Equine Business Marketing: Strategies For The Digital Age

In today’s world, having an online presence, regardless of the industry, is a must. So, the same applies to the horse industry. If you own an equine business and want to tap into the unlimited potential of the digital world, you need to develop your digital marketing strategy.

Organic vs. Paid

The first significant divide that is important to understand in the digital marketing sphere is Organic and Paid reach.

example of a paid post on Facebook
Example of a paid post on Facebook

There are two ways you can reach your desired audience, and that is through organic efforts or through paid advertising.

Organic reach refers to the number of people who see your content on social media, or other online platforms, without the use of paid advertising or promotion. In other words, it represents the natural or free exposure your content gets among your audience or followers.

Example of an organic post on Facebook that appears under suggestions
Example of an organic post on Facebook that appears under suggestions

On the other hand, paid advertising, also known as paid media or online advertising, is a marketing strategy in which businesses or individuals pay a fee to display their promotional content to a targeted audience through various online channels and platforms (such as Google, Facebook…).

The goal of paid advertising is to increase visibility, drive traffic, and generate specific desired actions, such as clicks, conversions, or sales.

In this article, we will focus on organic reach.

How to Market Your Horse Business Online

Create engaging content on Social Media
Create engaging content on Social Media
Get your website to rank for keyword relevant to your equine business
Get your website to rank for keywords relevant to your equine business
Start a YouTube channel
Start a YouTube channel

Before you start thinking about HOW to market your horse business, you first need to understand the platforms you have at your disposal, and how they work.

You will hear people talk about social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing, and so on, but the real story actually begins with the platforms.

This is important to understand because this is how you will generate traffic (i.e. drive new customers) to your channels. The problem behind it is that each of the platforms works in a different way (i.e. generates traffic differently), and to master the marketing strategies behind them, it is important to learn how they work.

The main difference between them is how you reach your target audience/how your target audience reaches (finds) you.

Social Media Platforms

Facebook is one of the most famous platforms in the equine industry
Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms in the equine industry
Instagram is the second most utilized platform in the Equine world
Instagram is the second most utilized social media platform in the equine world

Social Media Platforms are the easiest to get going, and that is why almost every horse business out there is using at least one of them – they are free, and posting content is pretty straightforward.

However, getting your social media marketing strategy right is a different ballgame.

The way your content will end up in front of more different people in the equine industry is through:

  1. Fickle algorithm suggestions – something you have no control over
  2. Shares of people following your page – something you have control over but is tightly linked to the quality of content you produce. The better the content, the more shares it will receive.

If you want to understand content creation on social media better and how to create engaging content, I strongly suggest reading our article Equine Social Media Marketing: What To Post For A High Engagement Rate.

That being said, Social Media marketing should absolutely be on your list of things to tackle in your overall marketing efforts.

Your Website

google search results
Google search results

It is easy to say ‘create a great website.’ And yes, it is important to have a user friendly website that is easy to navigate, but that doesn’t guarantee that your potential clients will find it.

So, apart from having a clean website that clearly states what you are doing, lists your services, and looks nice, it is also important that it ranks in Google.

What does that mean? It means that you want your website to show up in Google every time someone types in the Google search something related to your equine business.

For instance, let’s say you are a saddle fitter from Texas that offers their services locally, but also has an online course on saddle fitting. Ideally, you would have your website show up for search query ‘saddle fitting in TX,’ but also for ‘how do I know my saddle fits my horse.’

So how to build a website that ranks? The answer lies in creating blog post articles.

Writing Blog Posts

Most of the horse business owners we have interacted and worked with did have some kind of a blog going. The problem was that only about 1% of them were actually driving traffic to their website.

Why? Because they were creating blog posts like social media posts – they were writing about topics they thought were relevant and interesting.

While there is nothing wrong with that, the problem lies in ‘how someone lands on your website while browsing the internet?,’ and the answer is – through the keywords.

example of a keyword
Example of a keyword

Keywords are specific words or phrases that people use when searching for information on search engines like Google. These words or phrases are essential for search engine optimization (SEO) and content creation because they help search engines understand the content of web pages and match them with relevant search queries.

At this point, you may be wondering how to identify the keywords. The answer is – through something called keyword research.

Keyword Research

answer the public is one of the free keyword research tools that are at your disposal
‘Answer the public’ is one of the free keyword research tools that are at your disposal

Keyword research is the process of identifying and analyzing specific words and phrases that people use when searching for information, products, or services on search engines like Google. This research is crucial for various online marketing and content creation activities, such as search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing.

The goal of keyword research is to understand what your target audience is searching for online so that you can tailor your content or website to align with their interests and needs.

The correct process of producing a blog article would be: conduct keyword research –> determine the intent behind it –> conduct competitor research –> create a blog post outline –> write the article.

Ahrefs is a software that offers free and paid keyword research tools
Ahrefs is a software that offers free and paid keyword research tools

To recap – having a blog should serve a purpose of driving traffic to your website so your site visitors can be introduced to your Equine business and so you could start a relationship building process which will ultimately lead to them, hopefully, becoming your customers.

YouTube

Not all equine businesses are a good fit for YouTube, but most of them are. In this article, I will not dive deep into creating engaging content for YouTube, but I will rather focus on how YouTube as a platform works.

This is important because having knowledge about where your potential customers come from and how they end up on your YouTube channel is important, so you can create content from the correct angle.

Some people refer to YouTube as a Social Media platform, so some of you may wonder why it was not listed under the social media, but rather has its own section. The reason for that lies in how YouTube works, thus, how content should be created.

YouTube is a hybrid – on the one hand, it is a search engine, like Google, on the other, you will also get suggestions in your feed like you would on Facebook.

I am more inclined to see YouTube as a search engine, and if you create content from that angle, you will not go wrong, as opposed to creating content from the social media angle.

This means that, unlike Facebook where content gets suggested to you in your feed, your audience will find you through keywords.

Example of different queries (keywords) on youTube
Example of different queries (keywords) on YouTube

It depends on the intention that brought someone to YouTube. Are you there just aimlessly scrolling, or you came there with a purpose of finding answers?

How to Create Content for YouTube?

If you have been reading this article carefully, by now you know what keywords are, and what keyword research is.

It has been said earlier that YouTube is a search engine as well, which means that if you want to produce quality content, it needs to come from keyword research.

Final Thoughts

Conducting a successful marketing strategy in the equine industry is not, by any means, easy, but having a good understanding of how platforms that are at your disposal work is an important part of it, and it will make the whole process easier.

If you know how the platforms work, you will not waste your time doing something that doesn’t work.

We know that getting all of this right will take time, so start where you feel most confident, and master that part first. Also, don’t feel intimidated – doing something is always better than doing nothing!

And remember, asking for help is always something that is at your disposal.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *