Change is hard – but struggling to perform your mission or having to give it up entirely is harder.  The simple truth is, it has been proven that digital audiences no longer respond to or have any tolerance for outdated stereotyping, archetypes or marketing approaches.  (Hence this being the height of “Cancel Culture”).  Factually, Millennials are the primary audience influencing trends and marketing needs within pet care and they need to be embraced.  Millennials do not want to be lectured about what is or is not considered proper in terms of pet ownership but rather, they want to be guided and supported in their search to understand how to provide the best home and be the best parent to their pets within their means.

Just because animal welfare organizations are nonprofits, this doesn’t exclude them from operating like and being recognized as a pet care brand.  Your brand is helping animals and pet parents in need – if this isn’t the ideal definition of pet care, what the heck is?  Yes, there is a completely different focus (impact vs profit) but the digital marketing approach in connecting with pet parents should be the same if you want the same willingness from pet parents to support the animal welfare brand as they do pet product business brands.

Did you know even Sarah McLachlan herself stated the videos she made of sad animals meant to evoke shame and guilt are traumatizing to her – and that she will change the channel if it comes on to avoid watching it? Audiences no longer respond to emotional manipulation.  They want honesty, specific details and a candid message delivered with kindness.  They want to be educated and both emotionally and morally moved to support your cause… but they refuse to be manipulated into it.  Forget emotionally manipulative fundraising tactics and implement a supporter strategy that focuses on transparency, community compassion and a normalized expectation of genuine asks for circumstance specific support.

In everything that you are writing to encourage supporters to engage with you, remove the word NOT.  Policies, rules, contracts, forms should focus language on education, helpful tips, best practices and well being.  For example “dogs must not be taken off leash” can easily be stated as “dogs should be kept on leashes as you just never know when they might startle at something new or a situation will arise in which a leash is the life saving tool.”

If you want influencers to share your messages, you can expect to pay the same $1k-$15k PER POST other pet brands do.  Influencer marketing is a money making strategy which is why animal welfare organizations should be focused on using their cumulative platforms to generate the same action results any other influencer would.  With proper messaging and content strategies, you’ll be your own advocate instead of searching outside your organizations all the time.

It’s a sure guarantee your organization is sitting on a wealth of email addresses from potential, current and/or previous adopters, volunteers, fosters and donors.  Due to time constraints, email marketing is often underutilized or not being utilized at all as a marketing connection strategy.  The possibilities are endless with email marketing but top reasons to implement are:

• Increased Recurring Donations
• Long Term Relationships
• Reminders and Resources
• Personalized Communications
• Repeating Adopters
• Conversion to Volunteers/Fosters
• Aligned Advertising Power