FE770: Business End of the Dog: Marketing for Pet Professionals

Syllabus

Pre-Work: 4 Things to do Before Class Begins

Intro: Name, Business, Website and a bit about your goals

Prelecture: Seth Godin TED Talk Discussion: What's REMARKABLE in dog training?

Week 1:

What is Marketing

Creating Paths to Purchase

What works? What doesn't?

Bonus lecture: Copywriting & Gathering Testimonials

Bonus lecture: Features v. Benefits

How People Make Decisions

Week 2:

*NEW* Free v. Paid: How to Decide What is Marketing & What's a Paid Service

What You Need to Know About Your Website

Your Guide to Google Analytics

Discussion Topic: It's All Behavior

*NEW* Strategically Free: How to Turn Freeloaders Into Paying Customers

Bonus Lecture: How Websites Work

Who Are Your Ideal Customers?

*NEW* Making the Most of Those Who Already Love You: Converting Existing Clients

Week 3:

Bonus Lecture: What is SEO and How Can I Rank on Google?

How Much Should I You Spend on Marketing (Part 1)

How Much Should I You Spend on Marketing (Part 2)

Creating Your Marketing Plan

*NEW* Standing Out from the Crowd: How to Sell Online Services When COVID is Driving Everyone Online

*NEW* Virtual Services vs. In Person Services: What’s Different When It Comes to Marketing?

Bonus Lecture: Setting Up Yoast

Week 4:

Email Marketing: Advantages and Download Incentives

Bonus Lecture: Confirmation Email Template

Discussion Topic: Visual Branding

Email Marketing: What, When, and Why

Social Media: Choosing Platforms

Social Media Part 2: Getting Started

Social Media: How to Win Friends and Influence People

*NEW* Ongoing Engagement: Keeping Top Of Mind When Not Seeing Clients In Person

Week 5:

Paid Advertising: Facebook and Google

Blogging 101: Words Matter

Implementing Your Marketing Plan: Tips and Tricks

Week 6:

A closer look: Additional marketing channels

implementing your marketing plan part 2

Prerequisites & Supplies

Sample Lecture

Week 1, Lecture 1: What is Marketing?

There’s an S-word that I’ve found most small business owners think of as a dirty word… they cringe when they’re asked to do it and they avoid talking about it any more than they have to.

But in this class, we’re going to get it right out there in the open.

What word am I talking about?

Sales.

While not every marketer on the planet will agree with me, I think marketing and sales should be very closely tied together. If your marketing isn’t eventually helping you make money, I think it’s probably not marketing worth doing.

So we’ll be talking a lot in this class about how the marketing techniques we discuss tie back to getting you more customers or clients, what you’re selling those dog owners, and how to tell whether or not things are working.

Most of you probably fall into 1 of 3 categories:

1. You’re new to dog training or marketing and aren’t sure where to start.

2. You’ve been doing this a while, but are struggling to get enough business or aren’t really sure your marketing efforts are doing anything.

3. You’re successful, and know your parts of your marketing work (because you have more than enough clients!) but you don’t know which parts and are looking to drill down into it so you can spend less time on marketing activities overall.

Regardless of which situation fits you best, my goal in this class is to help you develop a plan to move forward — and give you the confidence to work through that plan and keep with it even after this class has ended.

So, let’s get to the heart of the matter. What is Marketing?

Marketing is the process by which we can take someone who has never heard of you or your business before and get them ready to buy.

Google defines it a little differently, but has a similar idea: the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising.

I like my definition better, of course. Why? Because the word process implies that marketing is about getting someone to take steps toward the end goal of buying a product or service.

In fact, there are three basic steps we need to think about.

Step one: You need to take people who have never heard of your business before and make them aware it (and you!) exist.

Step two: If you’ve ever had a friend recommend a product to you and then thought to yourself later, “Now what was the name of that again?” you’ll understand why this second step is important. This step is about getting those potential client’s names and some sort of contact information, so you can begin to build a relationship with them.

Step three: Finally, in comes that S-word. Once you’ve had a chance to build up some trust, it’s time to sell them something. In marketing, that’s often called a “conversion.”

Homework Assignment 1:  I want you to take and list out all of the things (or anything) you do for marketing now, and then think about where each of those things might fit into these three stages. If you’re brand new, and aren’t doing any marketing yet, I want you to list out marketing ideas and what step you think those ideas might fit into.

Testimonials

A sampling of what prior students have said about this course ...

I really enjoyed this course. It has given me a lot of useful information to implement. Thank you FDSA for including a class like this in your offerings and thank you Melissa for taking the time to put this course together & teach it.       

There was a huge amount of content in this class that went above and beyond the syllabus and my expectations. Melissa gave lots of specific advice to each gold student, since each business was different in where it was in the marketing process. I highly recommend this class to anyone who runs their own dog business!         

Fantastic class! The early topics were a little painful but so necessary, so having guidance through that was very helpful. I feel like I actually have a PLAN going forward, and a much better ability to assess whether my marketing attempts are fruitful or not - this was a big source of stress which results in stalling out on actually getting a marketing project underway. Thanks, Melissa!       

Marketing has always been a thorn in my side when it came to my business. Melissa broke things down into manageable pieces that i could wrap my head around. I don't feel like SEO and all the marketing lingo is a foreign language anymore, and I am confident that i can successfully move my business into the place I want it to be! Thanks Melissa!          

I like to thank Melissa for the time she spent on each and every person’s thread..she wrote ESSAYS to people...seriously amazing. AND I think I learned some stuff! Lol       

Registration

There are no scheduled sessions for this class at this time. We update our schedule frequently, so please subscribe to our mailing list for notifications.

Registration opens at 10:30am Pacific Time.

FE770 Subscriptions

	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Tuition	$ 260.00	$ 130.00	$ 65.00
Enrollment Limits	12	25	Unlimited
Access all course lectures and materials	✔	✔	✔
Access to discussion and homework forums	✔	✔	✔
Read all posted questions and answers	✔	✔	✔
Watch all posted videos	✔	✔	✔
Post general questions to Discussion forum	✔	✔	✖
Submit written assignments	✔	✖	✖
Post dog specific questions	✔	With video only	✖
Post videos	✔	Up to 2	✖
Receive instructor feedback on	Questions All videos	Questions All videos	✖

Find more details, refund policies and answers to common questions in the Help center.