More Bang For Your Buck

In a business as hands-on and personal as pet grooming, word-of-mouth advertising has always been the most reliable way to promote our businesses. Because we are marketing our trustworthiness with a cherished family member, it stands to reason that a recommendation from the neighbor down the block, a favorite veterinarian or dear old Aunt Mary carries a lot of weight when it comes to choosing where Buffy gets her haircut. Respected sources like these can vouch for our kindness and the safety of our shop, as well as our scissoring skills–-and the beautiful part about such referrals is that they’re free!

“Free” is a lovely word in a business owner’s vocabulary. After all, at the end of the day, it’s all about the bottom line.  Many of us operate on tight budgets, and we need to make every dollar count. So beyond that treasured commodity called word-of-mouth, how can we spread the word about our businesses in a cost-effective way?


Print Ads Still Sell
Many of us swear by the yellow pages or community newspapers for keeping our names in front of potential clients. In spite of the gloomy predictions about the decline in the newspaper and magazine industries, print media can still be an effective way to target your niche. If you are a new kid on the block, discount coupons in your local paper can offer a relatively inexpensive way to reach new pet owners. The nosedive in the economy has made avid coupon clippers of us all. 

To get noticed, your ad should be at least one column across by two inches down; and keeping it local is your best bet. Big city dailies with a huge readership are too costly, unless they are running some kind of a special promotion for pet-related businesses in your area.  As a long-term vehicle, you’ll do better with a regional weekly that is delivered to all residents for free. If you’ve been in business awhile, chances are most pet-owning folks in your zip code already know about you so a weekly ad would not be cost-effective. However, when opening a new salon, celebrating a milestone anniversary or hosting a special event like a pet fair on your premises, hometown publicity is key and your local press will get the word out, along with your own posters and flyers, which should be distributed among other pet-care professionals. Depending on the circulation and the size of your ad (quarter page, half page or full page), newspapers typically charge $5 to $25 CPM (cost per thousand impressions), a bargain compared to national magazine rates.   


Cyber-Marketing
If you have a website or Facebook presence, any news about your business should be posted there. Even submitting a cute picture of a canine customer or your own personal musings gets your Facebook status updated immediately with all friends and fans, keeping the buzz alive. With the proliferation of the Internet, a sea of change has occurred in the ways we publicize our services, and having a web presence these days is a must. Even the yellow pages have gone online. 

If you are already using your website to promote your business, it may be time for an upgrade. My computer-savvy daughter and business partner, Missi, recently did a makeover on our website, using Yahoo’s small business service (www.smallbusinessyahoo.com). Named Editor’s Choice last year by PC Magazine, this site is extremely user friendly, walking you through every aspect of web page design.  It will get your site up and running in no time, educating you every step of the way, and it is far less expensive than hiring someone else to do the job for you. Using Yahoo templates, you can customize your chosen design to suit your business. By updating our own website, we are saving a bundle and keeping it far more current than we did when using a web master to make changes.  

After doing some research, we chose Yahoo for its ease of setup and because its “search” feature is used by 53 million people every day, generating almost three billion searches per month. We are also listed on Google, MSN.com and ASK.com. Once you have your domain name, you devise keywords that will send customers your way when they search the net, such as “dog groomer,” “pet grooming,” “pet stylist,” or “pet care.” Once they locate your name and the headline description that you provide, they click on your URL and bingo! They just walked through the virtual door to your salon.  You pay per click, currently one dollar for our account. (This fee is determined by factors such as the area in which you will be listed–in our particular case, it’s the entire state of Massachusetts, partly because of Missi’s other jobs as industry speaker and consultant, affiliated with The Village Groomer and Pet Supply.) On your daily Yahoo page views, you can track how many hits your site has received. You’ll feel like a business kingpin as you view your daily graph!

Because we utilize Yahoo Small Business for web maintenance, we are one of the first salons that pop up on its search feature. In addition, Missi resubmits our site to all search engines every couple of weeks so that we go to the top of their piles as well. She also updates the pages regularly. Recent examples include highlighting our 40th anniversary party and publicizing the impending visit of Animal Photography’s (www.animalphotography.com) Ren Netherland and his unique traveling studio to our parking lot for a three-day shoot of canine customers and their humans. Both the grooming website and the one for our sister operation, Dog Daze Day Camp, display ever-changing photo albums of pets we care for, another feature our clients love.

We use a credit card set up by Yahoo to track our charges. You can use its “Manage” feature to change your service plan or password, or to help you work with e-mail addresses. Tech support is instantly available, followed up by an equally prompt phone call–one of the most appealing features for the busy groomer.  Of course, you may also choose to sell products via your website, another option easily set up by Yahoo’s small business arm. Although our site accommodates bookings for grooming appointments, my daughter prefers to get back to clients to finalize their booking, making sure they get their pet’s preferred groomer and also touching base on that all-important human contact. “I like to keep things upbeat and personal,” Missi says.  “I love the computer, but it will never take the place of that personal connection.”


Kathy Salzberg is a Certified Master Groomer and writer. She and her daughter, Missi Salzberg, own The Village Groomer and Pet Supply in Walpole, Mass., one of New England’s busiest grooming salons. The winner of two Cardinal Crystal Achievement Awards, Kathy has written extensively on pet care for magazines and authored books on dogs and pet care careers–How to Start a Home-Based Pet Care Career (Globe Pequot Press, 2001 & 2006) and The Everything Small Dogs Book (Adams Media, 2006).