How to prepare your equestrian business for life after lockdown

Although we do not know when lockdown will end, we do know that life after lockdown will eventually go back to normal. Whist it is quiet it is now a great time to prepare our equestrian businesses for life after lockdown. Right now, you can prepare your business to hit the ground running when normal life resumes.

The very first thing you should be considering is your marketing strategy. Do you have one? If not start evaluating what your current weaknesses are in your marketing. Conduct a mini audit on your equestrian business looking at, your:

• Google analytics
• Social media analytics
• Competitors
• Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

From your audit you should be able to see ways that you can improve your marketing efforts. Determine your overall goal then set your objectives on how you aim to get there.

Implementing a customer relationship management system can be daunting and you might consider if you really need one? Consider the following:

• How are you currently storing your customer’s information?
• Saddlery? Where do your online orders go?
• Riding instructor? How do you follow up on potential leads?
• Sell horse fencing? Do you follow up on quotes and how?

Having a CRM system can make your life so much easier as it stores all this information for you in one central place. It draws information, submitted through to your website, automatically. Saving you time as you will no longer have to manually enter details. If you are still not sure if a CRM is right for you, read our detailed blog here.

Review your current branding, including your logo and signage. Is your branding consistent across all of your customer-facing channels? These include:

• Website
• Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Youtube etc
• Flyers /brochures (if relevant)
• Storefront (if relevant)

Having consistent branding will ensure that your business is easier to recognise and will appear more professional.

If you are not completely happy with how your branding currently looks, consider developing a new style whilst you have the time in lockdown. That way when life goes back to normal you will have had time to ensure your new brand is reflected across everything.