Marketing Newsletter for Metrowest Boston    April/May 2008

From pet spas to dog DNA testing, new pet services are sprouting up all over Metrowest, but they haven't all hit the web yet.

Here are three free or low-cost ways for pet professionals to update their website quickly:

Ads on your own website. Pet professionals should post ads for their own specials on their home page before advertising on other sites. You can use words as well to improve your luck with the search engines, but 1-3 images will catch people's attention right away without cluttering the page. NES Copywriting offers a $100 deal to design three ads of any size for your website - or to save you design fees when you advertise on other websites.

Publish an E-Newsletter. Write a monthly/periodic newsletter or use NES Copywriting's $99 newsletter package to communicate with existing customers. Your newsletter should provide useful information pet owners frequently seek and build your relationship with pet owners. More important for your business growth, clients will have to visit your website to read the entire newsletter and see the ads about your new services - much like newspaper readers.

Start Building an Online Library. Pet owners have a special relationship with veterinarians and pet professionals that should be fostered online. Make your website an information source for pet owners beyond your core business. This will keep customers returning to your site to see new specials and will pull in other pet owners through the Internet search engines. For best results, make sure you add both web links and descriptive text that customers want. After all, your goal is to keep visitors on your site as long as possible.

One useful link to get you started is this one for pet-friendly hotels on Cape Cod:

http://allcapecod.com/ccic/PFLodging.cfm

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