Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi everyone! I'm curious to hear from all the shelters out there how you get animals adopted.

More specifically, what have you found to be the best marketing channels for getting the word out about adoptable animals?

What have you tried that hasn't been successful?

What do you wish you could do more of, but maybe just don't have the resources?

Thanks for your help!

We have been very successful getting our cats and kittens adopted by "No Adoption Fees".  We charge for rabies vaccinations, licenses and microchips but no adoption fees.  Our dog adoption fees are very low also and the animals are moving pretty quickly.  All animals are spayed/neutered prior to adoption.

Pat Rock, Oshkosh Area Humane Society

We (Jacksonville Humane Society, Jax FL) are currently gathering this data at our shelter when it comes to long-stay pets. We have found that one of the greatest factors of adoption is customer service. Most of our adopters "just stopped by". When our staff and volunteers make people feel welcome and answer questions about pets, it really makes the family feel more secure in their decision. 

In terms of marketing, we have the most success with Facebook and Instagram. I wish we had more funds for boosted posts for specific harder-to-place pets. Additionally, our website gets a ton of traffic so we do our best to keep photos current and cute with great memos. 

I haven't found videos to be very successful unless they are edited well and we've got money to boost the post. I know that video is supposed to be the "king of content" but unless it's a great video, it doesn't do well for us. 

We do a lot of fun promotions and free adoptions throughout the year. It brings in foot traffic and results in many adoptions. 

I'd love to know what works for others! :) 

Thanks Lindsay! What kinds of promotions do you do?

We've had a lot of success just creating quick little videos on my iphone https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE6yGw8uEFJvpJar6fiI8kq8HgD6TmfWJ.  We push them on our Facebook page. We've recently boosted one to a similar audience to those who like our page in a 30 mile radius. I also put them in our e-newsletter when the timing works out for that. Getting them on the local news is always good but for the more behaviorally tricky ones that wouldn't enjoy offsite events we've found success with the videos and being honest about their issues while also providing solutions. 

We focus on facebook and then our instagram is mainly just re-posting what our FB posts are. I'm not sure they always lead to adoptions. Boosting posts does help get people to come to our adoption events, but I'm not sure if we've been that successful with boosting a dog's post to get an adopter for a particular dog. I do think that instagram is popular for a younger crowd and wish we had more time to keep up with posting stories and cute videos on there. 

Where we definitely struggle is with getting fosters or foster-to-adopt for heartworm positive dogs. I've tried a few different ways of talking about heartworms and/or fosters, but our HW+ are always our long-term residents.