Using Facebook groups for marketing your dog training business

Have you heard you should be using Facebook groups for marketing your dog training business but you’re a little stuck with how?

Facebook groups can be a great way to get your stuff in front of new people. They’re not too complicated, but can be time consuming — so let’s take a look at how to make the most of your efforts…

An intro to Facebook groups

When it comes to using Facebook groups for marketing your dog training business, you have three options:

1. You can create and run your own public group for dog lovers which is open for anyone to join. Ideally your group name would include the term “dog owners” or “dog lovers” (or whatever is appropriate) and your location. You want the title to be very clear about what people can expect so they know it aligns with their interests.
2. You can run your own private group just for your previous and current clients where you share advice and training tips with the goal of bringing in repeat business.
3. You can join someone else’s Facebook group with the aim of being a helpful member of the group community (and get your name recognized as being an expert) and, when allowed, market your own business.

As you’d imagine each option has its upsides and downsides. Let’s explore each and their pros and cons in a bit more depth.

Option 1: Creating a public Facebook group for marketing

Pros – 

• Because it’s a public group that anyone can join, your group can bring in new potential clients. However, to do this, the group name needs to be something people will search for. If it’s not, you’ll need to build out a strategy for growing the group.
• You can invite clients to join and help stay in touch. Having previous clients in the group can help encourage repeat business as another avenue to let them know about new classes, open spots for lessons, or other opportunities you have available. Also, people who have worked with you successfully are often your biggest fans — offering valuable comments and feedback about classes or services you may be promoting in the group.
• If you grow it to be big enough, it will take on a life of its own. People will invite their friends, and content will become largely user-generated!

Cons – 

• It can take some time and effort to grow a group to a good size before you can really take advantage of it.
• It requires work to create content and convince members to engage. A dead group is worse than no group at all. 
• You’ll need to moderate the group. You may end up with other trainers trying to post, or people recommending methods or things you don’t approve of. This means you might spend a fair amount of time keeping a closer eye on the group as a result.

Tips – 

• Consider sharing things like other local businesses (for example, dog-friendly breweries, cafes, restaurants, or shops) to help gain new members.
• Consider sharing local dog-friendly events and things to do such as favorite hikes or parks. You can include dog-related news and items of importance that dog owners would appreciate too.

Option 2: Creating a private Facebook group for marketing

Pros –

• With a private group there’s less worry about moderation issues when compared to a public group.
• It’s still good for encouraging repeat business as you can post about open spots for privates, new classes, etc. A private group is an ideal additional way to keep clients in the loop about what’s going on with your business (and staying top of mind with them).
• Because it’s a private/closed group, you can encourage clients to ask questions and share training videos if desired. By making it more of a community you can boost engagement and member retention. 

Cons – 

• A private group won’t help bring in new clients.
• As you’ll have a smaller number of members, you’ll end up doing more of the heavy lifting on content over the longer term.  
• Even if your group is small and client-based, you’ll still need to handle moderation issues.  

Tips – 

• Consider doing regular AMA (ask me anything) sessions where past clients can ask questions and you answer them. You can also build a valuable archive of material for future content from these.
• Share the types of things you typically send out as part of your homework and call out students who are doing well in the group. By showcasing success, you can help keep your clients motivated and encourage repeat business.

Option 3: Using someone else’s public Facebook group

Pros – 

• There’s no need to handle moderation as the group admin is doing it for you. 
• You can visit as little or as often as you want. You have no responsibility to the group members to show up.
• You can often still share useful, valuable content such as upcoming events, reviews of other local businesses, or dog-related news items.
• You can encourage threads where others might contribute. (For example: “I visited X local restaurant today with a training client and it was fabulous for working on our out and about skills because of [reasons]. Does anyone else have places they like to go with their dog for that type of work?”)
• You can often spend more time responding in threads and less time creating your own.

Cons – 

• Public groups often tightly restrict self-promotion. There may be no opportunities to directly promote your business, or there may only be set days of the week when promotion is allowed — and then you’re up against everyone else doing the same thing.
• Someone else is moderating the group. That means they make the rules so be sure to follow them!
• You may be competing more directly with other trainers in the group, which could include them providing different advice. Be tactful and respectful even if you strongly disagree. You don’t want to be removed for being disruptive or unpleasant. It won’t reflect well on you or your business.

Tips – 

• Look for threads where you can focus on being helpful rather than self-promotional.
• Avoid being overly salesy. It’s a bad look in this kind of group!
• Consider creating threads like the examples above — things that other people are doing with their dogs. This can be a great way to learn where you should go to find those people, in addition to being a helpful thread for everyone involved.

Now you know the basics of how Facebook groups work from a marketing perspective. In our next blog post in this series, we’ll look at how to create a group for your business!

*This post first appeared on clickandrepeat.com