Shelby Hernandez is a second-generation U.S. citizen. She grew up around horses

Question

Shelby Hernandez is a second-generation U.S. citizen. She grew up around horses and stables. Recently, the owner of a local stable offered to sell Shelby his operation in order to facilitate his retirement. With the help of family members and Small Business Administration loans and grants, she was able to make the purchase. Shelby’s Stables offered four major types of services. First, she rented space to horse owners complete with grooming, stable clean-up and feeding. Horses would be either walked on a regular basis to make sure the animals received sufficient exercise each week or they would be ridden by her or one of her workers, depending on the contract. The fees for housing the horses and taking care of them would contribute greatly to cash flow. Second, Shelby owned several horses. Horse enthusiasts could take these out for trail rides. Riders ranged from children to senior citizens. Her horses were gentle-natured and patient with inexperienced riders. Shelby offered photo services so that a first-time rider or one celebrating a special occasion, such as a birthday, could capture the moment with a digital image that could be shared with others. Third, Shelby offered horse-riding lessons to individuals of all ages, although most were teen and preteen females. Shelby loved the opportunity to work with young girls to acquaint them with horses. Most lessons were one-on-one, but she also offered several riding camps through the summer months. The fourth part of the operation was to service local charities that would provide rides for individuals with disabilities, illnesses, and injuries. Various news stories noted the calming and therapeutic value of horse riding for individuals with developmental problems, those with terminal illnesses, and others facing challenging recoveries from injuries. Shelby charged nominal fees to groups such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the local chapter of Wings for Warriors for access to her horses and riding activities, ranging from simple walks within a confined stable area to larger trail rides. Shelby had the advantage of serving several owners who already kept their horses in her stables, based on contracts with the previous owner. Still, she wanted to expand that part of her company, as she had nearly a dozen unfilled stalls. At the same time, providing rides would generate substantial additional income. A local marketing professional was willing to assist in the launch of Shelby’s business on a pro bono basis, due to his interest in the Make-A-Wish Foundation. He advised her about the importance of traditional, digital, and social media marketing efforts. Shelby had set aside $10,000 for marketing to launch her company

question: How can the photos taken by Shelby for various patrons be used as a marketing tool for her stables?

Explanation / Answer

While working on the suggestion of the marketing professional, let us now focus on the digital platform as a marketing tool for the business. Now coming to the photos Shelby has taken, these are the ones that have been collected over time and have been taken with number of people who utilised the services Shelby offered, and at the same time, have played a key role in making up another auxiliary service for the business. We are now looking at leveraging these photos as a marketing tool, let us link this to what the marketing professional has suggested, that is, the importance of traditional, digital and social media.

The photos clicked can be used in various ways to garner attention towards the services offered by Shelby. First things first, let us think about the traditional marketing channels, these photos can be used as the primary content to drive the marketing efforts. The print media and direct mail would contain the images, and there would be a small 2-3 liner review given by the particular client about the service offered by the business and how things have been easier for him/her thereafter. When it comes to broadcasting, a small video could be made to push the services into the target market, essentially the storyboard for the video would be something like, it would start off with the admiration towards horses that people bear and then move on to the care that needs to be taken and then introduce our business and services and end with a collage of the photos.

Moving onto digital and social media, here our attention should be directed towards how to make something go viral on the social media to gain attention from a large section of audience, one way could be to come up with creative ideas and a punch line below each photo so that it is enough catchy and would be something the youth would share with their friends just for fun. At the same time, in parallel, we would create a page for the business on all social media platform and would be maintaining the same in an active state with lot of activity and uploading photos tagging the ones in the picture, this would essentially open up our business to the friends and acquaintances of the client along with people of similar interests, therefore greatly aiding in the marketing efforts.

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