As an equine professional, it is more than likely that you will face the challenge of advertising sales horses at some point in your career. A robust sales program is a great way to boost your business, but it can be very difficult to facilitate these sales if you do not know how to properly market these horses. At Athletux, we love helping our clients create incredible sales advertisements. Here are some of the steps we follow to create a killer sales ad.
- Get as much footage of the horse as possible!
It is impossible to create a great sales ad without a lot of footage of the horse. As great as videos from competitions are, we suggest you also pick a time to shoot your horse at home as well. Get some high quality shots of your horse walk/trot/cantering past the camera in both directions. Then jump the horse around a few courses. As exciting as it is to see horses do high level lateral movements, most buyers are more concerned about the quality of the horse’s movements and jump. Get way more footage than you think you need, and then go through and find the best clips to put in your video compilation later.
2) Make a video compilation.
After getting all your footage, create one, 1-3 minute video compilation to showcase your horse’s best movements and jump. This video should include a title page with the horse’s name, a confirmation picture, and your brand’s logo. Then add clips of your horse walking, trotting and cantering in both directions. Finally, add footage of your horse’s best single jumps/lines from course footage. In this video, it is best to avoid adding clips of a horse completing an entire course– we want to keep this as a short, introduction to the horse. Remember you can always add links to “additional videos” on the horse’s advertisement.
3) Utilize all available channels.
One of the biggest mistakes we see professional’s make is not utilizing all of the great sales resources that the internet provides us with. While the horse’s main advertisement should be found on your business’s website, use social media to direct traffic to your site. That short video that you created in the last step should be posted on your Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube along with a short bio for the horse and a link directing interested parties to your website.
4) Add all applicable links directly to your advertisements.
Not all interested buyers will be familiar with the FEI, USEF and USEA databases. This means you should add a link to your horse’s records on the advertisement. In addition to the show records, it is helpful to add links to videos from shows, or even a link to the horse’s bloodlines. Having all valuable information in one place makes it a much better shopping process for your audience.
5) Create a YouTube playlist for each horse.
Hopefully, you have more than one video of the horse that you are selling. If this is the case, creating a youtube playlist to showcase them is a great idea! Here, you can add longer schooling videos, rounds from shows, etc. From here, it is super easy to add a link to this playlist directly to the sales ad on your site. Creating a playlist is just a great way to organize all the footage you have of your horse, instead of sending an interested buyer down an exhaustive youtube rabbit hole.
6) Make your sales page cohesive!
All of your sales advertisements need to follow the same format. This makes it much easier for interested parties to navigate your website/social media pages. Plus, it boosts the overall professionalism of your brand. A title, simple confirmation photo, and a concise bio is a great place to start.