Hippie Hounds
Hippie Hounds is a holistic-health–focused dog grooming salon owned and operated by three true dog lovers who boast more than 21 years of professional grooming experience: Aaron, Amanda, and Anna (aka The A-Team). After too many years of seeing a lack of standards in the industry, The A-Team joined forces to establish Hippie Hounds, a space where dogs of all temperaments can be cared for and have their needs met. The dedication to effective, gentle, and all-natural practices is shared by every member of the Hippie Hounds grooming team and is reflected in all they do. Their passion for dogs, married with their commitment to support the overall health and well-being of every pup they meet, makes them truly stand out from the average groomers.
One of our Hummingbird Marketing pooches is Kenny, a rambunctious Miniature Pinscher and Jack Russell Terrier rescue mix. Sweet Kenny had been enjoying spa days at Hippie Hounds for nearly two years when his mom, Hummingbird Marketing CEO Andi Lucas, struck up a conversation with the owners. She learned that the team was longing for a digital presence that reflected their dedication to dog wellness, and we were thrilled to partner with fellow dog enthusiasts.
We quickly got to work understanding the Hippie Hounds brand and outlining digital marketing goals. We adopted a phased approach, with collaborating with the Hippie Hounds team, to launch a transformative website redesign, followed by on-brand and engaging social media management. Today, we continue to craft monthly blogs that show off the Hippie Hounds’ expertise while running their social media accounts.
Industry
Animal Products & Services
Collaborators
Andi Lucas, Founder & CEO
Julia Giordano, Content Writing & Social
Elizabeth Phillips, Web & Graphic Design
Services Provided
(Click to jump to each section)
Web Design
Project Brief
Bird’s Eye View
With hands-on and creative ownership, Hippie Hounds wanted a digital marketing partnership. They wanted to be involved with every step, while enjoying the luxury of a team of experts owning the creation. The A-Team knew their website could be so much more than the bare-bones, stock photo-filled site that it was. Plus, as Hippie Hounds customers, we knew the energetic pulse of the salon first-hand and had witnessed the detailed care sweet Kenny received on his spa days with our own eyes. We were more motivated than ever to build a site that reflected their brand, values, and the unique personalities of the people who are the heart of the salon.
Ruffled Feathers: Hippie Hounds’ Pain Points
The owners of Hippie Hounds wanted to be in love with their website, but they weren’t — it was just “okay.” Importantly, it worked. It highlighted pertinent information like the services they offer and their business hours, but it lacked personality and storytelling. The images were stock photos — a waste because every groomer’s camera roll was running out of storage with amazing pictures of real, happy dog customers, just waiting to be put on display. The navigation was confusing, the content lacked SEO, and overall, the site was a static, boring, and inaccurate portrayal of the vibrant, energetic, and wholesome environment of the physical salon.
Our Flight Plan
After a long conversation with owners Amanda, Anna, and Aaron, we began to develop a vision that would meet and exceed their digital marketing goals. We set off to create a website that, when visited, mimicked the feeling of stepping into their salon. The website would be welcoming, comfortable, informative, and showcase their fun, friendly, and vibrant team who make each customer feel valued, and each dog feel at home. We wanted the site to feel clean, light, and airy to match their authentic and holistic “hippie” branding, while embedding their social media feed to show their personality and a blog to share their dedication to education.
Feathers in Our Cap: Top Accomplishments
We wrote original content that introduces Hippie Hounds and the truth of their compassionate expertise.
Hippie Hounds is rooted in the belief that grooming is a vital piece in the equation for a balanced and healthy dog. We learned that the Hippie Hounds’ team does much more than just give great haircuts; they expertly maintain a calm environment where even high-energy or anxious pups can thrive. Plus, they are passionate about educating dog owners on how to provide exceptional care to their canine companions at home. Hearing their story, while already having seen their unparalleled dedication for ourselves as customers, we simply needed to create a site that told the truth — there is nowhere else like Hippie Hounds.
We wrote content. 18,469 words to be exact, carefully selected and parsed from our conversations with the Hippie Hounds team to speak to their differentiators, expertise, and true passion for the work — and the owners loved it! Julia Giordano, the lead writer on this project, is skilled in crafting clever, on-brand content, but she also knows the immovable fact that great content is useless without a reader. We expertly wove SEO strategy into the content so that while it reads wonderfully for a human, it also appeals to search engines. This means more eyes on the Hippie Hounds site, more happy dog owners, and more pups with clean, stunning cuts prancing about Seattle.
We wrote original content that introduces Hippie Hounds and the truth of their compassionate expertise.
Hippie Hounds is rooted in the belief that grooming is a vital piece in the equation for a balanced and healthy dog. We learned that the Hippie Hounds’ team does much more than just give great haircuts; they expertly maintain a calm environment where even high-energy or anxious pups can thrive. Plus, they are passionate about educating dog owners on how to provide exceptional care to their canine companions at home. Hearing their story, while already having seen their unparalleled dedication for ourselves as customers, we simply needed to create a site that told the truth — there is nowhere else like Hippie Hounds.
We wrote content. 18,469 words to be exact, carefully selected and parsed from our conversations with the Hippie Hounds team to speak to their differentiators, expertise, and true passion for the work — and the owners loved it! Julia Giordano, the lead writer on this project, is skilled in crafting clever, on-brand content, but she also knows the immovable fact that great content is useless without a reader. We expertly wove SEO strategy into the content so that while it reads wonderfully for a human, it also appeals to search engines. This means more eyes on the Hippie Hounds site, more happy dog owners, and more pups with clean, stunning cuts prancing about Seattle.
We expanded on the Hippie Hounds values to build a brand as unique as the salon itself.
We took the logo they loved and expanded it into a branding that reflects the holistic, natural version of Hippie Hounds. Because this brand is completely unique, we needed to dig deep creatively. There is no other pet industry site with branding like Hippie Hounds. While the Hippie Hounds staff styles in tie-dye shirts, the brand is inspired by an all-natural, live off the land, wholesome type of hippie — not the cliche 1970’s costume of a hippie. We leaned into this distinction for the branding to focus on organic, earthy, and outdoorsy imagery.
As with all of our website redesign projects, we created a custom Website Brand Kit with colors pulled from the logo and developed into more blues and greens to comprise a light and natural color palette that reflects the all-natural hippie vibe. We carefully selected a thin script font and laid out the site with an emphasis on extra white space to give breathing room between each element and a larger line spacing for text, reflecting the open-air, comforting space of the Hippie Hounds shop.
We wanted to include illustration elements through the design, but ready-to-use elements that matched our inspiration didn’t exist, so we made our own. Our lead website and graphic designer, Elizabeth Phillips, hand-drew thin line drawings to add to the site’s personality while staying on brand. We replaced stock photos with real-life images, but selected pictures with backgrounds that align with the new color palette. We also edited each photo and video to be brighter, lighter, and more aligned with the design. The final result? A beautiful, clean website to match the soothing aesthetic of the salon.
We employed visual storytelling to share the Hippie Hounds’ tale.
A major goal for this redesign was to communicate just how unlike your typical groomers the Hippie Hounds team is. We even dedicated an entire page, “Why Choose Hippie Hounds,” to emphasizing their differentiators — not only in writing, but also with our hand-drawn illustrations thoughtfully placed on the page and throughout the entire website design.
We brought a once-stagnant site to life through images and video. The passionate team behind this business captures amazing content daily. We strategically used this media throughout the website, with a commitment to using only their images. So long, stock photos! We created a captivating video filled with three minutes of cute and happy dogs to greet site visitors on the home page. This video not only showcases the shop’s interior and pulls you into the space, but it’s also a perfect visual for the tender love and care each dog receives when they’re dropped off at Hippie Hounds. Nothing puts a dog owner more at ease than the undeniable truth of a tail-wagging pup on the grooming table.
We employed visual storytelling to share the Hippie Hounds’ tale.
A major goal for this redesign was to communicate just how unlike your typical groomers the Hippie Hounds team is. We even dedicated an entire page, “Why Choose Hippie Hounds,” to emphasizing their differentiators — not only in writing, but also with our hand-drawn illustrations thoughtfully placed on the page and throughout the entire website design.
We brought a once-stagnant site to life through images and video. The passionate team behind this business captures amazing content daily. We strategically used this media throughout the website, with a commitment to using only their images. So long, stock photos! We created a captivating video filled with three minutes of cute and happy dogs to greet site visitors on the home page. This video not only showcases the shop’s interior and pulls you into the space, but it’s also a perfect visual for the tender love and care each dog receives when they’re dropped off at Hippie Hounds. Nothing puts a dog owner more at ease than the undeniable truth of a tail-wagging pup on the grooming table.
The Final Product
Other Flutterworthy Features
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A Team Page to Feature the Faces Behind Hippie Hounds
At Hummingbird Marketing Services, we are firm believers that your people are your business. We always encourage adding a team page to show off your amazing staff, but in the pet industry, it’s especially important because pet owners are entrusting you with their fur baby’s care. By adding a team page, we were able to showcase the expert groomers, bathers, and people you meet when you step into the salon. This page welcomes site visitors to the team before they’ve even scheduled an appointment. It also enables groomers to advertise their experience and skills.
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A Stunning Social Media Feed Embedded Directly to the Site
Not to brag, but we’re doing amazing work with Hippie Hounds’ social media. Why should social followers be the only ones who get to see tons of cute photos and videos of dog clients? By uploading social posts onto the site, we created a mini-portfolio, showing a perpetual stream of proof of each groomer’s skills and just how comfortable dogs are in their care!
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A Gallery Featuring Breed-Specific Grooming
Unique to this industry is a common issue around owners knowing what cut to ask for when they drop off their pup. We wanted to simplify things for both clients and groomers and make communication between the two effortless. Adding a gallery of previous work became a reference for owners of different breeds to use as inspo photos for selecting their pup’s cuts.
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Simple, Easy Links to Encourage New Subscriptions to the Newsletter
With a goal to increase newsletter subscribers, we set off to make subscribing as easy as the click of a button! We placed subscription buttons throughout the site in multiple places to drive engagement. We took it a step further and designed a flyer with a QR code to post around the salon to encourage regular customers to sign up for the newsletter!
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An Emphasis on the Diverse Ownership and Team
Hippie Hounds is a black-owned and women-owned business, and a top value for the owners is having a diverse team. Representation matters, and we wanted to ensure the site reflected these values. Hippie Hounds is a safe space, not just for all dogs, but for all humans. We created a site that highlights the pride in being a black-owned and women-owned business with a diverse and expert team of groomers and bathers.
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Digital Marketing
Project Brief
Bird’s Eye View
The Hippie Hounds team was above average at capturing compelling content, but their amazing photos and videos of happy, freshly groomed pups were living in their phone’s storage or only being posted to their Stories, meaning they disappeared after 24 hours. Despite this, the vibrant and fun energy of the brand garnered them a strong following and engagement on social media platforms.
Ruffled Feathers: Hippie Hounds’ Pain Points
While the Hippie Hounds’ social pages had a great following, the owners had no bandwidth to post regularly. Between caring for dogs, working with customers, and managing all the many tasks of running a successful business, social media posting fell on the back burner. Their team was capturing so much content, but no one had the time to develop the photos and videos into posts. Furthermore, the content they did post lacked a balance of content types. An established strategy was missing from their social media presence.
Our Flight Plan
The Hippie Hounds’ owners are not just excellent dog groomers, they’re also creatives. Although they capture amazing photos and videos, The A-Team wanted to focus on the dogs, find work-life balance, and, in doing so, pass the digital marketing efforts off to us, the experts. Still, we wanted to involve the owners closely in the social media process so that we could transform what they capture into compelling content and keep everyone on the same strategic page. We developed a custom and incredibly collaborative social media process that enables The A-Team to capture content with direction, add information, and provide feedback, creating a powerful final product.
Social Media Management
With a following like Hippie Hounds’, we were eager to jump into content creation. Plus, who doesn’t love editing cute dog videos? But first, with Julia Giordano leading the content plan and Elizabeth Phillips leading the design, we established a thoughtful strategy. We created a plan of four posts per week that focused on a blend of content topics and types. The content would continue to establish Hippie Hounds as experts and provide more opportunities for educating dog owners, while leaving plenty of space for fun, behind-the-scenes videos to drive engagement.
We create each month’s plan in advance, including a shot list with ideas and examples for filming, with ample time for the team to capture photo and video requests. We craft the content in bulk, then send it to Hippie Hounds for review, keeping the process collaborative while taking the heavy lifting off their plate.
As with all of our social media management clients, we create a custom kit full of social media templates for their continued use. For Hippie Hounds, we incorporated the hand-drawn elements from the website, as well as fonts and a color palette, mimicking the light and airy aesthetic of their site and making brand consistency effortless.
Since taking the lead on the Hippie Hounds’ socials, engagement has only been on the rise. Posts consistently have more than 100 likes and 20+ comments. Shares and views are up, and their account gained more than almost 50 new followers within the first two months of implementing our strategy. This uptick of engagement is reflected in an increase in traffic to their website.
We provide cohesive design and a thoughtful strategy for social media.
We provide cohesive design and a thoughtful strategy for social media.
Social Media Management
With a following like Hippie Hounds’, we were eager to jump into content creation. Plus, who doesn’t love editing cute dog videos? But first, with Julia Giordano leading the content plan and Elizabeth Phillips leading the design, we established a thoughtful strategy. We created a plan of four posts per week that focused on a blend of content topics and types. The content would continue to establish Hippie Hounds as experts and provide more opportunities for educating dog owners, while leaving plenty of space for fun, behind-the-scenes videos to drive engagement.
We create each month’s plan in advance, including a shot list with ideas and examples for filming, with ample time for the team to capture photo and video requests. We craft the content in bulk, then send it to Hippie Hounds for review, keeping the process collaborative while taking the heavy lifting off their plate.
As with all of our social media management clients, we create a custom kit full of social media templates for their continued use. For Hippie Hounds, we incorporated the hand-drawn elements from the website, as well as fonts and a color palette, mimicking the light and airy aesthetic of their site and making brand consistency effortless.
Since taking the lead on the Hippie Hounds’ socials, engagement has only been on the rise. Posts consistently have more than 100 likes and 20+ comments. Shares and views are up, and their account gained more than almost 50 new followers within the first two months of implementing our strategy. This uptick of engagement is reflected in an increase in traffic to their website.
Blog Posts
Before working with Hummingbird Marketing Services, the Hippie Hounds site did not have a blog. Blogs are an amazing resource for providing education, establishing expertise, and driving SEO. For a business like Hippie Hounds, which is so focused on wellness and owner education, adding a blog was a no-brainer.
Like all of the work we do with Hippie Hounds, the blog posts became a collaborative effort. Together, we brainstorm topic ideas, then the Hippie Hounds team writes a first draft. Our writers edit the content, bring it to life, increase readability, and optimize it for SEO. We created a branded template for all of the blogs to ensure they look as good as they read. Once we have it live on their website, we promote each new post on social media. With the addition of an engaging blog, we found an increase in the amount of time spent on the Hippie Hounds’ website.
Photo Gallery
