Book Your Pet's Top 10 Marketing Strategies For Small Businesses

Starting a small business is an exciting step in establishing your career in the pet industry. When implementing marketing strategies for small business development, you’ll find many great options to consider, whether you’re opening a retail pet store, an online dog training business, or providing grooming services. 

Solid small business marketing strategies and ideas will give you the tools you need to acquire new customers, establish your brand, improve your income, and enjoy long-term success. 

What are the most effective strategies for small business growth?

Below we review the top ten marketing ideas for small businesses to help your local business thrive online, in your community, and through networking techniques.

1. Social Media Marketing

Social media platforms are one of the most valuable ways to promote your business and engage with customers. Whether you create a page on Facebook, create Facebook ads, or an account on Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok, new customers will view your posts more frequently when you add hashtags and content related to pets and the services and products that you offer.

Establishing a solid social media can be very beneficial for your business. You’ll find many valuable tools to build visually appealing pictures, videos, and posts to invite users and new customers to engage in conversation and determine what your audience wants. 

If your focus is on a local area or community where your pet store or grooming business is located, you’ll find many online features, including Google ads and other social channels, which target your city or immediate area with content marketing ideas and ads. 

Social media and online business platforms offer unlimited options for sharing your creative marketing ideas, where you can provide links to your company’s website, blog posts, video marketing, and Google business profile.

2. Email Marketing Strategies

Email marketing is an incredibly valuable tool in your digital marketing arsenal and gives you an important direct channel of communication with potential and existing customers. 

It’s a great way to connect with potential customers who are visiting your social media page or website, with the option of signing up for regular communication on sales, new product releases, and special services offered through your business. 

Marketing campaigns are ideal for email and may include incentives such as coupons, a free product, or a free trial or discount for membership, based on the pet services you provide.

Emails are also an easily automated form of marketing which takes the pressure off continuous manual work to promote your pet business. 

3. Design A Business Card

While there are many online channels, social media marketing options, and advertising strategies that can help you establish a solid customer base, designing and distributing a business card for your services is a great way to network and get to know potential customers in local coffee shops, veterinary clinics, pet shelters, and nearby community centers. 

As a small business owner, you’ll find great value in sharing your business card in places such as your neighborhood grocery store or farmer’s market.

4. Offer A Free Consultation

If you’re new to owning a small pet business, you may find a great response from new clients when you offer a free, 30-minute consultation or a brief session to provide an essential service, such as primary dog training commands to a new pet owner, or as a veterinarian nutritionist, some advice on improving your pet’s diet for optimal health. 

A free consultation gives prospective clients an idea of what you have to offer as a small business owner. It’s also an excellent opportunity to showcase your professional services, provide a fee structure for future business, and generate new leads as you expand your company. 

5. Google My Business Listing

When you list your small business with Google My Business, it’s a powerful marketing tactic to attract new customers. It’s a great way to make your business visible locally so that you can advertise without investing in costly ads. 

Google My Business combines various platforms from Google into one place, which connects Google reviews on your business, Google Maps, Google Analytics, and more. When your business moves up the list and into the top-ranked companies, you’ll have the advantage of expanding your visibility and the potential for significant growth without spending extra money on ads.

The Book Your Pet app and marketplace also offer a similar platform to promote your business locally by enabling pet parents to search for pet service providers within a set radius of their homes. 

6. Google Adwords

One of the more traditional digital marketing strategies, Google Adwords, is an excellent way to establish brand awareness, as it helps your business gain momentum, even in a highly competitive market. 

While Google Adwords is a bit more expensive than other marketing methods, it’s a worthwhile option if you want to expand your online visibility. This paid channel has the potential to boost your company’s name on search results due to local SEO features, which deliver relevant results to your target audience, and potential customers, searching for a business.

7. Content Marketing Strategy

When you’re aiming for long-term success as a part of your business marketing strategy, content marketing is a vital tool for promoting your services and products to a well-defined audience through various channels and platforms, including forums, websites, blog posts, and social media. 

This type of marketing focuses on providing curated, carefully written content that provides value to potential customers by employing SEO content, relevant or trending topics, and new and innovative ideas that provide valuable content for a wider audience. 

Various channels amplify content marketing, including podcasts, blogs, online courses or webinars, videos, and writing articles or blog posts as a guest on another website. While the results using this type of marketing strategy may not yield results immediately, you’ll notice long-term gains with the small business marketing strategy.

8. Coupon and Discount Websites

If you’re looking to boost your marketing effort and promote a specific product or service, coupon websites, such as Groupon, are a great way to attract new and potential customers based on location and interest in certain businesses. 

Coupon deals are widely popular and are often grouped or categorized by the type of service, pet business, location, and other criteria visitors can query when searching the website. While you’ll invite mass exposure and interest in your business, you should be prepared for a sizeable response, which can easily double or triple overnight, especially if your product or service is in high demand.

9. Staff Incentives And Referrals

A lesser-known but highly effective way to gain new clients is through referrals from staff and colleagues in the pet industry. 

When you provide incentives to your staff, such as bonuses for customer referrals, vouchers for restaurants, local events, and gym memberships, you’ll provide an excellent opportunity for your employees to invite family and friends to visit your shop or try your services. 

While some incentives are monetary, such as a commission or bonus, many people appreciate a day off work, or discounts, as a valuable reward.

10. Attend And Participate In Trade Shows And Local Events

If you live in a city or a vibrant area with local trade shows, you’ll likely find an opportunity to showcase your local business at one of these events. 

It’s a great way to boost your marketing efforts and essentially put your brand on display, which can draw the attention of new customers and other businesses in the industry with which you may want to collaborate on future events and projects, which can improve your success in the interim and the long term.

Summary

When you develop a small business marketing plan, there are plenty of strategies to consider, whether your focus is primarily local and community-based or marketing to a broader target audience online. 

It’s important to consider that while some marketing ideas for small businesses are highly influential within a short period, your long-term success depends on combining various methods to ensure consistent results. We hope our top marketing tips for small businesses have helped.

Looking for another great resource for marketing strategies for your small business? Book Your Pet is a great tool that offers in-built marketing strategies when you find yourself stuck on what you should do.