Your 'Market' is your potential audience, your potential clients - the subsection of the population that would make ideal clients for you. 

If your message does not match what the market wants or needs to hear, people wont buy your Dog Walking services. 

So let's define your Market...

Naturally, that is only dog owners.  We've just chopped out two-thirds of the population (the non-dog-owners).

We also obviously cannot very much help those who cannot afford to pay for a Dog Walker (unless you're offering work for free?).  So they need to be wealthy enough to afford you.  Harsh but true. 

And in your local area. 

But ideally also they need to know they need a Dog Walker. 

(Depending on where they are in the buying-cycle or buying process, they may not yet be there on the last point.  Your marketing to those that dont yet know they need a Dog Walker will be very different.  More on how to message to different stages of the buying cycle later). 

There needs to be something they are struggling with, as a dog-owner. 

It is vital that what your marketing says to your market, is what and how they think. 

Meet them where they are, mentally.

• Your messaging needs to call out the audience.
• It needs to show what the pain-points are - what the client needs.
• And what problem you are solving.
• Why the client needs your service?
• And what sets you apart from other such services?

This is initially intuitively obvious, and also subtly difficult.

The key thing is to dig into WHY a client might think they want a Dog Walker, and how using YOUR services will be best for THEM.

Remember - it is all about THEM !

So now let's look closer at all the reasons that a dog owner might want to hire a Dog Walker.

Why Might a Dog Owner Want a Dog Walker?

They are out at work and don't want to leave their dog alone.

They haven't got time to walk the dog (new baby in the house etc)

Occasional work travel

Unable to walk much - somewhat disabled. 

Incapable of walking their own dog (45% of owners are concerned about walking their own dog), whether because...

• The dog is too strong or heavy
• They don't trust the dog off lead
• Concerned about local legal restrictions on dogs
• Safety concerns 

(An aside-story on safety - in early 2021, when my dog was heavily and visibly pregnant, because of a lot of dog-theft by the local caravan-dwelling population, I had to walk our dog in the small hours of the morning, like at 2am, for fear of this dog theft.  Pregnant dogs were a particular target because the thieves get more profit selling the pups). 

Wont walk the dog in poor weather (50% of dog owners will skip a dog walk because of poor weather).

Wants their dog to have a group walk, to enjoy some social time with other dogs.
(This is my current main reason for hiring our Dog Walker, because I work from home and can normally take them out daily myself, but they go and have a doggy party at least once a fortnight, purely for the socials.)

To help you think through more of these different motivations, I am created this list of 30+ reasons a dog-owner might hire a Dog Walker, which you can download here <<

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Message To Market Match

Now consider the marketing message to appeal to each of those motivations.  They are each very different. 

Imagine these different advert Headlines...

"Dog Owners: Are you busy out there, working, making ends meet, and worried your dog is lonely and unhealthy at home on their own?"

or

"ATTENTION Dog Owners:  Have you seen the weather out there?? It sucks.  Do you really want to take your dog out right now?  Let me do it for you."

You can see these 2 adverts appeal to very different people at different times, with different motivations.

So consider which is your clients' biggest motivator, and what your message needs to be.

And when.  The same person might change their motivations at different times of the day, week, month or year.  For example the weather-based motivation will likely only be a driver in winter and early spring. 

Nobody is going to look at your marketing if it is boring.

How do you hook them, to begin with?

Everybody is busy.  Nobody has time spare to look at your marketing.  Or do they?  How do you make them?

With a good hook, to first snare them, to stop them leaving, to catch them in, before they then go on to the rest of your marketing content...

Question Hook

- "Did you know that 45% of dog-owners are worried about walking their own dogs?"

- "Could you get more free time with this one simple service local to [your town]?"

- "Are you part of the 50% of all dog owners who use poor crap weather as an excuse to skip a dog walk?"

Statement Hook

- "This 1 way to get your dog healthier"

- "You're losing out right now on..."

Metaphor Hooks

- "This clock represents your time with your dog..."

- "If this jar of marbles represents your dogs health..."

- "If this raw egg in the frying pan represents your dog's happiness, and you could turn the gas up to make them super-happy, would you crank it up?  I can help bring you a lorry load of gas."

[I am making these up - they dont all work perfectly!]

Is it an allegory, analogy or a metaphor?  Nobody cares but your old English teacher!  What matters is this...  Did it work?  Did it keep people engaged?

Open-Loop or Teaser Hooks

- "I'm about to show you 2 ways to make your dog behave better... but first ..." [and dont answer the 2 ways until later] 

- "I got this result [show fantastic result] and I want to show you how you can too..."

First Three Seconds

If your first 3 seconds is boring, don't bother with creating the rest of you marketing.  Whether it is a leaflet through the door or a Facebook ad.  If your first 3 seconds is boring, they've gone to do the washing up or sort the kids or something else equally interesting!

Grab them in those first 3 seconds.

With a hook.  With an open loop.  Anything that will create intrigue and make them want to stay to find out.

Set Ups & Pay Offs

Creating an open loop is a set up. "I've outlined the 3 steps I took which cost me a fortune and failed, so you'll want to avoid them, but more on that in a minute..."

Closing that loop is the pay off. When you find out what the answer was.

Do NOT close that loop until you absolutely must.  Do not close it too soon.  

This is an art.  And best learnt from studying other good marketing. 

For now, just be aware that you want to create intrigue at the beginning of your marketing, in your headline, in your opening...

And later, you need to close that loop, answer that question or intrigue, at the end and no sooner than you absolutely have to. 

The art is knowing when to close the loop, without annoying or boring the viewer by closing too late - or boring them because you closed the loop too soon , and they're no longer intrigued or interested. 

How much can you spend to get a new customer? Knowing your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) will help you decide. 

This metric is important when analysing the future strength of your business, and making marketing decisions.

It reflects the income your business made from an average customer across the time period that they remained a paying customer.

It can be measured as gross profit (total money paid by a customer in the whole time period they are a paying customer) or net profit (gross profit minus costs to acquire that customer, to get them to become a customer ie advertising etc).

To get this gross CLV figure, add up the total payments from all customers (gross profit) and divide by the number of customers to get the average figure.  

If possible, in your calculation, if you can ignore all current paying customers, you will get a more accurate figure, because you do not yet know how many more payments current customers will make in the future.

For the net CLV, add up the total payments from all (discontinued) customers, minus all marketing costs (advertising, printing etc), and then divide this figure by the number of customers.

Note that this CLV is an evolving number.  Re-calculate it every year or sooner. 

Gross customer lifetime value is a vital number to know because it tells you the maximum that you can spend on getting a new customer.

There are some other vital metrics which I will go into separately, because they need to be detailed; like lead-to-sale conversion rate, cost per lead, attrition.  More to come on this..

An excellent book worth reading is "Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success" (available on Amazon here). It is all about how their success is based on simplicity. Not on technological gismos. It's about making it very simple for their customers, and how it isn't necessarily easy to keep it simple, but absolutely vital.

This 'make it simple for customers' approach works.

Consider this...

Most valuable products and companies apply this rule...

Consider the ice-cream vendors on the beach.  The ice-creams are usually more expensive than in the supermarket, but people buy them anyway, because it saves them the hassle of walking to the supermarket in the nearest town.

Think of why you use any product.

• A car... saves you the hassle of walking or any other method of transport.
• A computer... saves you the stress of calculating by hand, writing by hand.
• A toaster... saves you the stress of using a grill to burn both side of the bread when you forget to turn it over!
• Google... saves you the frustration of going to your library to look something up.
• A Dog Walker saves a dog-owner the time and hassle (and need) of walking their dog.

Most products and services save customers time, effort and/or money. The best companies focus on simplicity-of-use and hassle-reduction.

So how can you make your Dog Walker service easier and simpler for your clients?

• Make every touchpoint your customer experiences with you to be as easy as possible.
• You might have an easy-to-use contact page, with clear instructions.
• You might have an online booking system, and an easy and automated payment system. So easy that they forget that they have paid automatically, and continue to pay regularly.
• You might give clear descriptions of your services and how you can help them.

In everything you do within your business, ask yourself "is this as easy as it could be for my customer?"

If it is easy and simple, more will buy and more will continue to buy.

You are the trusted adviser to your clients, in your field of expertise. You want to be seen as the expert, with their best interests at heart.

Not 'only another dog walker'.

Jay Abraham (world-renowned business advisor) talks about you being their "fiduciary"

Fiduciary: "involving trust, especially with regard to the relationship between a trustee and a beneficiary."

More on this "Strategy of Pre-eminence" here.

Think of this as old-school local business methodology. You are their local friend. No funny business. No shenanigans. If some other business can serve them with a certain skill or service, you tell them.  You might profit from recommending them to that other business. You might not.  But if it is in your clients' interest, you tell them about it. 

Equally, if you know what you offer is exactly what they need, you would be failing in your duty of fiduciary care if you didn't fully help them to purchase all they need of your services.

You help them fully within your business where you can. You help them elsewhere where you can.

For example, I consider it my fiduciary duty to help Dog Walkers to better their business in every way possible. Within this Dog Walkers' Marketing Manual, we are pointing you to many other resources and ideas, not just towards buying and reading  this Marketing Manual.

Yes, I want you to be a paying customer of mine here in the Dog Walkers' Club for as long as possible, because you are getting fantastic value, month after month, with deeper knowledge each month helping you grow your Dog Walker business, to expand, and to do it in a way that gives you a fantastic quality of life.

And also, yes, right here, I will be pointing you to many other helpful resources, companies, concepts and strategies to help you grow your business.

It's about offering what's in the best interests of the customer, not only your business.

Because ultimately, this is what builds trust and loyalty, which is good for long-term business.

If a potential customer has seen your business card, when they go to your website you want them to think "yes this is the same company, I'm in the right place".

With your offline and online marketing, across all the methods, business cards, website, brochures etc, you need brand continuity. 

You should have a matching brand, layout and colour scheme throughout - the same logo, the same background colour, the same text font, the same text sizing, the same layout of where the logo sits etc.

Pick a style, and stick to it. Everywhere.

Stories are the universal language of the human species.  Across millennia, stories have been passed on.  People forget details, but remember stories.  Stories get retold.

Tell stories within all messages. 

If you can add a human element to the story, so much the better.  People remember people.

For example, see how we blended a human story into our 'About Us' page, while showing the reader how the service will help them. (Your 'About Us' page is covered in the Online Marketing section because it is very important and effective)

Create helpful content.  Stitch in an engaging story. The story needs to be relevant to your main point and help bring the story and content to your Call To Action towards the end, if relevant. 

For example, at the end of a web page, place an optin box to encourage readers to give their email address to get more information and to be kept up to date.

3-Part Storytelling

The three-act story structure is a narrative model that divides a story into three parts: the Setup (Act One), the Confrontation (Act Two), and the Resolution (Act Three). This structure helps organize the plot and character development, ensuring a clear beginning, middle, and end to the story.

Stories need to carry empathy and authority. 

Make your client the hero of the story, not you.

Appeal to the 3 types or levels of problems clients face;

1. External problems (their dog is getting fat, needs a run, client is away) 
2. Internal problems (the frustrations and doubts, feeling a failure because they cant walk their dog, frustrated because..., guilt because their dog isn't getting exercise)
3. Philosophical needs (fairness, openness; all dogs should be healthy and happy, dogs are part of the family)

Most marketing stops at just the external.  Your stories will be more powerful and effective if they involve all 3 elements. 

For example...

Another marketing concept to be aware of is Darwinian Marketing - or simply the idea that marketing evolves over time. The tactics and operations do not remain the same.

"Evolve or die"

For instance, 20 years ago, not having a website was acceptable. Now it is not only a loss of business and respect, but it is pointless; it is so easy to have your website, whether you make it, or someone else builds it for you. In the Online Marketing section, we will outline exactly how.

Another example - 15 years ago, MySpace was one of the best places to do marketing.  Now it is dead.

Equally individual adverts of yours will become less effective over time.  Ads don't work forever.  So you need fresh new ads periodically. 

Marketing Today

Right now, today, we live in both a digital world and a real, physical world. The online world is now a big part of our lives, and is a big part of your clients' lives. So you need to be there.

Your clients are also (obviously) in the real, physical world. So you need to be there too.

This is why we will break this Dog Walkers' Marketing Manual down into Online marketing and Offline marketing.