Marketing Plan – SAHS

San Antonio Humane Society Marketing Plan

Executive Summary

         The San Antonio Humane Society’s main concern and goal is increasing the awareness of its organization to the local community and its surrounding areas.

The primary audiences are families and single persons, because they are the most likely to adopt an animal. The secondary target audiences are students and volunteers, because they can help reach the goal to create higher awareness of the organization and recruit more volunteers.

The objectives for this campaign are to increase the awareness of the organization by 30%, to increase volunteers by 20%, and to encourage community building by hosting a “Doggy Walk” event.

The main strategy and tactic to increase and promote awareness is through social media by using social media to promote social events like adoption events at pet stores like Pet Smart and PetCo, and encouraging users to “Like” and “Share” events and news will also help promote and expand the awareness of the organization and of the Doggy Walk event to be hosted in November 2013.

 

Situation Analysis

Organization Overview

The San Antonio Humane Society (SAHS) is a non-profit, animal saving, no-kill organization. It has been serving San Antonio and its surrounding areas since 1952. The SAHS’s mission “is to protect and improve the lives of dogs and cats by providing shelter, care, adoption, rescue, spay and neuter programs, and community education[1].”

Its main goal is to promote the benevolent treatment of animals through community education, outreach programs, and promoting responsible pet ownership. SAHS also promotes animal adoption. To successfully achieve its mission, the SAHS pursues many goals such as:

• Conducting public adoption events to focus on finding permanent homes for animals.
• Promoting low cost spay and neuter services and responsible pet ownership at all SAHS events.
• Establishing a lost and found network for the community.
• Providing low cost microchipping to the public.
• Providing ongoing public education about animal health, welfare, and available resources.
• Rescuing shelter animals in support of the City of San Antonio’s goal of becoming a no-kill city.

Many of the SAHS’s staff are volunteers; the organization as a whole is volunteer-heavy organization, although, some of the staff members and public relations/communications staff are full-time. The organization allows almost anyone to volunteer, even teens and those seeking to volunteer for community service hours.

Competitors

         The San Antonio Humane Society has some competition with other pet adoption organizations like the Alamo Area Partners for Animal Welfare[2] (AAPAW), the Animal Defense League of Texas[3] (ADLT), and the City of San Antonio Animal Care Services[4] (ACS).

Each competitor has its own means of reaching out to the community and public about its organization. ADL is heavily social media-oriented; it’s active on Twitter and Facebook by posting information, news, and photos. ACS is community-oriented; using word-of-mouth and hosting several adoption events each month. AAPAW doesn’t seem to be active; however, the organization is mostly an affiliate to other organizations in providing overall animal welfare in the community.

Customers

         The San Antonio Humane Society has many key publics involved in the operating and functioning of the organization. The major publics of the SAHS include families, single people, college students and volunteers. The main target audiences for adoption are families and single adults. The secondary target audiences are students and volunteers.

Existing Internet Marketing Programs

         Currently, the San Antonio Humane Society has a strong online presence in social media, especially on Facebook. Its Facebook page is regularly updated with news, adoption information, event information, and photos of new available pets and pets that have gotten adopted. The engagement on Facebook is active from the community; they post photos of their existing or newly adopted pets, inquire about events and volunteerism, and post feedback about their services and programs. It also uses YouTube to post videos of some of featured pets, educational tips, and interviews with volunteers and new pet owners. However, its YouTube channel isn’t updated regularly. The channel itself has about 180 videos, though only two videos have been uploaded in 2013.

 

Strategy

SWOT

Strengths:

• Provides classes and programs for training, education, and pet birthday parties
• Provides all services for taking care of pets; spay, neuter, medical issues, exams, etc.
• All services are provided and taken care of for free prior to adopting a pet

Weaknesses:

• Not persistent enough with adoption events
• Generating awareness to adopt is lacking in their social media outlets
• Some social media outlets are outdated, specifically YouTube

Opportunities:

• More successful “PR” through social media if updated regularly
• Higher revenue and adoption if more adoption events were held
• Sharing new pets and news regularly on social media

Threats:

• Not being “the” place to go for animal adoption versus other pet adoption organizations

 

Needs and opportunities:

Though the organization has every media outlet available; Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, and Pinterest, these outlets are not all updated equally or regularly. Facebook and Twitter seem to be the only social medias that are being regularly updated, and YouTube the least with only two videos uploaded in 2013. The biggest need or opportunity is better social media skills. Social media is the way to get all the news, updates, and stories, and would also be a great way for the organization to update and share any new animals that need homes, as well as update about news and events about education classes and adoption events.

Organizational Goal & Marketing Objectives

         The organization’s main goal and objectives are to stay a no-kill shelter, and “to improve the lives of dogs and cats by providing shelter, care, adoption, rescue, spay, neuter programs, and community education[5].”

Marketing objectives include increasing the awareness of the SAHS by holding adoption events at pet stores like PetCo and Pet Smart, and utilize social media to promote organization and upcoming events; increase volunteers by working with local student organizations at colleges and universities, and using social media to promote and ask users to “Share” volunteer information; and enhance community building by hosting a “Doggy Walk” at the local park and promoting it through traditional and social media.

 

Tactics

Objective: To increase the awareness of the San Antonio Humane Society by 30% by the end of the first quarter of 2014 (April). Target audience includes families and single persons.

Tactic: Using social media to promote and engage the community about adoption events being held at different PetCo and Pet Smart locations. These events will be run by volunteers of the organization and would include at least a dozen animals, and potential owners would be able to fill out the paper work and take home a new pet on the spot. As well as using Google and Facebook ads and using Google Analytics and Lyris HQ to measure KPIs.

Timeline: By holding bi-weekly adoption events until the end of the first quarter of 2014 (April), this will increase the awareness of the organization and allow the public to adopt a dog or a cat on the spot by being in convenient locations at the pet stores.

Budget: Printing costs and dog treats for the events: $500/year. Lyris HQ, Google Ads, and Facebook Ads: $6,200/year.

 

Objective: To increase volunteers by 20% by the end of the first quarter of 2014 (April). Target audience includes high school and college students, and individuals under the age of 16 accompanied by a parent.

Tactic: Reach out to student organizations associated with colleges and universities in the community to create awareness of volunteer opportunities. This can be done by posting the volunteer opportunities on the college/university’s career website, posting flyers on bulletin boards, posting a link to the organization’s volunteer page on the University’s Facebook and Twitter page and by contacting student organizations and inviting them to workshops, events, and volunteer orientations that will be hosted online via Google+ Hangouts and recorded to able to be viewed at a later time as well.

Timeline: This tactic can be re-applied and submitted every semester throughout the academic year until the end of the first quarter of 2014 (April).

Budget: Printing costs and two non-volunteer staff: $70,000/year.

 

Objective: To increase community building.

Tactic: Hosting a “2K Doggy Walk” event at a local park to invite local residents to join the event and/or donate money, food, or toys to the organization. This event will help bring together the community and their dogs to a beautiful park to help support a great organization and their cause, as well as to raise money and awareness, and to education the public. By using social media and encourages users to “Like” the Facebook page and “Share” the event news with their friends. And to also place a feature story promoting the event and organization in the San Antonio Express News and on its website.

Timeline: The event would take place in November 2013 when the weather is “juuust right” for both owners and dogs to comfortably walk and enjoy the environment.

Budget: The organization would provide a “Thank You” doggy bag for all participants of the event that will include (in the bag) dog treats, a T-shirt, a dog toy, dog tags, and coupons to participating event sponsors. Each bag is worth (materials) $15 x 200 (participants) = $3,000.

 

Budget

Items	Cost
Lyris HQ, Google Analytics, and Google Ads	$5,000/yr
Facebooks Ads	$1,200/yr
Print Publications/Ads	$500/yr
Non-Volunteer staff for events and social media	$70,000/yr
Doggy Walk “Thank You” bags	$3,000
Total	$79,700

Timeline

Objective	Timeline
Organization awareness and ads	End of April 2014
Volunteer recruiting	End of April 2014
Community building	November 2013

Measurement

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

The SAHS’s website has three main objectives: 1) Attracting general awareness to the website and organization, 2) Allowing visitors to sign up to volunteer via the website’s application form, and 3) Allow visitors to donate online. The organization can track and count visitors visiting the website and find out who is signing up to volunteer and who is donating to the organization.

By being able to track and count these conversions, the organization can analyze if the website is reaching its objectives within its annual quarterly timeframe. The organization will count and analyze its conversion data every quarter (every four months beginning with January) and be able to assess when the highest traffic occurs.

Vendor Assessment

Because of the type of objectives the SAHS has (to track visits to the website, track how many of those visitors use the volunteer sign-up form, and how many of those visitors donate), log file analysis would be the best approach for analytics.

Two of the most qualified vendors are Google Analytics and Lyris HQ. Figure 1 compares the two products and their basic functions and services.

Features	Google Analytics	Lyris HQ
Web Analytics Tools	✔	✔
Content Analytics	✔
List Management		✔
Social Analytics	✔	✔
Behavioral Targeting		✔
Mobile Analytics	✔	✔
Conversion Analytics	✔	✔

Figure 1

Vendor Recommendation

Based on Figure 1, both vendors (Google Analytics and Lyris HQ) can practically perform the same job. However, one feature that might be more helpful to the SAHS is the Behavioral Targeting that Lyris HQ provides. By using the Behavioral Targeting tool, the organization can track trends that occur on the website – the best time out of the year that people tend to volunteer or donate, or simply visit the website more often. With this data, SAHS might be able to analyze why it is during these certain times of the year people are more opt to volunteer or donate than other times of the year, and use this information to change the website or marketing strategies so that more people will volunteer and donate more frequently. The cost for the services and Google and Facebook ads would be $6,200/year.