United States Eventing Association

Equestrians (and most certainly eventers) are passionate about horses, but often struggle to turn their passion into a viable business. Whether you are a trainer, instructor, farm owner, veterinarian, or farrier, your primary challenge is to gain clients and efficiently manage your business.

How does one gain new clients and efficiently manage an equestrian business?

One of the major keys is through smart use of the internet - chiefly, having a killer website which is integrated with your business operations. The ideal equestrian website serves to build brand awareness, drive engagement among potential and current customers, build buzz across social networks, and of course, look perfectly professional and trustworthy. It allows you to be available to potential clients any time of the day. In addition, the equestrian world is becoming increasingly international and your next great client is likely to look for your services on the internet.

To succeed in each of these facets, equestrian websites should include the following five essentials:

1) Attractive, Optimized Homepage

The first thing a new client is likely to see is your homepage, so it's critical that it appear attractive, with high-quality images and impactful text. This will give the impression of professionalism and trustworthiness that we mentioned above.

Of course, before these potential clients come across your website, they must first find it. This means that your website should be optimized for search (SEO) so it can be featured by search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and more. Most importantly, the site should be optimized for mobile platforms (phones and tablets), which are increasingly the primary devices people use to search online. Chances are that your next client will be looking for you while at the barn or at a show.

Finally, if you are selling horses, you want to communicate their special characteristics through video, pictures, and of course accreditations. The client is going to fall in love with the horse well before they even step onto the property.

2) Customer Engagement and Analytics

Every business owner will tell you the value of customer engagement. It's critical for a equestrian website to include customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities through customer interaction notes and contact management. As an example, this sort of software can help manage touch points with your customers with features such as eSignatures for rider/handler waivers, videos of their last lesson, etc.

The equestrian world is a small community which runs on referrals. Software that helps manage referrals (known as B2B co-marketing in the technology world) and make them more effective is critical to build trust with potential future clients. For example, imagine the power of a customer noticing that their farm recommends a certain veterinarian or farrier while visiting the farm website.

Finally, advertising is a necessity for many in the equestrian world, but which advertising channels actually work is often difficult to determine. With internet software, it is possible to use discount-codes and built-in analytics to measure the effectiveness of advertising channels.

3) Appointment Scheduling

The equestrian industry is a people-to-people business. If you are a veterinarian or a farrier, you need to visit the farm to do your job. If you are a farm, it is very likely clients will want to visit your farm before buying a horse.

Your website can greatly help your business if clients can actually schedule appointments online. A successful equestrian website offers clients the ability to schedule lessons, book clinics and post calendar of events. In addition, it provides automation for reminders with variety of mechanisms including email and text. Given the nature of the equestrian business, the site should also allow for digital signing of boarding and training agreements, as well as purchase and leasing contracts...all before ever stepping onto your property.

4) Payment Management

Making sure you're getting paid for your services is top of mind for any serious business owner. Having a reliable system for managing payments, as well as having the ability to offer discounts and payment with gift cards is also vital. A website which integrates CRM and payments can allow you to collect deposits, recurring payments, or installments easily and in an easily traceable manner. In addition to their main services, we see many equestrians build small stores which sell branded apparel along with custom training equipment.

5) Social Media Management

Social media is a core driver of interaction with current and future clients. Your equestrian website should include tools for managing social media, as well as functionality for a newsletter or blog which will help your site's search results and help you build meaningful relationships with your clients.Facebook can also be a useful way to increase engagement, and your site should also have positive review integration available so people can read your glowing reviews.

These five website essentials will deliver exceptional ROI for equestrians, the trick is to create a website that incorporates them all.

When you create a website for your business, you are implicitly committed to the ongoing costs of maintaining that website. You will need to stay abreast of new technologies—either new devices like smartphones and tablets, or new capabilities such as handling online payments—and their impact on how consumers access and use the Internet. The choices you make when building your website will impact the future costs—in terms of both time and financial resources—of maintaining your website.

The next generation of the internet has moved to Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions. With SaaS solutions, you no longer have to buy software or hardware to just see it become obsolete. SaaS solutions lease capability to customers, and the result is that customers get access at a fraction of the price. Even better, when SaaS solutions improve the software, the customer benefits without taking any action.

In the website space, SaaS solutions exist with platform tools such as Ocoos for Equestrians. Ocoos even offers concierge services that specialize in the equestrian space and can help you launch a robust website that incorporates all of these essential features. For those of you with a deeper interest in learning about how to move your business onto the internet, a free how-to electronic book is available at www.ocoos.com.