Finding and retaining clients for livery yards can be an ongoing challenge. Whether you are just starting out with a new yard, or looking to fill a few livery vacancies, effective advertising is key to showcasing your packages, facilities and services, and allowing you to connect with the right type of client.
As we are heading into one of the busiest times of the year for horse owners to seek a new yard, our Livery Yard Insurance team caught up with owner and founder of LiveryList and the Yard Owner Hub, Cherly Johns to find out what the most important factors to consider are when advertising your yard.
Type of Client
Before any advertising, it is important to define the type of client you need or want for your yard. This will be determined by the type of livery services you are providing, the facilities you offer, and whether you have any specialised services such as rehabilitation or retirement livery. It is also important to decide the type of equestrian you are targeting whether this is a leisure rider, riding club level rider or serious competitor.
Know Your Costs and Prices
A hugely important factor before advertising is understanding your costs and equating these to the prices that you intend to charge. It is important to not only know this for your livery packages, but also any extras such as bolt-ons or assisted services. Once you know your costs, you can see where you sit in the local market in terms of what you intend to charge and the services you intend to provide.
Focus on Your USP’s
Having a unique selling point (USP) can help your business stand out from others even if from the outside you may seem the same. Yours could be state of the art facilities or equipment, specialised care or services, a convenient location or aspects of “best practice” such as exceptional welfare standards, being fully insured or the experience of the yard and its staff.
This may even help you find a niche for your yard in the local market. Perhaps there is a facility or service you can offer that others do not, or a way that you can market that would draw in the type of clients you are looking for. This should be dominant in your marketing, helping make your yard stand out.
Branding
It is ideal to try to give your yard an identity. This could include giving your business/ yard a specific name which will help others find your yard when searching online or even talking about it person to person. You should come up with a unique name for your yard, which describes the location, services or other keyword or name relating to your yard or what you offer. You can easily search online to see if there are any other yards or businesses already using any of your proposed names. Following that there is no harm in considering a brand colour, or logo which you can then use across your marketing and business administration. There are multiple websites online that can help you design a logo for free.
Online Presence
Many horse owners will start their search for a new yard online, therefore it is important to have an online presence. This could be a website, social media, or advertising on specific industry platforms such as LiveryList. Whatever you choose, it is important to make sure that the information is kept up-to-date, especially details of your services, facilities and contact details.
It can be affordable and cost-effective to have a simple website and takes minimal time to create and maintain basic business pages on social media. If you have social media pages, these should be updated regularly with content relevant to your services, events, news or other useful information for the industry which could be relevant to your clients or help you gain a following.
Other Advertising
Although having an online presence is important, there is still an advantage to advertising locally. You could place leaflets or flyers at local equestrian businesses such as feed stores and tack shops. You could also consider attending local equestrian events in branded clothing (such as jackets, saddle cloths etc) and could even sponsor equestrian events in the area.
If you are a riding school, or an equestrian centre that intends to hold events or hire facilities then you could hold open days to attract new clients and show you what you can offer at your yard. You could also offer seasonal promotions or discounts for new clients, events or facility hire.
Reputation
Your current and past clients would be your best form of advertising if they are able to recommend your yard and your services. It costs nothing for the personal recommendation from a client which would demonstrate the reputation of your yard. You can also as current or past clients to leave reviews or testimonials which you can share on your website and social media.
Overall, the key to marketing your yard and vacancies effectively is to showcase your facilities and services, target the right type of future clients, and building a strong reputation.
About the author
Cheryl Johns, SEIB Equestrian Business Writer and the founder of LiveryList and the Yard Owner Hub, is a qualified and experienced yard manager, marketing advisor and business consultant with experience across a range of industries.
About SEIB
SEIB have been arranging livery yard insurance and riding school insurance for over 60 years. This experience allows us to tailor policies to suit your circumstances and ensure that you and your horses are covered should the worst happen.