Marketing Your Horse Business

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Marketing Your Horse Business

• Animal Sciences 475
• Lecture 5

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Marketing Techniques

• To be competitive in horse business
• owner must have a product or service that is in
  demand
• know where the potential customer base is
• be able to sell the product or service to the
  potential customer

3
What do you need to know?

• Start-up phase losses due to a lack of clientele
• Evaluate needs and desires of potential customers
• Promote the product
• Use professionalism to develop a good client base

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Marketing Strategy

• Anticipation and satisfaction of the needs and
  wants of a potential customer group
• Fill a desire or need!!!!
• Provide a product or service that is desired
• surveys indicate lots of horse people out there
• majority own 1-2 horses in backyard/board
• need for education books, seminars, clinics
  shows, races, open houses, auctions, sales

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What is the opportunities?

• Need for well bred horses
• Demand for instructional schools
• Training and boarding facilities
• Related services tack shops/feed stores
• Within each market group, all businesses provide
  a service and depend on some type of sales.

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What To Do

• Identify the Market and Serve It
• Choose a Location
• Create and Image

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Promotion

• Every minute perhaps without realizing it,
  somebody is selling something by promotion
• newspapers/magazines
• radio and tv
• people talking by saying product name

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Dont Confuse Promotion w/ Advertising

• What are examples or techniques?
• How effective is advertising horse facility in
  newspaper or breed publication?
• Horseraces, shows/competitions excellent venues
  for promoting horses, facilities or services.
• Enter provided you expect to win!!!

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More

• Use attractive, clean transport vehicles with
  name, logo, location and phone
• Breed associations Sponsored shows, races,
  contests and educational programs
• Subscribe to breed mags/newspapers
• Attend sales/auctions get idea of current market
  conditions

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More

• Sponsor own events
• open barns
• grand openings
• horse shows
• sales
• clinics
• charity events, raffles, drawings etc.
• obtain names and addresses or attendees

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Advertising

• Paid ads may be used to draw people to
  promotional activities
• Press releases to papers, radios, tvs
• Attract reporters to get free ads
• Direct mailing of flyer/brochure to targeted
  clients
• Print flyers at tack/feed stores/other events

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Follow up on inquiries or responses to these ads
is the most important part of the advertising
process!!
13
Ad Budget

• Create ad plan
• General rule, expect to spend about 10 of the
  expected return on advertising
• horse to be sold for 2000, plan to spend 200 on
  ads.
• If breeding fee is 1000, figure how many
  breedings desired calc. Total income and 10 is
  reasonable ad allotment
• Boarding/Training -total income then 10

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Record Keeping

• Ad budget goes further when one maintains records
  year to year as where the ad dollars went and
  which avenues were most effective in attracting
  right customers
• Good records also help at tax time.

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Choosing a Publication for Advertising?

• Depends on what is being advertised.
• Concentrate on a targeted market
• Example
• horse for sale, run ads in several publications
  for short time rather than one ad for a long time
• breeding farms defined season
• boarding/training use series of year-round ads

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Creating an Advertisement

• Type of ad depends on publication and your ad
  budget
• Photos/illustrations greatly enhance impact of an
  ad
• Use of both professional/amateur photos

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Ad should include

• Every positive thing possible about the horse or
  service
• successful prior breedings
• outstanding relatives
• awards earned
• winnings
• excellent pedigree/successful offspring
• records held/race times

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More Ad Information

• Map to the business
• Location
• Telephone number, email address
• Person to Contact

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Summary

• Successful marketing includes all the things
  outlined in this discussion creating satisfied
  customers, good will, treating people right, good
  reputation, word of mouth ads and promotion do
  lots.

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When you decide to get into horse business

• Market dictates or takes priority
• Why Because if you miss it, no matter what else
  you may do, you will likely lose
• Example Commercial breeder can pick good
  breeding mares, have a high foaling , grow out
  and start foals as well as anyone, get horses to
  sale efficiently--yet lose money because he has
  missed the market

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Marketing must be considered before production.

• Production begins when you first breed that mare
• Consideration of market must begin before you
  even buy that mare
• First question is not
• how many mares?
• Race or performance?
• If racing what breed? Or if QH what lines?

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Marketing is

• Careful consideration of the demands of the
  market focus of individual must be on price
• There is a market price for every horse, for
  training ability, for boarding services
• Price is constantly changing and finding and
  defining it is a never ending job.

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Tuning in the MarketTo understand what is
market price.
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Find and organize data.Where can you find
information and / or who can provide data?
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Look at the market asWho does what.Jobs that
need to be done.
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Who in the case of horses, you need to look at
the marketing jobs done by breeders, bloodstock
agents, auctioneers, etc.
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Look directly at the jobs, what effort is
involved.
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Jobs Fall into

• Jobs associated with actual exchange
• 1.buying or assembly 2. selling
• Those that relate to the physical activity
  necessary
• 1. Storage 2. Transportation 3. Processing
• Those that facilitate individuals on either the
  buyer or the sellers side of the market

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Consider part of point 2 -selling under exchange

• Seven typical ways to sell
• private treaty
• production sales
• open consignment
• select consignment
• dispersal or near dispersal
• claiming
• syndication

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Questions

• What is the difference between them?
• Under what circumstances or conditions would one
  be more advantageous?
• Under what conditions do you have little choice?
• What are consequences of the wrong choice?
• What do you need to know about agents, catalogs,
  setting reserves?

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Final Thoughts

• Isolate market and its pieces
• Understand supply and demand by region or for the
  nation
• Then by class
• What factors influence change
• Ultimately understand what price in development
  of a complete strategic marketing plan