#97 – How to Write Better Puppy Ads and Website Copy

You ever hang out with a little kid and they ask you a question, so you explain it, and they ask, “Why?” to that answer? So you answer. Then they ask, “Why?” again? It’s so common that we can laugh about it, and I’m betting there’s at least one time in your life when that kid asked why so many times that you could feel your blood pressure rising and the headache was coming on.

Kids do this. It’s funny …. in hindsight. However, these kids are on to something. They want to know why, and that curiosity should be encouraged. These kids want to get to the bottom of things, to understand them at their root. It’s part of discovering the core truths to things. I recommend you do this in your breeding program–ask yourself why you are doing things as you are, and then ask if it’s the best method. If someone tells you to do something one way, ask why, and try to understand it at its root. This will serve you when puppy buyers ask you questions, and when you go to explain things to them. It’ll also boost your authority and respectability in their eyes.

You’ll also notice that sometimes people tell you something is important, or they’ll spew a fact at you, waiting for you to feel the impact, but you’re left thinking, “Why do I care?”

“Why do we care?” It’s a good question.

While I encourage you to ask why when choosing to do anything in your breeding program, today’s episode is all about writing better advertisements and copy for your website. It’s all about understanding the why and why it matters to your Ideal Puppy Buyer.

There is a formula you can use when writing. It’s a three-step thing:

1. What makes this puppy, or me as a breeder, stand out that I want to highlight in the text?
2. How is this a benefit to my Ideal Puppy Buyer? What need does it fill?
3. What micro story can I use to make this fully relatable to my Ideal Puppy Buyer?

It’s simple enough, I promise, but let’s walk through it.

Question 1: What Difference Do I Want to Highlight?

First, we’ll start with what we want to highlight. If you’re talking about a puppy, then you need to highlight what makes this puppy different, what makes this pup special or unique? You’re also wanting to explain the difference in your pups over other breeders within the breed. Remember, we aren’t bashing other breeders or breeds, rather we are showing the highlights of what makes us special or unique, where we are different.

In the case of a puppy, you might explain this pup has a smaller size than usual, maybe it’s a bit more vocal than usual, maybe it’s the ideal mix of everything you’re trying to breed. Maybe it’s a unique color or a perfect example of the breed. Whatever you want to highlight, make note of it.

For talking about your breeding program and why you’re different, talk about something you do that’s special. Maybe it’s the way you raise puppies, or the specific traits you’ve been selecting for over the years. In my GSP program, for example, I’ve been selecting for a dog that loves people, making them better family members when compared with other GSPs in the breed.

I might also want to share that I’ve been breeding for over a decade, or the number of litters I’ve whelped. These could set me apart from other breeders in the area or within the breed.

Question 2: How is This a Benefit to My Ideal Puppy Buyer? What Need Does It Fill?

If you recall from my teaching on the Ideal Puppy Buyer, every buyer has a void or need they are looking to fill in getting a dog. Sometimes it’s very obvious, like getting a livestock guardian dog to protect the flock; but other times it’s more general, like companionship. I will note that when the buyer has a void like companionship that they’re trying to fill, there is still a lifestyle that goes into it. The type of companion animal you’re breeding will most likely be different from the next breeder, even within the same breed. That’s because we all relate to people a little differently, and all people have a little different idea of what type of lifestyle they want with a dog.

For example, a companion animal could go everywhere with them, or the companion animal might be there when they get home so they aren’t home alone, yet the dog really doesn’t leave the house. These are very different types of companion animals; they’re very different types of lifestyles to share with a dog. Neither is better or worse, but they are two different Ideal Puppy Buyers.

Our Ideal Puppy Buyer will have a certain lifestyle. You’ll be fully familiar with the lifestyle of your Ideal Puppy Buyer if you’ve written them out and given them a name. In my case, Ryan and Kait are my Ideal Puppy Buyers. They’re a married couple with three kids under eight. They love to be in the outdoors. They have a whole personality and lifestyle that I’ve written up based on the buyers I like selling my pups to.

When I think of a difference I want to highlight, I ask myself, why would Kait & Ryan care?

• Why would Kait & Ryan care that I have been breeding for 10 years?

  They like that I have experience and I’m there to support them, so they aren’t alone in figuring out everything with their crazy dog.

• Why would Kait & Ryan care that I breed for a family temperament?

  Because, despite hoping they’ll hunt the dog, they really just need a family dog that’s good with the kids, not prone to biting them or scaring them.

• What would benefit Kait & Ryan with a dog that’s smaller or bigger than average?

  They might like how a smaller dog is easy to take with them, or they may love that they have the biggest GSP, they like ease and convenience, and they like to impress their friends.

This middle step of understanding why this matters to your Ideal Puppy Buyer is the key to so many writings. When you understand what matters to your Ideal Puppy Buyer, you can emphasize the things about you, your program, and your dogs that really work for them.

A lot of times we know something that makes us different, but it’s not quite tangible to our Ideal Puppy Buyers. They don’t know why it matters. For example, we health-test. That’s great, but how do we explain how that matters?

Well, that takes us to our third and final tip in How to Write Better Puppy Ads.

Get the 3 Keys to Writing Better Puppy Ads & Website Copy Printable!

Question 3: What Micro Story Can I Use to Make this Fully Relatable to My Ideal Puppy Buyer?

I talk about micro stories a lot. I use this term because I don’t want you to use a full story. It isn’t usually necessary. Sure, you want a handful of good stories to share with buyers when needed, but for the most part, a micro story is simply a phrase or few sentences that capture a particular concept and make it tangible. It makes it something that people can feel, and understand; it brings it to life.

If I tell you that these dogs aren’t a liability, they won’t harm people, what does that really mean? Not much. You might get an image in your mind, but it isn’t brought to life. Yet, what if I tell you that the dogs are so bad at being watch dogs that they’re more likely to invite the robber into the house and show him where the fridge is, than bark to alert you? That brings it to life. You might have even seen the dog wagging his tail as he leads a man in a ski mask to the refrigerator.

Let’s talk about our examples:

We know Kait & Ryan love that my ten years of experience means that I am there to support them, but what does that look like? How can we bring it to life?

We might say, “With ten years of experience, we’ve seen it all. So whether you’re struggling with leash pulling, are planning to take a long road trip with your pup, or your dog had weird poop after hunting, you can always call us and we’ll be there to help you figure it out!”

In that sentence I was able to share my length of experience, but I was also able to bring to life what that means–mainly that I can help them with whatever they run into because I’ve probably dealt with it before. If I just said, “I’ve seen it all,” that doesn’t really bring it to life. What does that mean? But by interjecting examples that are micro stories, it comes to life. You can visualize a dog pulling on a leash, and how annoying that is. You can visualize taking a dog for a road trip, and maybe that dog climbing all over the car, OR worrying that you packed the right stuff. You can also think of how gross and freaked out you might be after going hunting, and then your dog has weird poop from what he ate or retrieved. It really brings it to life. Now Kait and Ryan know the ways my ten years of experience will help them.

Next, let’s look at how Kait & Ryan care that I’ve been breeding for a family temperament. It’s important because they have little kids and need a dog that’s good with them. Yet, that’s not really brought to life. So, instead of saying good with kids, we might say this:

“In breeding for a family temperament, we’ve been able to select for a dog that is both brilliant in the field, eager to please and work with you, but who is also a great family member. You have enough to worry about with kids, their homework, activities, and keeping them safe. Your puppy shouldn’t add to your list of worries. Rather, you can relax knowing that leaving the dog with your child as you grab your phone from the other room is just fine. Our dogs adore children and won’t nip your children when unattended.”

In this blurb above, we mention we breed for a family temperament, but then bring it to life. In bird dogs, a lot of people worry that they hunt or not. So I need to make sure they know that they do, but I also need to address their core worry about the dog being a good family member. Kait is already stressed keeping the family organized, so adding a dog that brings out her mama bear protectiveness with her kids is not going to work. This section explains how she can comfortably leave the child and the dog together, and not worry that she’ll come back to a scary scene, such as the dog biting the child.

You do want to be careful. It’s not ideal to encourage people with young children to be left unattended with a dog, especially a puppy (we learned a lot about this from Michelle Stern of Pooch Parenting). However, it is good to know that the dog is unlikely to create problems in such a situation.

Next, we can address how Kait & Ryan might like that their dog is smaller than average, in the case of advertising a small puppy. To be clear, my Ideal Puppy Buyer, Kait & Ryan, are not stuck on a size with GSPs–my breeding program has smaller and larger GSPs and I have people who want the smallest and others who want the biggest. In our example, we’ll use a smaller puppy, one that’s going to end up being on the small side of the breed.

“Daisy is the perfect road trip dog. She is on the small side of GSPs. She’ll be around 38 lbs when she’s done growing, and that puts her as close as they come to being ‘Pocket Pointer.’ Aside from a lower feed bill, she’s the perfect size pup to take along on all your adventures, easily fitting in the middle seat of the van or even on the center counsel if you’ll let her. She has all the heart of a bigger GSP crammed into a petite body.”

In this part of an advertisement, we set the stage that she’s great for road trips. We point out that she’s smaller, and bring it to life with the visual that she can fit in the small middle seat of a van, or on the center counsel, as so many of my GSPs try to do. This really brings her size into something tangible; because really, it’s hard to work with the concept of 38 lbs, it’s rather abstract.

The Three-Step Formula to Better Puppy Ads & Website Copy

This is the simple, three-step formula I use to write the copy on my website, help breeders clarify their website copy, and how to write puppy advertisements.

To recap, the three steps are:

1. What is the difference I want to highlight for my Ideal Puppy Buyer?
2. Why does this matter to my Ideal Puppy Buyer?
3. What micro story can I use to explain this and bring it to life?

I hope this helped you learn a bit about how to organize your copy and help your breeding program stand out. If you want to learn more about this sort of writing and how to change up what you’re writing to better speak with your buyers, you can check out MasterClass #16, Using Stories to Sell Your Dogs. I have many more examples inside the MasterClass.

Well, there you go! We’ve added this to a cheat sheet that’s easy to print out and hang on your wall while you get the process down. I promise after a while it becomes natural, such that you don’t even think about the fact that you’re using microstories.

If you’d like to get the cheat sheet, use the form below.

If you’d like help with writing your copy, or simply want a faster way to get your social media captions written, check out Breeder Copy Hub. Each monthly edition includes 25 social media caption templates, 3 text message templates, and 5 email newsletter templates. I show you examples from my own breeding program, and how you can change them up to make it work specifically for your breeding program as well as your Ideal Puppy Buyer.

Inside Breeder Copy Hub we also include a Marketing Maneuver that helps you gain a little extra traction in your marketing with a simple activity. Recently we talked about how to find your keywords to better improve your SEO on your website. Before that we discussed how to build a micro stories collection; and we even taught one on how to use a brand mood board to bring more professionalism and flow to your branding and social media.

For less than a $1/day, wouldn’t it be nice to take the heavy lifting of social media off your shoulders? The average breeder using Breeder Copy Hub is getting their social media done in half the time, is putting out more posts than usual, and getting more engagement with their audience.

Learn more here.

Thank you for joining me for another episode of the Honest Dog Breeder Podcast, with me, your host, Julie Swan. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast I would love it if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it really helps get the word out to other breeders in need! I know you’re busy, and I appreciate you taking time out of your day to spend with me!