To connect with horse people deeply, brands must understand their world, speak their language and meet them where they already are.
By Adam Wilbers, Content Specialist
I was listening to a comedy podcast, of all things, when I heard something that stuck with me for animal health marketing— equine especially. The host and guest were talking about the formula for a good joke when they brought up author and podcaster Tim Ferriss, who says, “The world rewards the specific ask and punishes the vague wish.”
Their point: when telling a joke, don’t focus on generalizing the story to a broader audience in hopes of more laughs. Instead, tell the nuanced detail of how your neighbor’s prized garden gnome is a repurposed mannequin leg that he waters for half an hour every morning. It’s the specific details that people resonate with. We reward authentic stories.
For horse people and brands especially, the importance of authenticity cannot be understated. I should know. Three years ago, I stepped onto Hell’s-A Roarin’ Ranch in rural Montana for the first time. With little more Equine EQ than summer camp riding and tourist trails, I was a rhinestone cowboy to say the least.
Warren Johnson, the ranch owner, my boss for the summer and generational Montanan cowboy, knew that. The day we met he shook my hand, eyed me up and down, and snickered about my jeans fitting too tight over my boots. But what he said next, I’ll never forget.
“We’ll make a cowboy out of you yet, son.”
Reflect your audience back to them
To me, that experience captures the spirit of this unique and varied audience. It’s not that the space won’t accept you if you don’t fit in. It’s that you must do your due diligence before becoming a part of the herd.
People today encounter massive quantities of information in their daily lives—more than they have at any point in history. They receive a constant barrage of emails. They spend hours doomscrolling social media. Even the traffic lights they respond to on the commute home add to the information burden. Sources like MineCheck estimate humans receive up to 74 gigabytes (GB) of information a day.
This data overload has shortened human attention spans, which means purposeful storytelling needs to increase. Now more than ever organizations must reflect the pain points, beliefs, values and wishes of their audience back to them, in their tone and their voice.
Be specific
That’s why your marketing must be intentional. When developing an understanding of a community’s conversations, wants and needs, joys and concerns, look for the specific details that rise to the surface again and again.
Discovering those details can come in many ways, such as experience or participation in the space. For myself, that looked like a summer saddling 40+ horses a morning, long rides around Yellowstone with guests, and breaking my first colt relying on only the experience of a man I’d met just weeks before.
But if your brand doesn’t have a summer to play cowboy, it can develop that same reverence and understanding of the space through extensive research, voice of consumer work and social listening. Join an equine Facebook group. Attend a show or event. Visit the local stable for a day. Talk to someone who has ridden horses their entire life. But whatever you do, immerse yourself in the stories.
Then build on those insights. If your brand truly solves a problem, don’t fear particulars. Build your story with the details you’ve learned. Thread humor and nuance into the pain points you know your audience has and watch as they reward that specificity.
Here are just a few specific details a brand should consider when crafting those stories:
Copy: Have you consulted with an equine veterinarian or similarly credentialed professional before publishing health-related content? Does your language properly address the specifics of breed, gear or discipline nuance associated with the audience you’re talking to?
Design: Double-check your stock photos. Is the animal in good body condition and well-groomed? Are the horse’s ears soft, aware and connected? If the animal is saddled, is all gear properly fitted and secured?
Video: Are the horses moving freely and comfortably with eyes and ears alert and engaged? Is the rider’s body position in balance with the horse?
Share their voice
Detail alone is nothing if you say it the wrong way. Another important aspect of authentically sharing your story is developing a fitting brand voice. In the marketing world, we may attach a relevant character to a brand to stay aligned with the important characteristics, beliefs and values of an audience.
When done correctly, the right voice speaks to your audience in their language. Use the details from your research to inform and follow the patterns of your audience’s speech, reflecting their varying tones across different subject matter. But be careful: the difference between speaking your audience’s language and imitation is subtle. To avoid mockery, tailor your language to a) the attitude of the message you are trying to convey and b) the channel on which the piece will be made available.
Iterate and experiment
This leads us to choosing the correct outlet for your brand. Yes, your marketing must tell your audience what they want to hear, in the language they want to hear it. But you must deliver your message in the places they’re looking for it, lest your story fall on deaf ears.
No one wants to watch 10-minute explainers on social media. Nor would you limit a podcast interview to two minutes. But that doesn’t mean you can’t try new things. Developing a cohesive approach takes iteration and experimentation.
Take Huckberry, an outdoors retail and clothing brand that understands the details, language and mediums of its customers. Their marketing tactics involve lengthy emails that frequently link to external content—an absurdity in a volume-heavy marketing channel. They publish their own online journal, despite the decentralization of journalism. And their YouTube page contains diverse playlists from cooking tutorials to home highlights to adventure challenges and more.
Rather than generalizing, Huckberry deeply understands, lives and speaks the passions, interests and lifestyle of its consumers. Its focus on impactful, in-depth storytelling across multiple interconnected touchpoints highlights the prescience of intentional storytelling in marketing today.
Why storytelling will pay off for your brand
Together, that’s how equine brands can win on authenticity. In the age of AI optimizations, efficiency hacks and productivity shortcuts, horse owners seek trusted voices, experienced insight and stories that resonate deeply with the lifestyle they love so dearly.
In turn, the brands that tell those authentic stories become immersed in them, furthering the passion and purpose so often associated with this industry. That’s the reason people not originally from the equine world fall so deeply in love with it. And those who are already in it never leave.
So, take it from the kid with a passion for horses left unbridled in youth, realized over a summer of 14-hour workdays and now writing for brands making a difference in the equine space. Don’t just observe what makes equine enriching. Live it. And by the end, it’ll make a cowboy out of you too.
This article pairs with our Winter 2025 issue of Trendline: Equine. Subscribe to get the next issue!
