A warm, late-June evening by the beach marked session No. 1 of my latest project.

Riverfront Park in Point Pleasant is where I met Tom of Wild Rover K9 Services. We got acquainted while he finished setting the scene for a meeting with Tobin, a three-legged dog he has been working with.

The goal for Tobin and Tom: work on attentiveness and socialization amid busy surroundings.

The goal for me: capture it.

Tom had brought me on as a brand marketing consultant for his dog training business. He started with a website and some good old word-of-mouth advertising to start building his clientele. When he was ready to start taking more steps toward getting his company’s name out, we connected.

Together, we laid out the plan of attack. Tom wanted to have a social media presence to start sharing what his business has done and what he can do for Monmouth and Ocean County residents with wild rovers of their own.

Narrowing down Tom’s target demographic, we agreed Facebook, YouTube and Instagram would be the way to go to kickstart his social game.

The Jersey Shore has a number of active Facebook communities and local groups — particularly in the counties Wild Rover operates in — that are filled with questions about nearby small business services, providing opportunities for Tom, friends and happy customers to organically promote his Facebook page to those seeking dog training. And with how much everyone loves scrolling through dog content, we had to get him on Instagram and YouTube.

We then mapped out content plans, balancing bigger undertakings such as video series ideas with quick, easy posts like training session snapshots.

That’s how we ended up at Riverfront Park.

In three sessions — two training days and one sit-down, interview-style recording day — I shot the footage we needed for a video introduction to Wild Rover K9 Services. Check it out here:

It’s just the beginning of giving Tom’s business a foothold in a competitive industry, but it serves as a fine example of what a few scattered ideas can be turned into when you have the right brand builder working with you.

If you have a Jersey Shore business and need help stepping up your marketing efforts, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.