Six Ways a Newsletter Can Help You Bark Up the Right Tree
by Veronica Boutelle
As a dog trainer, you want a reliable way to connect with your clients, attract new ones, and promote your work. In our experience, there is no better marketing staple to achieve this than the humble newsletter. While social media platforms offer quick bursts of information, newsletters provide a unique opportunity to build deeper relationships, share expertise, and nurture a loyal client base.
Here are six reasons to add a newsletter to your marketing toolkit:
1. The Personal Touch
Most dog trainers today spend a lot of time promoting their work on social media. While valuable, these platforms can also feel impersonal and overwhelming, with a constant stream of conflicting advice competing for your clients’ attention. This can leave the average dog lover feeling confused and bombarded. A newsletter allows you to write directly to your clients and share your insights, experiences, and stories in a way that feels more personal and meaningful. Delivering valuable and relevant content creates a loyal following of clients who are more likely to use your services and recommend you to others.
2. A Golden Opportunity for Education
As everyone strives for the most succinct, shareable, or provocative post online, the nuance of ideas is easily lost. If your education efforts feel a little lightweight, a newsletter lets you go deeper. Dog (and human!) behavior is complex, and full of important contextual considerations. Newsletters give dog trainers a rare opportunity to slow down and explore concepts in a more considered way. Yes, they’re a great marketing tool, but they’re also a fantastic way to educate and share your passion with your audience.
3. Greater Control and Reliability
Newsletters offer more control over the messages you want to put out into the world. With a newsletter, you have a say over the design, layout, and content, allowing you to create a cohesive and attractive marketing tool that accurately represents your business. Newsletters also provide a more reliable and consistent way to reach your clients. While social media algorithms can change, and posts can get lost in the feeds, emails are delivered directly to your clients’ inboxes, ensuring that your message is seen and received. Newsletters can also be archived and easily referenced in the future, making it easy for clients to find information and resources they may have missed.
4. Your Data, Your Way
Newsletters allow you to build a targeted email list of your clients and followers. You own your subscriber list, rather than it belonging to a massive external platform. This list is comprised of individuals who have explicitly opted in to receive your updates, which means that they are more likely to be engaged with your content and to take action based on what you share. A dedicated subscriber list is one the most valuable things you can build for your business.
5. You Can “Follow Your Nose” More
Newsletters provide you with valuable data on the success of your campaigns. You can track how many people opened your newsletter, what they clicked on, and crucially, whether it led to a booking or sale. This allows you to continually refine your marketing strategies. Even with print newsletters, you can get a sense of how many were taken home through the businesses you share them with. Or if you want to get fancy, you can create specific QR codes and links for your printed versions.
6. Ease the Networking Angst
Handing out business cards and flyers, especially to a cold contact, can be a particularly intimidating thing to do. It also doesn’t provide a lot of information about who you are and what makes you different. Creating resources that do the talking for you is a great way around this. If you are approaching a local vet, for example, a newsletter filled with great content is likely to make a bigger impression. You could also ask a local business if you can interview them for a feature story. Not only do most people love talking about what they do, it also means they will be keen to feature your newsletter at their premises.
Newsletters offer a number of advantages when it comes to building and maintaining relationships with potential and existing clients. By investing in a regular newsletter, you can create a personal, targeted, and reliable way to communicate with your clients and grow your business.
Ready to get started with your own newsletter?
Watch the dogbiz FREE Newsletter Quick Class and discover all the secrets to this essential marketing tool.
Veronica Boutelle, MA, CTC is the co-founder of dogbiz, whose business is to help you love yours. Harriet Alexander is content curator for dogbiz. Learn all the ways dogbiz can support your success at dogbizsuccess.com.
