In nature, animals are constantly adjusting and adapting to their environment. When two or more creatures begin to exist together, or when something changes in the dynamic between individuals, many times there is a stressful period in the beginning, then things smooth out over time as everyone finds their own way of adjusting to the change. Some animals learn to tolerate high levels of stress on a regular basis and others do not tolerate very many things they do not like. Still others find a happy medium, learning how to express themselves while also making sure their requests for others to interact with them differently are heard and responded too. But in all situations, there is some form of adjusting and adapting. As I have learned over the past four years, especially last year, it is the same in business.
Adjusting and Adapting in Business
As mentioned previously, in business the adjustment and adaptation are similar. When something in the world changes, each business begins to implement changes that help them adapt to the changes going on around them. A major change that happened recently is that businesses are switching to online platforms as much as possible. This is an interesting thing to need to adapt to because many businesses thrive off face-to-face interaction. Dog training and care businesses are some of those businesses. However, thankfully, people have been adapting to the technology-driven side of animal training over the last couple years, and beyond. Adding on online recourses is not entirely new to the animal training world, so adapting to that did not take a huge amount of adjusting for my business. However, there is something along those lines that did, advertising.
At the end of 2019, I had a plan to go visit various groomers, vets’ offices, and other pet related companies to let them know I was in town and if their clients needed dog training services, I was here to help them. Then COVID-19 happened, and I was suddenly not able to enter offices the same way I once was. This presented a particular dilemma that I am sure many small companies have had to learn to adapt to as well.
“Word of Email” Marketing
This year I have been trying to figure out how to adapt and adjust to the previously mentioned problem of having less opportunities to simply walk up to someone and talk to them about my company. I live in an area where people generally keep to themselves naturally, plus I am a homebody, so with COVID-19 added in there, it has been a challenge! But I am determined because I know how important it is for people to get the help they need when it comes to training their dogs, and I love to help people!
As I was contemplating how to solve this problem, I realized that the next best thing to speaking to someone in person is speaking to them virtually! That is kind of an obvious conclusion in know, so why not do more email marketing and advertising? Well, the reason why is because I dislike flooding people with a ton of marketing emails. That just isn’t the image I would like to present. So now what? Here is my solution: Word of Email Marketing. Yup, Word of Email Marketing is what I call a personal message being sent in an email from one person to the next, much like word of mouth, but in the form of an email chain. Now you might be thinking that sounds a lot like email marketing. However, I believe it is different. Word of Email, as I like to call it, has a much more personal tone to it. It is not just a marketing strategy, but it is a community connection strategy. It is a way for people to connect and stay connected in these hard times while sharing something they are interested in and supporting a small business in the process. As a result, I invite you to share this article with 10 people. When you share this email, I ask that you send them the following message along with this article (Just copy and paste the message below into the top of your email with this article attached):
Hello! My name is Dallas Kelley, and I am a professional dog trainer. I love to help people train their dogs and build strong, trust-based relationships with their furry family members! H.A.T.S. was started to help people grow a strong bond with their pets and to help pets grow a strong bond with their humans, all while helping people and their pets learn! Today, I would like to invite you to join the H.A.T.S. Family by joining the H.A.T.S. email list so that you can get updates from the Happy Animalz Blog! This blog will give you training tips, dog breed information, and more! As a thank you for signing up, you will receive a 10% off coupon for the H.A.T.S. Store! If you are interested in getting more support, training assistance, and access to The Training Lab blog category, please check out our online memberships!
If you would like to help support this small business, please share this email with 10 people you know. Thank you for your support!
Thank You!
As I adapt to running a business post COVID-19, I hope that you all will join me! Learning to adapt is not easy, but it is worth it! So, thank you for your support and for sharing this email! I wish you and your family (animal members included) a wonderful day and a happy journey through life together! To help support other small businesses, please share their information with family and friends as well! We are all in this together!
Thank you!
Best wishes,
Dallas Kelley, KPA CTP
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