Opening Rush - PetSmart Charities · PDF fileOpening Rush. PetSmart Charities Confidential 6 Months laterCrickets Chirping. PetSmart Charities Confidential What Do You Do? ... •

PetSmart Charities ConfidentialPetSmart Charities Confidential

Opening Rush


6 Months later…Crickets Chirping


What Do You Do? You Need a Plan

• Even if you don’t have marketing budget still need to promote

yourself!

• Diversify your approach

• Two methods: general marketing and targeted on the ground

outreach


Getting the Message Right:

Following SUCCES Principles

• To do promotions and create materials we need to have the right

message!

• Don’t need all succes factors but more you have the better your

message is received


Succes Factors

• Simple

• Unexpected

• Credible

• Concrete

• Emotional

• Stories

• www.madetostick.com

http://www.madetostick.com/


Who’s This?

6


Jared

• simple (weight loss),

• unexpected (weight loss by eating fast food),

• concrete (weight loss by eating fast-food subs),

• credible (his own account of weight loss by eating fast-food subs),

• emotional (his own triumphant account of weight loss by eating fast-food subs)

• a story (his own triumphant account of weight loss by walking to Subway twice a day and eating fast-food subs).


Apply To Our Field

When convincing people to spay/neuter we throw everything at them!

• health benefit

• behavioral benefit

• shelter/euthanasia angle

• public safety and health

• cuts down on strays/good for community

• right thing to do

• Saves money


Let’s Face It…#1 Reason To Fix

Pets is Self Interest

• not wanting more litters biggest reason. Confirmed in recent

PetSmart Charities study and HSUS/Maddies study

• Don’t want to deal with behavioral issues (In heat, spraying, yowling,

trying to get outside)


Top Reasons People Aren’t Fixing Pets

•Cost

•Accessibility/Just haven’t gotten around to it yet

•Don’t know when to do it

So let’s address these in our marketing!


A Profile: Humane Ohio

•11,500 surgeries annually

•Booked out on female dogs until end of May and all

others until beginning of May

•Average 90 calls a day

•2100 calls in February


Simple

• Quality surgeries

• Low prices not cheap

• Performed by

Licensed vets

Look to other national brands:

High quality, low cost tag line


Unexpected

• Bucks for Balls

• Increased neuters to

888 in Jan from 128

previous month

• SFSPCA actually pays $5

Per feral cat!


Credible

• Orrin Hatch PSA

• Best is someone they trust and know.

Generally friends/family and

veterinarians!

• 60% of people trust veterinarian


Concrete

Ask people coming to your clinic why they

came.

Humane Alliance found 87% have never

been to a vet and cost was a factor for

92%. Eliminating annoying behaviors was

#1 reason for coming.

• Our survey shows that “tired of

unwanted litters” is best

message


Emotional


Stories

• Cody Fund

• “From the loss of a loved

dog comes a legacy of life”

• Raised $12,000


Which is more powerful?

• Story of Cody, or the statistic that 8-10 million

animals enter shelters and 4-6 million faceless

animals die in shelters


Share your Stories

•We have one person who just gathers stories and takes pictures.

shares with staff

•Share with donors, volunteers, public

•Bulletin Board at clinic with success stories

•Opportunities to sponsor a pet for surgery and share after stories


Be Everywhere!

•Need to get out there in as many ways as possible

•Takes 3-5 times for people to get message

•Clinics are often new orgs and not a known entity. People need to feel

comfortable and hear from a trusted source

•Consider marketing in budget and paid outreach/marketing position

•We budget $10,000 annually


Tips for getting Clients in the Door

•Craigslist (every 1-2 weeks)

•Facebook/twitter

•Enews once a month

•Email signature

•Website “news” that changes

•Get 8,000 visits a month

•Promote in newsletter (2x) and appeals (2x)

Harley Bowersox

PetSmart Charities Confidential

Litter Patrol

• Call “free” ads in the paper and offer

to take puppies and kittens into

adoption program.

• Offer s/n of adults to keep in homes.

• Open to anyone with puppies/kittens. If

can’t take, ask to hold and they will

spay/neuter

• Most needing this don’t have reliable

transportation, so relies on volunteers

to pick up animals

• $6,000 to begin program


Litter Patrol

2010

405 dogs, 836 taken in and adopted

1,500 remained with family and altered


More Tips….

• On every website!(ASPCA clinic site, BF network, Pets 911, Spay

USA, Spay Ohio, all our shelter partners)

• Do google search on yourself to see where listed

• Flyers and business cards at clinic and download from website


Schedule Promotions

• 4 promotions a year spread throughout

slow times (February, June, August,

October)

• Catchy hooks to get media

• Spend $500-1,000 per promotion on

radio/print. Buy one get one free and Free

radio shows, TV


Beat the Heat

Targeted female catsOffered $20 surgeriesTrue cost is $45. Grant subsidized rest of cost

220 cats in 3 ½ weeksGenerated most calls in one

monthPromotion lasted one month


Promotions

• Pick 2 cat and 2 dog or do a promotion for both for litters or under 6

months

• Tie into holidays

– Cinco de meow

– St catricks day

– Halloween

– No fathers day


Promotions


Promotions


Super Cat Fixes

• Big Fix mobile visits a target area and offers a $9.99 blitz event for a day.

People respond to discounts, especially at $9.99 rather than $10.00.

• Fix 125-160 cats each day!

• Offer special for limited time

creates a sense of urgency

**need to be careful with this

Message for low income


Hooters for Neuters

Targets macho male

Free wings and hanging with Hooters girls while pets fixed

Keep in mind that females are primary caretakers


Be Newsworthy

•Once a month we try to be in the news with a story

•Get media list from United Way

•Give options with photo ops (going out with

trappers, Primp Your Pit promotion)

•Send press release and follow with call and email

•Contact every media outlet-suburban newspapers,

online websites, traditional media


Media

• Personal relationship

• hand written thank you note and bring food

• Call with opportunities all the time

• Work with them when they call us for help (even if

not spay/neuter)

• They now come to us!


The Dreaded No Shows

• Can be 10-30% and higher certain times (weather, holidays)

• Track no shows and overbook

• Call no shows to reschedule

• #1 reason for our no shows is no money/car. Don’t book too far out

to where this becomes a problem!

• Reminder calls 3 days out not 1

• Ask for deposit

• If cancel more than 3x just have them walk in

• Have a wait list of shelters you can call

• If can’t fill schedule next day offer ½ off to people calling

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Celebrate Milestones

• 10,000th surgery

• Spokesdog for clinic

• Fun Videos like Nevada HS

• National Feral Cat Day

– Dress up DJ as cat


Postcard

Idea from First Coast

NMHP who gets

hundreds of calls

from postcard

We got 120 calls

from 2 postcards

Cost $1,000 to mail

to 11,000 households


Use Other Methods To Get In Door

• Shot clinics/Community Events

• 300 pets, got 50 of them fixed

• Pet food bank

1,666 pets not fixed that we can reach

• Building fences/offering support


Other Methods

• offering free rabies with spay/neuter surgery gets people in (Austin)

• At rabies clinics, offer appointments to fix unaltered pets (Gulfport)

• Get partners to sign people up at festivals and get $5 off if pay that day


Spay walks

• Spay Walks: Getting out in the community


Spay Patrol Walks

• Group of volunteers and 1 staff member

• Take van out into neighborhoods

• Hand out flyers

• Bring traps, carriers and take animals for next day surgery if any

interested

• 1st one handed out 500 flyers and brought in 30 calls

• Idea from Wallys Friends TN


Make Partnerships

• Social service agencies: Job and Family Services, food banks,

senior centers

• Free inserts in water bills, housing authority, pizza delivery, dog

license


Partnerships

Partner with groups who promote spay/neuter: Spay and Play

Get businesses to include insert in their mailers (Invisible Fence, Poop

scoop, pet sitters, groomers)

We hand out their materials if they hand out ours


Downtown Dog Rescue


Dogtown Dog Rescue

• 75-80 dogs sterilized per event (2-3 a yr)

• Advertising is flyers and word of mouth. Pays people to distribute flyers

• All surgeries free and include collar, lease, bag of dog food. City pays and she covers any outside City

• Don’t judge! Individual relationships and getting to know them is key!


Help Shelter Partners

•Put on Grant writing workshops for them like Pets Alive

•Offer to partner with them on a Grant and set up fund to track numbers

•Give business cards to distribute

•Offer incentives/discounts: If they sign up # of clients for s/n at booths or

refer X clients

•Send promotions/flyers/business cards to partners to promote


Use Your Van As A Billboard


WORD OF MOUTH

• This is the biggest way that people hear about your clinic

• 261 people from friend/client/family

• Next closest was 20-shelter/rescue

• Best partnership is your current clients!

• Ask each client at check out if they would refer your clinic to one

person and give flyer

• This means you have to have good service.

• Do regular surveys/courtesy calls to confirm

– We try to call 10% of clients to ask how we did


Client Postcard


Track Marketing

•Need to survey clients on how they heard about you

•We have access database they enter data into during

scheduling

•Helps us determine what is

working and what isn’t


Why didn’t this work?

• Dog and cat look scary

• Low cost what doesn’t

Have same ring as “free

What?”

Making a joke out of animals

not wanting to get fixed when

we try to show that animals

don’t think of being altered like

we do


Why Didn’t This Work?


Curse of Knowledge

• Stop using jargon!

– TNR, kitten season

• Stop using overwhelming unrealistic stats

• We forget what it is like not to know what

we know

• Focus on what is relevant for our audience

not us



[email protected]

www.petsmartcharities.org

www.humanealliance.org“marketing”

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.petsmartcharities.org/

http://www.humanealliance.org/

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Opening Rush - PetSmart Charities · PDF fileOpening Rush. PetSmart Charities Confidential 6 Months laterCrickets Chirping. PetSmart Charities Confidential What Do You Do? ... •