PetBiz Branding - Helping Pet Businesses Stand Out In A Crowd - by Laura Togerson

So, why is YOUR dog walking service/s better then your competitions?  Providing the “Dog Walking” service to your customer/s is considered a “staple” in the pet sitting business and as we all know, it’s important to make YOUR services… whether it’s dog walking services, pet sitting services or overnights – to be DIFFERENT then your competition. You must try to find ways to add value added services to your pet services in order to make your pet business stand out and appear to be worth more.  So this is a great time to focus on your services, each one individually and write about it. Brag about it and really show your pet website visitors why your pet services are better then the rest.

Share your link to your blog post! Let’s read it!

More and more pet sitting companies are now offering a Quick Mid-day visit and if they are great little value visits if marketed properly. This article is not about marketing quick mid-day dog visits but rather something you as a pet sitting or dog walking business could easily blog about. This is a great way to market, create and convince your target clients of the advantages of a mid-day dog visit! A simple blog post can create a “need” especially when you talk about the advantages to the pet parent. Here’s some ideas for your blog post.

Provides dog with a quick visit potty break – especially for clients who work 8-12 hour days. Focus on why dogs shouldn’t be with out washroom breaks more then 12 hours at a time.

Provides A Good 10 Minutes of Exercise – Focus on how a quick visit can provide relief from built up tensions, especially for dogs in creates. Exercise – even t10 minutes of running crazy in a backyard can make a huge difference for the owners with regards to behavior.

Provides More Freedom To Clients - Focus on how clients will feel knowing that their dog has had a break during the day, exercise and even a little company which makes the choice to work a little longer , join colleges for happy hour , or do errands before coming home.

Easy On The Budget – Focus on afford-ability of this service to clients, make comparisons such as “For the cost of a McDonalds breakfast”, or other wording that creates a sense of afford-ability.

What you ask? These are 3 phrases that I personally use as TOOLS in creating the wording or content of the front page of a new website ( If I am asked to do the content for the website that is ).  As pet sitters, dog walkers and pet care companies, we have a job to do with our pet website right?. It is again, after all ( and I”ll repeat it so many times I make you ill ), but our number 1 tool is OUR WEBSITE!. So you have only 1 time to make that first impression. So let’s hop to it, I’ll share my web page theory with you.

We must CAPTURE the interest and attention of the potential client immediately upon entering our website. You don’t have time to make them scroll to find it, you don’t have time to delay in saying something that is of value that will CAPTURE their attention ( and gals and guys, I mean relative to your goal of your website! ) So how do you capture?  A combination of elements will CAPTURE your potential client and one of those are a well designed website, a fast loading website and one that is easy to navigate. But for the purpose of this article, I am going to talk about the “content”. This is very important. Follow these steps below to help you ensure you have the right “content” to CAPTURE!.  It is the first TITLE or HEADING of your website that will get noticed first.

What to do?

A) think of your self as a potential client. How would you want to be greeted? B) Create a CAPTURING heading that both “welcomes” the potential client AND secretly invites to ready more?

Here’s an example: Relate your wording to your personality, your business but remember – stay professional!

1) WELCOME! 2) RUFF RUFF! SO GLAD YOU FOUND US!

Now you’ve captured their attention, you now need to keep it by CAPTIVATING them. How do you do that? The content under your CAPTURE HEADING must swoon about your business’s claim to fame. You must be able to sell your business as a whole enough so, that they actually read the content and call you. I believe that call – to – actions are important – yes – and normally these goodies sit at the top of the page – usually your phone number and contact information – good! but I also believe that you can have all the call-to-actions in the world and if your first title or heading doesn’t also capture, they won’t read the content, and if they don’t read the content you cannot captivate properly. It’s not about answering questions or their F.A.Q’s – quite frankly they don’t even matter at this stage – what matters is that you’ve captured them in a professional, meaning, and sincere way that they right away know – they found you! They found “the one”. Then you present the opportunity on a platter also beneath your wonderful presentation – they call and the rest is wonderful history with a fabulous client.

Next, after we captivate, we want to immediately dispel worry, or the common fears and concerns that a potential client may have. How can we assure, how can we give parcels of our understanding before they even have to mention them? Here’s how and for the record – I received such a wonderful emotional reward really by a new client after a consult – she said “It was like you were me – you do things as I would, you run your business as I would with regards to loving animals – I know I have the right company – I knew it the moment I landed on your site and solidified it meeting you” WOW!!!! Holy Wow!! THAT’S WHAT YOU WANT!.

We captured, we captivated and now we must eliminate worry and fear.  At the end of your Captivated paragraphs talk to your potential clients as if they were in front of you. Here’s our ELIMINATION paragraph!

“We are known for our ability to instantly exude complete worry-free pet visits for our clients through the execution of both professional and above-and-beyond standards of care regardless of what type of visit performed. Your pet’s safety and ensuring you ( our client ) is completely worry-free -  is our number 1 concern – if you do have a  worry – we have a plan for that!” CALL US TODAY!

I hope this article has helped spawn some ideas for pet sitters, dog walkers and other pet related business owners!

I’m laughing as I write this, not at anyone or any thing – it’s more a chuckle really. Why? Well, what time of year is it? VACATION TIME!! WOOHOO!! Time to book those flights, go to the cottage, visit a friends place up north and simply – have a great time enjoying the fabulous summer weather!. ( at least for places around the world that have 4 seasons! ) This is a great time to talk, blog and hype of vacation time for your clients.

What can we blog about?

• How trust is super important in order to care for clients homes and pets during a vacation when they are gone for more then just a few hours.
• How their pets will miss them, but will surely be even happier at home, you can provide a mini vacation for them with each visit!
• How they benefit from YOUR visits with their home insurance – you are visiting daily, you can water gardens, you can do visual checks for home safety

FOCUS ON NO WORRY – STRESS FREE VACATIONS AND HAPPY PETS AT HOME!

If you blogged about this today please do share below by replying to this blog post!

So all dog walking companies and pet sitting companies offer dog walking right? Whether it’s a 30 min visit or 1 hour visit. Regardless of what type, kind, or length of dog walking services your company provides, why not blog about the BENEFITS of dog walking ? Now, to take it a step further and expose the benefits in behavior of a dog who has daily dog walks vrs dogs who do not have daily dog walks? Concentrate on “behavior” and the benefits again – of better behaved, happy and exercised dogs.

If you blogged about this – share your link below!