Do you know you need to up your horse marketing game?
Do you raise great horses, stand a great stud, or train horses really well? Are you frustrated when you see lesser horses or lesser trainers getting better prices or being sold out or booked up sooner?
Are you able to use a computer but don’t have the time nor interest to teach yourself how to build and maintain websites, figure out a social media campaign, and find out the best way to collect email addresses and send emails?
We help horsemen use digital marketing to sell their horses and services faster and for better prices.
There are exceptions, but very few people can successfully sell horses today without digital marketing. Digital marketing includes websites, social media, email marketing. Those methods of reaching customers helps you build respect, reach new customers, stay in touch with your existing customers, and get your horses out there in front of people who want them.
We start with your goals
Put Kristin’s education and work background in strategy and planning to work for you. We start with what you need to accomplish. If you want to increase shipped semen breedings on a stallion, we need to take a different approach than if goal one is to sell foals at weaning for more money.
Why isn’t Facebook good enough?
It’s easy to think Facebook is good enough. Many breeders, trainers, marketers have built good businesses on Facebook and there is no doubt it should be an important piece of your social media marketing. However, Facebook’s rules ban selling animals. Usually, they don’t enforce the bans but sometimes they do. All it takes is for someone to turn you in and an important post or, worse, your business page, can be taken down.
Even if that risk is something you can live with, you are better off using Facebook as an adjunct to your own website. You present a more professional, serious, long term and committed appearance to your potential customers. You control what appears where. The parts you need to be permanent stay that way – no mysterious algorithm controls what shows up where.
Speaking of the algorithm, don’t forget that your business page doesn’t show up in people’s feeds enough to matter. It used to, but they changed that because they prefer you to buy ads to “boost” your business posts.
In short, you own your website. You do not own Facebook. You don’t even have a good lease.
(Must be more reasons)
Building websites is . . .
Interestingly, some people think it is too hard to have a website. To them we say, we can make it easy enough to be worth your time and investment. We ask about your goals, your available time, and your computer skills. If you have basic computer skills and will commit some time to learning and to keeping your website up to date, we can help you have an effective horse marketing website.
Or, we hear people say, “it is so easy my 11 year old nephew can do it for me”. Well, nope. He can’t build an effective horse selling website. He doesn’t yet know how to start with goals and build a user experience around that. If he can figure out how to make a great looking, mobile responsive, pedigree table, have him contact us about joining the team.
You need expertise and experience in the horse industry and you need technical expertise, and you need strategic and marketing experience. You need resources to do this right. There are so many things you need to know and keep up to date on.
We have those skills, we have those products and we keep up, and you can benefit.
Maintaining a website is . . .
Here, we admit to some frustration. Keeping a site up and running is expensive and tedious. Websites involve a lot of moving parts. Those moving parts give us features that make our websites effective. However, like anything with moving parts, they can break. These aren’t like small square balers that break all the time, but it takes some experience and time to keep them running well.
Great hosting is a requirement. We only use great hosting. Been there, done that with less than great hosting. Yes, great hosting is expensive. You get what you pay for.
Training and help is . . .
Having a great looking website doesn’t do you any good if you can’t keep it updated. Ever seen a site that offers a mare who is bred for a 2017 foal? We prevent that from happening. Yes, you will need to do the updates (or at least provide the information if you subscribe to our content services) but we promise to make it as easy as possible for you!
How do we make it easy?
- First, we build the site together during your one day session
- We understand your time is limited and valuable and design our process to make things easier and faster than DIY systems
- Your site will include written step by step instructions
- You’ll have access to our how-to written and video training
Kristin has decades of teaching and training experience in community colleges and privately. You’ll understand and have the documentation you need to change the content on your site.
All the other digital marketing “things” are . . .
There is a lot more to it than just building a website and having good content on it. Email Marketing and Social Media Marketing are important because they reach different audiences in different ways and they can, if used correctly, drive people to your website. They also give people alternative ways to reach you.