I was thinking more about my mission and how it fits in with everything, and at first I was feeling like mine was very different. I didn't see how I could think of it in terms of advertising and using new media to advertise. Sure I can use techology for my mission, but I'm not trying to create some new product to sell or persuade people to use some new kind of technology. I just want to inform people about the overpopulation problem in animal shelters and get them to adopt pets. And then I realized...advertising is exactly what my mission is about. I will be trying to "sell" in two distinct ways.
1. I want to sell people ideas. I want to persuade them that it is better to adopt animals from a shelter than to buy them from a pet store. And I want to sell them other information such as it is important to spay and neuter pets to keep them from increasing the population even more.
2. I will actually be wanting to sell specific animals in the shelters. When a person purchases one of these animals, it will be called adopting. But it is still a purchase. The seller just does not make a profit.
I feel as though I am now thinking more clearly about my mission and how I can use any new form of technology to accomplish it. If something can be used for advertising, it can be used for my mission.
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Absolutely! Everything that you can think of doing professionally, requires marketing - whether it's for profit or not. Have you checked PetFinder.com? It's a website that started several years ago to match people with pets in need of homes. I have several friends that have utilized this site to find their new pet. It was an amazing tool after Hurricane Katrina, because there were so many people in need of someone to either take or foster their pet, while they pulled their lives back together.
ReplyDeleteOh I love petfinder! I suggest it to anyone I know who is thinking of adding a new pet to their family.
ReplyDeleteIf it were me, I wouldn't stop there! I would expand your idea into pet toys and supplies. There are many people that would love to adopt an animal, but simply cannot afford the supplies to care for these pets. My question to you is could you somehow use your marketing skills to persuade people to adopt from shelters even further? What I mean by that is could you come up with a solution for people who would like to have a pet, but cannot afford to feed them. I know at Meijer the pet industry seems to be in high demand. They have dedicated a whole section in their store just to pets. I have had to pass out dog and cat food samples to persuade people to buy that particular brand of dog or cat food. I have had lots of people tell me their life stories about their pets. For some their pets are literally apart of their families. I have noticed that they even have clothes now for dogs and cats. They had Halloween costumes for pets last year.
ReplyDeleteYes people can get pretty crazy with their pets. I used to work in the grooming salon at Petsmart. We'd have different perfumes, hair ribbons, etc. to match the season. (I took my dog in after hours in October and gave him a nice pumpkin spice shampoo with matching perfume!)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, you have me thinking about ways I can use my skills to help in another way. Not necessarily for the people who can't afford to feed their animals (I think that's a whole other issue) but the people that can afford to go above and beyond for their pet. There are at least a few brands of pet accessories that donate part of their proceeds to animal welfare groups. Planet Dog products, sold both in stores and at planetdog.com donates money, has their own foundation, and program initiatives. There's so much I could do to help this companies promote their products. If people spent their money on these toys and other products, they'd be doing more for the cause than just buying any other toy.