A Dog Walker's Sales Letter

Nope, nope and nope. It's all over the place. And the 5 cents thing is a dud. If it were me I'd do a hand-written envelope addressed "To the Dog living at #5 Ti Tree Drive, Merewether Heights"

The letter inside is written to the dog. "Mate... I bet you'd love to come for walkies with us this afternoon. There's a gang of us - 6 Alsations, 3 Poodles, a couple of Cattle Dogs and a scruffy little mutt that loves rolling in dead birds (she smells really good afterwards).... and we have a blast.

blah blah blah

Close with "Mate it's only $17.50 at the moment. Tell your owners to pull their fingers out cause Callan can only handle a few more of us. Best, Rufus the Gordon Setter. (signed with a fresh paw-print)

Yes there's a bit of work handwriting the addresses but I'll bet it works.

Thanks, I'll get to rewriting it.

Do a deal with local groomers. Either pay for referrals that close or post your flyer at their shop.

Obviously, trust is crucial. And a referral from a trusted source is worth its weight...

Well, I can advise you on this as copywriter and as member of your target market.

Putting on my customer hat, all I keep thinking is, when my fiance and I spend two weeks in Europe next year, would I trust this person to watch our third family member?

That's how a lot of dog owners see their dogs. Hell, most of them are a lot more fanatic than I am. Their dog is like their friggin' kid. Assuming you're a dog walker, and not a trainer (your post says one thing, your flyer says another, kind of confusing), I think you need to be building more trust by letting us know who you are and what's going to happen to my "best friend" if I take him to see you.

Your current flyer comes off too gimmicky to me - the 72 hours, 48 hours, urgency tactics, 65% discount. You're trying to get me excited. But this isn't an excitement sell. It's about security.

I don't care about "impressing my friends and neighbors" with my dog's tricks either. I'm too busy asking myself whether I can trust you with my dog. Do you own any dogs yourself, or are you just one of those puppy mill ba****ds who'll cram my dog into a "class" with 99 other mutts (who are never as well-behaved as mine BTW), just to increase your ROI?

Are you going to beat him? Yell at him? Change his personality? Make him more aggressive than he already is?

Second, all this stuff about how good the training will be for my dog really doesn't do it for me.

If I'm to the point of asking for help, I'm more worried about my own sanity. In other words, I love my dog, but right now, I'm ready to flush his ass town the toilet.

I want to stop feeling my blood pressure go up every time another dog approaches me and my dog because my dog is going to act like a Jackass.

I want to stop hearing my wife bitch about how he destroyed ANOTHER one of her 70 pairs of $200 shoes.

I want to stop apologizing to my friends when they come over and the first thing my dog does is jump on them or jam his nose in their crotch.

I want him to stop sh**ting on the floor, drinking out of the toilet, knocking over the trash, body-slamming the plate glass window every time he sees a squirrel run by and bolting out the door whenever it opens.

You have to understand that this is not a proactive decision for your customer. Most of these people will try to do it themselves, reading books and blogs, before even calling a trainer.

By the time they're desperate enough to call you, they're more worried about their own peace of mind than they are about their dog's hippo-campus or his doggie quality of life. My dog has it damn good already. No job, no boss, no bills, he sleeps all day and he gets three free meals. Tell me what it's going to do for MY sanity.

Putting on the copywriters hat, yes, most of your callers will be women.

I had a client who was a dog trainer and almost all his ads were targeted to women. Their biggest unspoken fear is whether the training is going to change their dog's personality. Most important, what they REALLY want is for you to train THEM in how to manage their dog's behavior, so they can be the boss again.

None of them will say these things on the first call. But the client I wrote for did this for 30 years and from what he told me, every customer eventually admitted that these were their reasons for calling.

I'd suggest starting over from that angle.

P.S. I realize I just said your target market will be women, but gave you a rant based on my perspective as a man. But the concerns are going to be the same. By the time SHE calls you, she's ready to lose her mind over this dog's behavior. She wants to have peace again. She wants to be in charge. She wants to keep her $14,000.00 shoe collection off his dinner plate.

@ Seth

Dude...he's a dog-walking service not a trainer. You're off brief.

Well, I'll toss in my $.02.

I think the opener's pretty cool. You get attention with the coin, you offer a premium with the book, you add "social proof" with the Cesar Milan quote, and you begin to spell out the benefits of your service.

I agree with Seth in that you can make the benefits more urgent and more relevant to what owners need -- get the dog to stop chewing shoes, and shitting indoors... Some of what you have is valuable too -- because people love their dogs and care about their well being...

But that being said, much of the letter is overkill & wandering... The stuff about teaching your dogs tricks and being the envy of the neighbors goes way down a pointless track. Again, relate your service to benefits people care more about -- even things they're emotional about, like chewing shoes and indoor shitting...

TCN is also right about keeping it simple. Don't stretch your credibility with stuff like "In just a few short weeks you and your dog can MASTER a dozen or more tricks with 100% full recollection. No more gruelling retraining sessions, just teach and enjoy the new found bond you've built with your furry friend."

Take off your writer's cap and stick to stuff that's relevant and hits hard...

All told, though, I think it's a darn good start, especially for a first sales letter. Personally, I like your angle better than cute stuff like writing to the dog (and suggesting that the dog will be walked in the company of other dogs -- which I think to some will be more a minus than a plus)... but your angle can be done better, with more bite, more dogged benefits, a stronger sales argument ...

You might want to test your version against the cute approach. Female dog lovers are probably crazy for "cute"... This is something I really can't relate to though, so I'd say you can't go wrong with just grabbing attention, spelling out the benefits, offering a premium (cleverly tied into the opener and the urgency)... per copywriting basics.

Great job so far!

P.S. If you're gonna go on as long as that (and you shouldn't unless you must), break up some of those big blocky paragraphs... More subheads? Benefits in the subheads? Bullets? I dunno... but if the letter is gonna be long, make it more readable...

Oh -- and if you go with "dog-to-dog" angle, make it a postcard with a cute pic and sprinkle on a lil pee from another dog...

Too long.

There's no guarantee the dog will still be alive after the owner has read this.

I'LL WALK YOUR DOG doesn't show till page 2, and when you hit us with all the 'in my experience' spiel, I'm thinking WHO ARE YOU?

Seth has it right with the secure thing, so you can lose most of the research, bin the useless Hamlyn distraction, and cut to a single page.

Re: always talking to the woman -

As the nurturer in most heteronormative relationships, it typically falls to the woman to "take care" of things.

I can tell you from personal experience that if I don't arrange it, it doesn't get done. Period. I either specifically have to detail every little thing I need on a honey-do list and give it a deadline, or I can take the easy route and make the damn phone call myself.

So, now that little point is out of the way....

What are you selling...training or walking?

I echo the others' sentiments. You talk about training about 50 bazillion more times than walking, even though walking is the service you offer.

And at this point, I'm in no way even POSSIBLY considering a lifetime arrangement.

Like others said, if I trust you to walk my dog, will my dog come home alive? Are you going to have him/her and 50 other mutts tied to some poor 98-pound teenage girl's arm and then be shell shocked that they all drag her, battered and bloody, after the first squirrel they see?

Are you the person walking? Do you have people working for you doing the walking? What are your qualifications? Theirs? References? Rick's spot on in that regard - I'll trust Yelp, a neighbor, a referral waaaaaaaaaayyy sooner than I'll trust a random letter.

Ask my boyfriend how much research I did on a pet sitter for our two cats when we left for Christmas. And how I insisted the sitter SEND ME PICTURES when she arrived. And I wanted a report of what happened during their session. Because I was paying her to 1) feed and water them, 2) make sure they were still alive and not in distress, and 3) that they were exercised and entertained and loved on because we were not there to do it.

First and foremost, I'm worried that if I pay someone to do something I'd normally do myself, that they'd take the money and run and leave me AND my pet screwed. I'm trying to solve a problem - not only is the problem NOT solved, I'm out cash too. I'm not there to make sure it gets done. How do I know you ARE?

As far as the training aspect is concerned? Skip it.

Or else, focus on a better benefit.

Top of my head? Better suited as a postcard or else a really short letter (and you should definitely set up that referral system too). Hit on their pain points - is your dog chewing up all your new shoes, flinging trash all over the place, and generally being a pain in the ass?

Odds are he just needs a little more exercise.

I have this walking route in your neighborhood that will have him ready to take a nap and relax as soon as we're done. And I've walked this route with every breed you can think of - they are super chill when we're done, and that calm, relaxed state lasts for HOURS.

Look, I know you can't be there to walk your dog as often as you'd like. You gotta work/travel, right? So let me help out. Here are some people I've worked with/testimonials.

And to sweeten the deal, here's a special introductory offer.

Bam. Short and sweet. No need to do heavy lifting for this - just work on building trust and relationships. Then you can reward loyal customers for referring their friends, reward long-time customers for their loyalty, etc.

Thanks everyone. I'll drop the training stuff, keep the letter to a page and build more trust and credibility.
I'll also finish my "talking to the dog" version and run them against one another.

Do you remember when you got your dog?

You had such high hopes...

You'd train them. And you'd walk them every day, right?

Stuff happens I know. Life gets busy.

But here's the truth...

Lack of exercise is what ruins good dogs.

When they're young, it makes them hyper and it makes them chew things. They need to get the energy out somehow.

As they get older, it sucks the life out of them...takes the sparkle out of their eyes.

You see, regular exercise is not just a 'nice-to-have' for your dog...it's a necessity.

Still, life is demanding. Some days it's a battle to get 5 minutes to yourself, let alone 30 minutes to walk the dog.

I get it...more than most.

I built a successful business around walking dogs for people like you. People who love their dogs...but who just don't have enough time to walk them as often as they need.

Let me do it for you.

I can walk your dog whenever you like - as often as you like.

No more feelings of guilt...the dog will get the exercise they need. And you can focus on what you need to get done.

It's not a chore for me. I love it. And I guarantee your dog will too.

Here's how it works...

The guilt complex is a great idea.

But…

If the dog isn't pining or destroying the house once the owners have gone to work - the "guilt" might not exist…

Owners can justify their absence, "F*** sake we HAVE to work to earn the money, anyway the dog looks happy enough and we do take it out in the early morning and evening"

So, you may have to trigger the guilt with "pics" of sad, lonely looking dogs left at home.

And as mentioned by others - explain all the "upsets" and deep "psychological damage" that the poor dog is suffering.

With all the dreadful consequences…

You can add salient comments from vets to reinforce all this.

And then finish it off by saying - "After all - you DO know just how much your dog loves you?"

And viola, you have installed the "guilt" in a few seconds.


Steve


P.S. Me…forced to be a copywriter working all day and night in the copywriters attic so I can look after the dog.

Ewen,

Good point.

But would she leave the dog in the first place?

And not all dogs are owned by women.


Steve


P.S. Slightly off subject…when I walk my dog…he is a hot women magnet.

They rush over to pet him…and of course immediately fall passionately in love with me for having such a cute dog (a labrador pup).

Doctor Vile,

I did say you and a good point.

But maybe not an all encompassing conclusive point.

Now, stop arguing and go and walk the dog.


Steve

Dog is currently eating his lunch.

Then we're off for a walk.

Should be fun.


Steve

This thread is turning into quite the dogfight.

*goes back to being lonely*

…yes it's dog eat dog on this thread.

But good news for us copywriters who stayed onboard.

Apparently 72% of the others have legged it to their local printers with "red hot dog walking copy" to make into flyers.

They have seen the light and realised they'll earn a lot more money walking the dogs.

Good luck to them.


Steve