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Blog by Nikki Alvin-Smith

A Horse Owner Wouldn’t Employ A Plumber To Train Their Horse

Employing a company to boost your brand, sales and marketing prowess is not something to be taken lightly. It’s perhaps not too surprising to see some fairly serious faux pas statements and weird approaches taken by the generic ‘big boys’ in the space, regardless of their competence with AI software or SEO editing styles.

If you operate a horse business of any type, whether that be in the service industry or the manufacturing side, then you likely have some background in the world of horses. It is not impossible to sell or do something you know nothing about, but it does make it difficult.

Why would you employ a company to service your advertising or advertorial needs, editorial support or general marketing program that does not know and fully comprehend and understand your target audience. Yet companies in the equine industry do, and the results are all too predictable. Downturns instead of upturns in sales, lack of repeat customers, hard sells (because the soft sell approach isn’t realized as the most productive option due to the somewhat traditional market of equine ownership) and overpromising of results. Expensive amounts of hard-earned cash are spent on sales programs and advertising, with little metric or data review, appreciation or ownership and the newsletter unsubscribe numbers reach new heights. Frustrating when email gathering is ardently attempted at every turn.

When you consider marketing your equine business, look at it like this - a horse person wouldn’t employ a plumber to train their horse, so perhaps you shouldn’t employ someone to market your horsey brand to horsey folks that knows little to nothing about horses. This doesn’t mean that a plumber or construction professional isn’t needed around the horse farm. Certainly the indoor arena needs building to withstand snow loads and the bulldozer needs driving to level the site, but once the construction phase is completed what you do within the space is important. The training aspect needs to be handled by an experienced equine aficionado, not the plumber that added the watering system. Your content producers need to bring along your herd of horses – your clientele – in newsletters/eblasts/ebooks/white papers/blogs/vlogs /website content and the rest.

Unfortunately the generic branding efforts and keyword collections are not enough to engage educated horse folks to step up and buy an equine product. I say unfortunately, but perhaps I should say fortunately, because otherwise equestrian writers with well-earned credentials would be condemned to find other professions.

Content writers and marketing specialists that do know horses have a distinct advantage over the AI generated materials and ‘one stop does it all’ IT based crews and industry brigades that believe they can harness the words of others to capture a market share with content writing without any (or little) actual knowledge of horses, horse folks and what makes them tick.

Navigating the content market as a producer takes some foresight and an understanding that transcends market analytics. For every piece of content that a writer produces for a product or service, there is a shelf life. Remarkably the humble blog still holds top spot for longevity and financial viability on ROI. Something to be conscious of when writing a blog, as dated commentary or material must be carefully integrated based on the product/service and its predicted marketing lifespan.

Business owners are constantly engaged in building sales as a primary focus of their energy. It is easy to see how the idea of throwing everything marketing into one ‘soup pot’ and leaving it to bubble and boil can appeal to them. The employment of a company that claims they can successfully do it all: they will host and build your website; run your SEO and marketing campaigns (not without conflict as they take a huge slice of the marketing budget in commissions); manage your social media postings and promotions; as well as produce written and video materials for every need including newsletters. But this generic approach falls flat.

The reality, as the icons of the marketing industry realize, is still in educational content that targets and captures the attention of the buyer that is founded in an accurate and non-sensational approach. Most businesses want to create building blocks of satisfied clients that will spread news of their product or services through word-of-mouth and online. The preferred customer is an educated consumer, because this customer will likely ultimately return to buy because they happy with their original purchase.