Cathy Watson of Bostic, N.C., writes:
“I am trying to get traffic to my website and teach people the therapeutic benefits of petting animals.
“I’m also trying to sell farm tours for $5 a person and spread this message: Please educate yourself BEFORE you get that cute puppy, kitty or piggy.
“I can’t take my animals on the road for a demonstration. But if I can get people to come to my farm, I can show them how animals should be cared for. I don’t like the term ‘petting zoo’ because that usually means animals that are forced to participate.
“When you come here, the animals are in their natural environment and come to you because they want to. I have been unsuccessful trying to offer free animal education to the public schools. I live between Asheville and Charlotte and the local economy is the worst in the state. I’ve had TV coverage in Asheville, but with no success to show for it.
“Can your Hounds suggest ideas on how I generate traffic to my website and get visitors to my farm?”
Create a profile on Icanhazcheeseburger. People love entertaining pictures of animals, even if there’s nothing but a funny caption with a serious photo. Create a few LOLanimal pictures of your own and link with potential friends.
Have a party! Make it a charity fundraiser for your favorite animal shelter or other animal related charity. Invite other animal related businesses to be part of this day – dog trainers, groomers, pet food retailers, gourmet pet biscuit companies, doggie shrinks, put on a fashion show………. go wild with stretching the animal theme (paintings, sculptures, cakes…)
Entertain people, give them something to see and do and let them learn something at the same time. Ask for donations and have donation boxes everywhere. Donate a portion to the charity and ask the charity to promote the event through their supporters.
Issue a press release for the local papers at least 2-3 weeks prior to get pre- and post event publicity. I did this for my Garden Parties: A Celebration of Summer (it all revolved around flowers) and I’d get 500 people in 3 hours on a Sun. afternoon and my garden centre/farm was in the middle of no where.
1. What about joining with other animal/pet rescue groups or any other non-profits in your area and hold special events at your farm?
2. Also contact local teachers with info about fun and educational field trips.
3. Contact local churches and give out info about the need to build a better world through the teaching of compassion.
4. Invite local artist and art teachers to hold special “Draw the Animals” Day at your farm.
5. Contact dog trainers and see if they need a place to hold dog training classes or special events. Consider learning then starting your own “Clicker training classes”.
6. Your farm may also be a great site to hold alternative health events — raw food, yoga, etc… Animals are great at stress reduction — which is good for better health.
Read this free ebook:
How to End Cruelty to Animals, People and Nature
Cruelty to Animals…
http://downloads.truthpublishing.com/HowtoEndCruelty.pdf
I wish you the best!
You could use the stress of the recession to capture some media attention. You could do a news release with tips about why petting animals is therapeutic and invite unemployed people, people who have lost their houses or cars, etc. (and the media) out for a free “pet therapy session” event to combat the recession blues.
Hi Cathy,
The first thought I have for you is a general one with regard to your website. When I visited, the first thing feeling I had was that is was overwhelming. The small, red font is very busy, plus there’s something covering every part of the homepage. There’s hardly any “white space” to allow my eyes to rest. I know that Adwords are supposed to bring in an income stream, but if they aren’t, that might be the first thing to get rid of. I would also put less in the header so that there isn’t so much distraction from the title of the business.
Next, I’m thinking you might have better luck promoting if you presented specific programs/benefits to certain groups. Give them names like Pet Pals or whatever. You do talk about therapy pets helping kids and seniors on the home page, but I’d suggest each have a page of their own with bullet points, problem/benefit kinds of things. Trying to hit everything all on one page, again feels overwhelming and it doesn’t really funnel each group toward anything specific. Many biz owners think that the more they cover the better, but often, the more specific you get the easier it is for you to specifically gear your promotion and the clearer it is to the intended audience.
When you asked us to help you drive traffic, you didn’t identify what groups you want to reach. Again, narrowing and aiming at one group at a time will help. For example, if therapy pets would benefit kids with a certain level of autism or other issues, you could contact non-profits that also help these kids, specialists who treat them and parent groups. Put together either printed info or something you can email, and network online or off to find them. If seniors in nursing/assisted living homes, or adults that live in adult care homes get a little different benefit than the autistic, put together a brochure/flyer with its own unique features and contact them in similar ways.
Educating people about proper pet care/animal appreciation is entirely different and you’d need to do the same as above all over again. I’d say start with one or the other topic, whichever you are most passionate about, whichever your market research tells you will be most profitable/most potential. You can bring up the other stuff, have it listed as a secondary offering, but it will take time to build momentum for just one idea so I think you’ll find it’ll be difficult to try to cover all kinds of things all the time.
Bottom line is, one size fits all is generally a difficult way to market. Narrow your focus and I believe you’ll have an easier time putting together a specific marketing plan.
I wish you the best!
Have you ever thought about working with the elderly as well. Your picture shows kids but I know for sure that this would be an excellent way to help the elderly.
I would suggest removing the Google Adsense ads. You want people to learn about and come to the farm right? So why lure them away with ads that earn you a few cents per click – they may just not come back.
I hate the term petting zoo. Sounds like you got a nice place their for your dogs etc. Will link back to your blog, that might get you a few more visits etc.. Good Luck
Hey Cathy,
I like what you’re doing with the farm. Pets do have amazing effects on people. You might try an online press release about your site and your cause.I hope this helps!,
Jason
http://www.letsreviewdogtraining.com
Clearly you have an admirable endeavor and a passion for it. Now you need to let others know about it.
Have you considered online and print press releases for the special event?
When coordinating the event, is there a college or university vet degree program or prominent vet clinic that you can leverage for volunteers?
You may also want to consider working with a senior living community that has it’s own bus/transportation system. Helps get the seniors out and you can let the press know about the special day – particularly if you’re inviting more than one community to attend.
Easter/Passover is right around the corner. Have any chicks, lambs or livestock that is a baby or needs a name? That could get the families to bring their kids and seniors for a day’s event.
Good luck!!
Consider creating bumper car stickers with the words “Pat a Pet” with your website address below it. You could also create Pat a Pet day and ask communities to take photos of themselves patting their pet and ask them to post the photos on your website a few weeks before you launch your ‘day’. You would then be able to alert the media to the fact that you’d created this day and make them aware of the competition. You could follow this up with invitations to the community to go to your website to vote for the best photograph submitted. That would give you another bite of the cherry when you announce the winner of the popularity competition to the media. You might be able to pitch your competition through photography magazines and media that caters to pet owners. You could also pitch stories to magazines catering to older citizens.
Love the idea of asking people to take photos of them and their pets. Who wouldn’t go for this???
Thanks for pointing out that petting zoos tend to also have an option for people to feed the animals. I’d like to take my stepson to one soon in order for us to have some bonding time. Knowing that he is quire interested in animals, it would be nice if he could be up close and personal with them.