an animal shelter?

Do you have pet first aid training?

Do you have experience administering medication or providing daily shots?

Do you have experience preparing raw or special diets?

Do you have grooming experience?

Do you network with other local pet care providers and can offer backup care?

Once you’ve identified your USP, it’s important to incorporate it into your marketing strategy. You want potential customers to know that you stand out over the rest.

Now put together the elements of you USP into a single statement. (2 sentences at most).

Make it short, sweet and enticing so that potential customers know why they should use your service and think of you the next time they need a specialized pet sitting service.

1) Make it benefit-oriented (tell your client what’s in it for her or him).

2) Be specific (avoid generalities).
3) Use simple language.

4) Be direct and to the point (be concise).
Put together your USP this week and start using it in your marketing. You’ll notice that you attact more great customers to your business.

If you have some good USP ideas that you would like to share with other sitters please leave a comment after this post.

What If You Set Off A Pet Sitting Customers Home Alarm?

Filed Under Pet Sitting Business Tips | 2 Comments

What If WednesdayWhat if you arrive at a pet sitting visit, walk into the house and the alarm goes off?  What if you you can’t get it to shut off?

What do you do?

This situation happened to one of my pet sitters a few years ago. She set off the customers home alarm and despite her best attempts could not get it to shut off.  The police arrived to investigate and she had to explain the situation to them. She had a signed copy of our pet sitting contract to verify that she was indeed caring for the pets.  She talked to the alarm company and they shut off the system.  It all ended well but it was a very harrowing experience for her as you can imagine.

Most monitored home alarms do give you the ability to cancel the monitoring alert if you know the right buttons to push so that the alarm company does not call if you accidently trigger the alarm upon entering the home.  Our home alarm system requires you to enter the code and press the cancel button. 

If you do trigger an alarm and do get it shut off but can’t cancel the alert, typically the monitoring company will call the customers home phone within 10 minutes and ask you for a pass code. If you are able to confirm the password they will not send out the police to investigate and cancel the alert.

Preventative measures

As with most situations in life - when dealing with home alarm systems prevention is better than cure. To avoid this type of situation make sure that at the initial customer interview that you familiarize yourself well with the alarm system and ask the customer if you can practive de-activating and activating their system. 

Make sure you make note of the code that you need to enter when you arrive at the home and also ask them to provide their password just in case the monitoring company should call.  If they are not comfortable giving you their code and password most alarm companies will allow the home owner to set up a temporary code and password for you.

An even better precaution is to ask the homeowner to call their alarm system provider and let them know that they will have a pet sitter visiting their home while they are away. Get them to give their alarm company your name and contact details just in case they need to contact you. 

It can also be a good precaution for the homeowners to alert the local police that they will be away and that they organized for you to be entering their home.  Some neighbourhoods have police patrols and the police may check in on the home if they notice unusual activity.  Make sure that your sitters have a signed copy of the customer contract just in case they need to prove to police that they have permission to access the home.

Many homes today have alarm systems installed. If you don’t have an alarm sytem and are not familiar with their use it is a good idea to get aquainted with their operation. As you gain more experience they will become second nature.  Don’t let your guard down - make sure you collect the alarm company information and passwords - you never know when you wil need them!

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