Finding Your First Clients: How To Advertise Your Dog Walking Service
The Biggest Challenge
The biggest challenge for a new dog walker is figuring out how to attract your first clients. Without a large marketing budget or team behind you, it’s crucial to get creative with your promotional efforts. From building an online presence to networking in-person and running enticing promotions, there are plenty of affordable tactics any one-person dog walking service can employ. By putting in the work to get your brand out there, you’ll be able to turn your passion into a successful small business venture.
Identify Your Ideal Clients
Think about who’s likely to need a dog walker in your area. Are you targeting busy young professionals without time to exercise their dogs during the day? Elderly pensioners who could use a hand? Families with kids and hectic schedules? Understanding exactly who needs your dog walking services most will help you target your marketing properly.
Build an Online Presence
These days, every business needs an active online presence. Set up a simple website explaining what dog walking services you offer, your rates, operating hours and availability. Use social media like Facebook and Instagram to advertise and share your doggy pics, and TikTok to share videos – people love that and clients will be delighted to see their pups having fun with you (ask owners’ permissions first).
Make sure your name, contact details and service area are clear.
Get Listed on Directories
Register your new business on Google Maps (Google My Business) and online directories so that local owners can easily find you when searching for “dog walkers near me.” Claim your listing and keep the info updated. Some of these have options to add photos, pricing and let customers leave reviews too.
Include your website address in your directory listings. This allows potential clients to visit your website. They can learn more detailed information about you there. Google appreciates good quality links. This means having links from credible sources to your site. When you have these, Google might improve your website’s search ranking. An improved search ranking makes it easier for people to find your website on Google.
See some useful links at the end of the article.
Network and Advertise Locally
Don’t be shy
Tell your mates, neighbours, family about your new dog walking venture. Put up eye-catching flyers or business cards at local vets, dog parks, pet shops, community centres, and shops with community notice boards. Attend fun dog events in your area to mingle with potential clients face-to-face.
Collaborate with Local Pet Businesses
Reach out to other local pet businesses like groomers, doggy day cares or pet supply shops. See if they’d be interested in cross-promoting each other’s services through referrals, joint promotions or leaving business cards/flyers out.
Introduce Yourself to the Competition
Sounds counter-intuitive, but your competitors could be a good source of new business.
You will see them out and about, professional dog walkers with their packs.
Walk up and say ‘Hi’, and introduce yourself. A caveat being: If they have dogs on leads, snap yours on too, and keep a respectful distance. If they signal you away then it will be for a good reason; simply smile, wave and walk away.
Mostly, you will find that other professional dog walkers are happy to chat and to offer advice. If they have a full book, ask them if they might be happy to point enquiries in your direction. Also ask if there is a private Facebook group for local dog walking businesses and apply to join. These groups are great places to make new friends, discuss issues in common, and to get new leads.
Ask for Reviews
Provide a top-notch professional service. After a few good walks, politely ask satisfied customers to leave positive reviews on your Facebook page or Google listing. Or ask them to write one in the form of an email for you to paste into your website. Reviews are powerful! They build trust and inspire confidence in the minds of potential clients.
Run Promotions and Offers
Everyone loves a good deal! Offer special discounts for new clients, referral fees if they get mates to sign up, or package deals for pre-paid bundles of walks. The options are endless to drum up more business.
Continued Learning and Improvement
As your business grows, keep learning new affordable, creative marketing tips by reading blogs, taking local classes and joining online dog walking communities. There’s always more to learn about promoting your services effectively.
Finally, Gain a Reputation for Excellence
Strive for excellence! From the very first walk, provide brilliant pet care that keeps owners happy, and you could win many more clients through positive word-of-mouth over time.
Helpful Links
Business cards and flyers
Banana-print.co.uk
Instantprint.co.uk
Pixartprinting.co.uk
Vistaprint.co.uk
Zazzle.co.uk
These are not recommendations and there will be others if you search online. Regardless of who you order from, online or from a local printing service, our recommendation would be to keep it simple: white card with clear font, do not order too many cards or flyers to begin with, and to resist upselling to glossy finish, double-sided printing, volume discounts etc. Such extras wont buy you more business and wait till you try scratching a new mobile number on a glossy business card.
You wont be able to distribute as many as you think. And if you need to change any details down the line then you will have to chuck them out and order afresh.
Free Directory Listings
A ‘must have’ for local visibility in Google search results e.g. find dog walkers near me.
My Business listings appear in search results after paid adverts and above other search results.
Popular Directories
Rover.com
Bark.com
Dogwalkerdirectory.co.uk
Freeindex.co.uk
Some, but not all, directories charge a fee. You may prefer to stick with free listings to begin with.
Find other dog walker directories by typing ‘dog walkers near me’ into Google search.
Associations
These are directories which have some kind of vetting process for pet services wishing to be listed. Among them:
NarpsUK charges a subscripton fee which can be quite expensive for someone starting out. It does offer member benefits which might prove helpful. There are others which you will encounter eventually.
#advertiseyourdogwalkingservice #findyourfirstdogwalkingclients #marketingfordogwalkers
