The PR Playbook for Animal Advocates
This week, Mary and Alex welcome Sarah Bhimani, the strategic communications manager at Animal Humane Society in Golden Valley, Minnesota, one of the largest private shelters in the U.S. Sarah shares her experiences managing public relations and internal communications for this influential organization. From addressing PR challenges to fostering community engagement, Sarah offers practical advice and valuable strategies for nonprofit organizations looking to amplify their message, advocate for animals, and drive action.
Tune in as Sarah discusses how PR has evolved during her tenure, the most rewarding aspects of her work, and tips for connecting with your community. Whether you're a pet professional or a passionate advocate, this episode is packed with inspiration and actionable ideas to elevate your efforts!
Listen to Episode #17 Now:
BIO:
Sarah Bhimani is a skilled communications professional with extensive experience in strategic communications, public relations, and community engagement. Currently serving as the Strategic Communications Manager at Animal Humane Society since August 2019, Sarah oversees internal communications and public relations efforts. Previous roles include Communications Strategist and Internal Communications and Public Relations positions at Animal Humane Society, as well as Social Media and Website Contractor for Lake Street Tire, The Laundry Basket, and Communications Coordinator at Minnehaha Creek Watershed District. Sarah has also held various positions focused on outreach, education, and media management across different organizations, including City Market and Lake Champlain Land Trust. With a Master of Science in Sustainable Food Systems from Green Mountain College and a Bachelor's degree in Writing from Northland College, Sarah combines a strong educational background with a passion for effective communication strategies.
Transcript:
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Announcer: This is Pet Life Radio.
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Announcer: Let's talk pets.
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Mary Tan: Welcome to the Whisker Report, to where a new podcast dedicated to helping anyone in the pet industry, whether you're an animal welfare or a for-profit pet company, to get some PR and buzz for your organization.
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Mary Tan: Hello everyone, I'm Mary Tan, one of the hosts of the show, along with Alexane Ricard, a French gal who hails from France and travels the world in hopes of finding all the cats out there that are not spayed or neutered.
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Mary Tan: Bonjour, Alex, where are you this week?
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Alexane Ricard: Bonjour, tout le monde, I'm back in France right now, just outside of Paris in my little hometown called Troyes.
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Alexane Ricard: But I'm moving to Vancouver in only five days, so that's very exciting.
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Alexane Ricard: But let me introduce you to our producer, Mark Winter of Pet Life Radio, who is the man who gets us to you each and every week.
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Mary Tan: Hey, Mark.
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Mark Winter: Hello, how's everyone?
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Mary Tan: We are good.
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Mark Winter: All right.
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Mary Tan: Oh, Mark, you might be listening to this a few weeks out, but thank goodness Mark is safe.
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Mary Tan: He's dealing with a hurricane right now.
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Mark Winter: And not too much.
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Mark Winter: It missed us, so we're happy about that.
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Mary Tan: Very cool.
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Mary Tan: We're so honored to be part of Pet Life Radio that Mark runs.
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Mary Tan: You can do PR for yourself.
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Mary Tan: And Alex, Mark and I are going to help you each and every week.
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Mary Tan: Yeah.
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Alexane Ricard: And this week, we're so happy to have a great guest with us, who is Sarah Bhimani, who is a Strategic Communication Manager at the Animal Humane Society in Golden Valley, Minnesota.
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Alexane Ricard: Sarah handles all the public relations and internal communication for the shelter, which is one of the largest private shelters in the US.
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Alexane Ricard: Hi, Sarah.
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Alexane Ricard: Thank you for being on our podcast today.
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Alexane Ricard: Could you tell us a bit about what you do, who you are, and more about the Animal Humane Society?
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Sarah Bhimani: Yeah.
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Sarah Bhimani: Thanks so much for having me.
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Sarah Bhimani: I'm so happy to be here.
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Sarah Bhimani: Like you said, I'm Sarah Bhimani.
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Sarah Bhimani: I'm the Strategic Communications Manager at Animal Humane Society.
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Sarah Bhimani: I've been at Animal Humane Society for just over five years now, and my primary focus is internal communications and supporting our PR work.
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Sarah Bhimani: Animal Humane Society is one of the largest animal welfare organizations in the Midwest, and we help over 11,000 animals through our shelter every year.
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Sarah Bhimani: Plus, thousands more through our programs and services that we offer to the community.
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Sarah Bhimani: So we're more than just a shelter.
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Sarah Bhimani: We are really focused on keeping people and pets together too, so that we offer low-cost vet care.
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Sarah Bhimani: We have a really robust outreach program.
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Sarah Bhimani: We have education programs, training programs.
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Sarah Bhimani: We do humane investigations.
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Sarah Bhimani: So we have our hands in a lot of different areas in animal welfare here in Minnesota.
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Mary Tan: That is so cool.
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Mary Tan: So Sarah and I go back a little ways.
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Mary Tan: We do.
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Mary Tan: I used to work at the Animal Humane Society as well.
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Mary Tan: I was her boss at one point, but she was always bossed me around.
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Mary Tan: That's kind of the way it goes, right, Alex?
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Mary Tan: It's the same way with you.
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Mary Tan: I kind of have this like, this hands-off mentality when it comes to management, because I think people should shine, and that's a perfect way.
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Mary Tan: Well, we are going to be right back with Sarah.
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Mary Tan: We've got to take a break, and she's going to talk a little bit about how she uses PR, and she's also going to give us some tips and tricks.
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Mary Tan: All right, we'll be back.
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Announcer: Let's talk pets on petliferadio.com.
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Alexane Ricard: And we are back with Sarah Bhimani of Animal Human Society.
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Alexane Ricard: What PR challenges do you face in advocating for animals in adoption initiatives?
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Sarah Bhimani: Yeah, I would say, so there's kind of two big challenges that come to mind for me.
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Sarah Bhimani: So the first one is probably universal for any industry, and that's just breaking through the noise, right?
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Sarah Bhimani: People are bombarded with information all the time.
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Sarah Bhimani: There's so much going on locally, nationally, globally.
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Sarah Bhimani: And while a lot of people love animals, and many of our stories are feel-good type stories that can actually kind of help balance that negative news cycle, it can also be really hard, I think, for local news outlets to just find the space to share what we have to say, right?
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Sarah Bhimani: If it comes down to it and there's so much happening that they have to communicate to the public, ours is probably one of the first things to get cut in their line up.
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Sarah Bhimani: So I would say that's the first challenge is just like getting our message out there.
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Sarah Bhimani: The second challenge, I would say, specific to Animal Humane Society is that we just do so much in the animal welfare space that it's sometimes hard to cohesively explain all that we do to the public in a way that resonates with them and that they remember.
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Sarah Bhimani: So a lot of people know us for animal adoption.
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Sarah Bhimani: We've been doing that for decades and decades.
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Sarah Bhimani: But like I said, we do so much more than that now around keeping people and pets together.
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Sarah Bhimani: So, you know, from the low-cost vet care training classes, education, so it can be really hard to adequately explain that to people when you only have like a three minute TV segment, right?
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Sarah Bhimani: So what happens is we end up focusing on one aspect of our work in these different segments, and then people might see one or they might see two, but they don't see all of them.
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Sarah Bhimani: So they don't get this comprehensive view of what all we do in animal welfare.
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Alexane Ricard: So I have a question.
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Alexane Ricard: How do you decide which aspect to highlight?
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Alexane Ricard: Like what comes into mind?
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Sarah Bhimani: What is the process of that?
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Sarah Bhimani: Yeah, that's a good question.
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Sarah Bhimani: So it kind of depends on what's happening, right?
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Sarah Bhimani: So if we have a brand new program, we're going to promote that, of course.
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Sarah Bhimani: And that kind of makes it newsworthy because it's new.
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Sarah Bhimani: If there is some sort of national observance going on, for example, Domestic Violence Awareness Month, we have a temporary pet housing program that helps people fleeing domestic violence and other situations.
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Sarah Bhimani: And so that would be a good opportunity for us to talk about our temporary pet housing program in October, because there's a time-based relevancy there.
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Sarah Bhimani: Other times, if there's a deadline coming up, if we have an event where people have to purchase tickets, that makes it timely.
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Sarah Bhimani: So just looking at what's going on in the world and what makes this relevant for sharing right now.
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Mary Tan: That's really, I mean, the work that the Animal Humane Society does is really amazing.
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Mary Tan: And I know there's so many multiple aspects.
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Mary Tan: So when you're pitching a story, and you know, I think TV loves, you know, animals, especially because it's a very visual medium.
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Mary Tan: So what goes into your pitches?
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Sarah Bhimani: Yeah.
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Sarah Bhimani: So a lot of times we don't do, we do do press releases every once in a while, but we don't do a ton of them.
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Sarah Bhimani: Most of the time our pitches are pretty informal, trying to keep it really short in email.
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Sarah Bhimani: So we would give probably like a couple lines about what's happening and why it's relevant.
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Sarah Bhimani: If we're doing like a media availability, obviously including all the logistics around that date, time, where, and then really important is including what visuals they'll be able to get and being really clear about that.
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Sarah Bhimani: So are they going to be able to get B-roll of animals, kids, people doing X, Y, Z, because that's going to help sell it, especially to TV media, like Mary said.
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Mary Tan: Yeah.
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Mary Tan: So you've been there now five years.
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Mary Tan: So how has your approach to PR evolved?
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Mary Tan: I feel like the longer you're at an organization, the more you can get crafty in the pitches.
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Sarah Bhimani: Yeah.
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Sarah Bhimani: I think actually one way that we've evolved is really our process on the backend and with how we interact with our marketing team and specifically.
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Sarah Bhimani: So when I first started, the marketing team was very siloed and the PR team was very siloed, and we didn't really coordinate our messaging very well.
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Sarah Bhimani: So we would be off in PR talking about one thing, and the marketing team would be posting on social media about something totally different.
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Sarah Bhimani: So over the years, I feel like we've been able to break down those silos a little bit and one simple step we took was having our PR person sit in on standing monthly marketing meetings that our marketing team has with the different departments across AHS.
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Sarah Bhimani: So not only does this let the PR team mine stories from different areas of our organization, but it also helps keep us in the loop with what's going on on the marketing side, so that we can plan our efforts more proactively, and hopefully, by coordinating those efforts, we're hitting people with the messages, not just in TV media or print media, but also on social media, also on our website, also in email, so that not everybody's going to see a segment on WCCO, but they might see that segment being shared on social media the day after.
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Sarah Bhimani: So just expanding that reach has been really helpful, I think.
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Mary Tan: Yeah, and I can't stress that enough.
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Mary Tan: We work with a ton of different companies and animal welfare and nonprofits, and Alex, you chime in here.
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Mary Tan: I often see the marketing and the PR are completely separate, and I feel like sometimes they don't understand what they're doing.
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Mary Tan: Like, I don't always think that marketers understand what PR is.
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Mary Tan: And, you know, PR people, you know, need to know more about, you know, the responsibilities of being a marketer, because they're really two different things.
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Mary Tan: And I always feel like there is, there can be some, and it doesn't matter what kind of an organization you are, they're definitely the, there's always some push and pull between PR and marketing.
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Mary Tan: And it doesn't have to be that way, as Sarah pointed out, right, Sarah?
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Sarah Bhimani: Yeah.
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Mary Tan: So you mentioned a lot about your community outreach program.
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Mary Tan: And so how do you incorporate community engagement into your PR strategy?
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Sarah Bhimani: Yeah, so one thing I would say around community engagement, so just from a PR, solely from PR standpoint, community engagement is incredibly important for avoiding crisis communication events.
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Sarah Bhimani: So the more proactive we can be in sharing information with impacted community members about decisions we're making, things that are happening in our world, the more likely it is that we can proactively address any concerns or issues people might have before it blows up into a reputational risk for us.
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Sarah Bhimani: In terms of informing PR strategy, our community outreach team is actually in the process of doing a community needs assessment right now.
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Sarah Bhimani: And that's going to give us really valuable information to support what kind of messaging, what kind of programs we need to be promoting for folks so that they know that they're out there and available for their use.
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Sarah Bhimani: And I think, you know, that research piece is so important for PR, just knowing how the audience is perceiving you, what they're retaining, what information they're retaining, how they're viewing you positively or negatively is so important.
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Sarah Bhimani: And it's a really hard thing for organizations to maybe budget for year after year because it is expensive.
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Sarah Bhimani: But the more research you can do, the better your PR strategy is going to be in the long run.
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Mary Tan: All right, we've got to take a quick break.
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Mary Tan: And when we come back, Alex has all these questions for you, Sarah.
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Mark Winter: You know the expression, cats have nine lives.
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Mark Winter: Well, what if you can give them one more?
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Mark Winter: The Give Them Ten movement is on a mission to help give cats an extra life.
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Mark Winter: How?
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Mark Winter: With spay and neuter.
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Mark Winter: Spaying or neutering your cat helps them live a longer, healthier life.
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Mark Winter: And it helps control free roaming cat populations too.
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Mark Winter: Learn more about the benefits of spay and neuter and meet Scooter, the neutered cat, at givethemten.org.
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Mark Winter: That's give them T-E-N dot org.
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Announcer: PetLifeRadio.com And we're back!
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Alexane Ricard: And have a couple of questions for Sarah.
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Alexane Ricard: So Sarah, as you mentioned, Animal Humane Society has resources, like for example, to do those research about the community, but for other non-profit organization that might have less resources than yours, do you have any advice or tips on how they can get their message out there?
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Alexane Ricard: How can they be perceived as positively, like anything that they can get from you?
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Sarah Bhimani: Yeah, so I think in terms of a research piece, if you don't have a big budget, if you have folks going out to events and tabling, that's a really good opportunity to ask people questions when they come up to your table, right?
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Sarah Bhimani: Maybe just have three questions that people provide answers to, and maybe they get a little giveaway as an incentive for answering your questions, or just in the course of the conversation, trying to pepper in some of those questions that you might be interested in finding answers to.
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Sarah Bhimani: Also, I think putting together online surveys isn't super time-intensive or money-intensive, or it doesn't have to be.
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Sarah Bhimani: So if you have the capacity with your staff to put together a short survey, you could try to send that out in your email, put it on your website, put it on your socials, and see what kind of response you get.
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Sarah Bhimani: Because any response is going to be helpful, hopefully.
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Sarah Bhimani: So those are a couple of ideas.
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Sarah Bhimani: I do think that the more you're able to get out in the community and talk to people, so we have a community outreach team that is able to do that.
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Sarah Bhimani: That's a big part of their work.
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Sarah Bhimani: I think having those one-on-one conversations with people is really helpful in breaking down any sort of misinformation that might be out there.
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Sarah Bhimani: Just getting people familiar with your organization.
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Sarah Bhimani: I think it always helps when people have a face to put with the organization, even if they're not the CEO.
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Sarah Bhimani: Knowing that they had a positive interaction with somebody from this organization is really beneficial for reputation.
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Mary Tan: Sarah, for those that...
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Mary Tan: We have a lot of listeners who run pet manufacturing companies, pet stores, that sort of thing.
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Mary Tan: How do you like to work with the for-profit side of the animal industry?
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Mary Tan: So, in terms of sponsorships and silent auction donations?
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Mary Tan: And tell us, what is the best way to work with an animal shelter?
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Sarah Bhimani: Yeah.
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Sarah Bhimani: So, you kind of hit on it, Mary.
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Sarah Bhimani: Working with for-profit organizations, the biggest and most beneficial thing for AHS is supporting our events.
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Sarah Bhimani: So, coming on board as a sponsor or donating silent auction items are really, really impactful for us.
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Sarah Bhimani: You know, our events get a lot of eyeballs, get a lot of attendees, and they can be a lot of work and expensive to put together.
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Sarah Bhimani: So, the more sponsors we have to help cover those upfront costs of that event make a really big difference in the success of that event and ultimately bringing in money that's going to go towards helping animals and people in our community.
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Sarah Bhimani: I think depending on the organization, too, donations of items can be really helpful, too.
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Sarah Bhimani: You know, if you manufacture litter boxes, for example, and you have a bunch of litter boxes that you can donate, that can be impactful, too.
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Sarah Bhimani: And it just kind of depends on the shelter.
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Sarah Bhimani: At Animal Humane Society, you know, we are large enough where we have some contracts already in place for supplies and things like that.
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Sarah Bhimani: But when we do get items donated, those go into our community outreach program.
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Sarah Bhimani: And so those get repurposed and donated to people in our community who need those supplies.
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Sarah Bhimani: So it's not going to waste.
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Sarah Bhimani: And anything that people can donate to us is going to find a good use.
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Mary Tan: Talk a little bit about the different sponsorships that shelters have.
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Mary Tan: So I know Animal Humane Society is officially a Purina shelter.
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Mary Tan: And Purina does a wonderful job of donating, I believe, all the food for all your animals.
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Mary Tan: Is that correct?
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Sarah Bhimani: I can't confirm that.
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Sarah Bhimani: I don't know that off the top of my head, but I can find out and give back to you.
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Mary Tan: But how do you land those kinds of partnerships?
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Mary Tan: I don't know if this is just a question that I'm throwing out there and throwing at you.
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Mary Tan: I guess, what is a successful partnership between a for-profit brand and an animal rescue?
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Sarah Bhimani: Yeah.
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Sarah Bhimani: I don't know that I can fully answer that question since I'm not fully in that world.
00:18:40.007 --> 00:18:49.047
Sarah Bhimani: But we do have a central purchasing manager who works a lot with our suppliers to figure out those kinds of relationships.
00:18:49.047 --> 00:18:57.567
Sarah Bhimani: I think for animal shelters, we're non-profits and we're working on really tight budgets.
00:18:57.567 --> 00:19:08.647
Sarah Bhimani: Having a contract where a for-profit organization is providing, say, all of the cat litter that we're using is super beneficial and makes a huge difference in our budget.
00:19:09.167 --> 00:19:13.747
Sarah Bhimani: It's relatively easy for us to recognize that contribution.
00:19:13.747 --> 00:19:23.907
Sarah Bhimani: We can easily put a logo on our website or on our event materials, mention them at events, mention them in social media every once in a while.
00:19:23.907 --> 00:19:35.447
Sarah Bhimani: We can work out that contract so that it's beneficial to both the animal shelter and the for-profit organization and that we can both find value in the relationship.
00:19:35.447 --> 00:19:39.507
Alexane Ricard: I have a question going back to something you said earlier.
00:19:39.507 --> 00:19:45.447
Alexane Ricard: You said when you try to get media attention, you always try to be the feel-good stories.
00:19:46.127 --> 00:19:51.127
Alexane Ricard: We had a guest last week on our podcast who has had Project Rescue.
00:19:51.127 --> 00:19:58.047
Alexane Ricard: They were wondering how to get their message out there when all of their stories can be quite sad.
00:19:58.047 --> 00:20:04.627
Alexane Ricard: I wanted to know if you guys only focus on the feel-good stories or do you also talk about the bad stories?
00:20:04.627 --> 00:20:06.127
Alexane Ricard: How do you manage that?
00:20:06.127 --> 00:20:09.327
Sarah Bhimani: Yeah, I think that's interesting.
00:20:09.327 --> 00:20:15.247
Sarah Bhimani: I think AHS tries to communicate more about the positives than the negatives.
00:20:15.507 --> 00:20:18.887
Sarah Bhimani: I think both can be successful, right?
00:20:18.887 --> 00:20:23.747
Sarah Bhimani: Negative stories really pull at the heartstrings, get people to open their pocketbooks.
00:20:23.747 --> 00:20:30.847
Sarah Bhimani: The positive stories show your impact in the community, what you're bringing to the community.
00:20:30.847 --> 00:20:32.987
Sarah Bhimani: There's certainly a balance to it.
00:20:32.987 --> 00:20:43.787
Sarah Bhimani: I think you'll find more of those pull at your heartstring type stories in our e-appeals, our e-mails that are going out, because those are specifically for fundraising.
00:20:43.787 --> 00:20:49.947
Sarah Bhimani: For media stories, we're not necessarily, like our end goal is not necessarily fundraising, right?
00:20:49.947 --> 00:20:55.347
Sarah Bhimani: It's more about increasing knowledge in the community about what we do.
00:20:55.347 --> 00:20:59.327
Sarah Bhimani: So that's why more of our PR stories are more positive, right?
00:20:59.327 --> 00:21:03.267
Sarah Bhimani: Because we want to show what we're bringing to the community.
00:21:03.267 --> 00:21:07.467
Sarah Bhimani: Certainly, there are going to be less positive stories or sadder stories.
00:21:07.547 --> 00:21:10.327
Sarah Bhimani: You know, we do humane investigations.
00:21:10.327 --> 00:21:24.447
Sarah Bhimani: So when we have big humane investigations where we're bringing in animals, potentially in really hard circumstances, that definitely gets the media's attention and it's a really sad story.
00:21:24.447 --> 00:21:37.147
Sarah Bhimani: And so I think it's easier in some ways to get the media's attention when it's a sad story, because especially with like humane investigations, like there's a law enforcement aspect to it.
00:21:37.207 --> 00:21:39.107
Sarah Bhimani: There's a legal aspect to it.
00:21:39.107 --> 00:21:46.027
Sarah Bhimani: It fits very nicely into the kind of news that our news stations are typically covering anyway.
00:21:46.027 --> 00:21:52.547
Sarah Bhimani: But I think there's also an appetite from media to not only be sharing negative news, right?
00:21:52.547 --> 00:21:56.447
Sarah Bhimani: It's kind of a bummer if that's all you're sharing in a day.
00:21:56.447 --> 00:22:02.007
Sarah Bhimani: And so I think they do try to find some of those more positive stories that they can share.
00:22:02.007 --> 00:22:15.567
Sarah Bhimani: And so I would say rather than focusing on an individual animal story, focusing on stories that demonstrate the impact, your impact in the community might be more successful in getting media to cover you.
00:22:15.567 --> 00:22:21.387
Mary Tan: Yeah, it's, you kind of hit on it a little bit, but I know in this market, in the Minneapolis-St.
00:22:21.387 --> 00:22:26.707
Mary Tan: Paul market, the stations and the media are not the same, are they, Sarah?
00:22:26.707 --> 00:22:29.627
Mary Tan: Like, they each have their own niches.
00:22:29.627 --> 00:22:31.587
Mary Tan: Can you talk a little bit about that?
00:22:31.587 --> 00:22:37.247
Mary Tan: And how do you find the TV station or the newspaper that's really animal-friendly?
00:22:37.247 --> 00:22:38.767
Sarah Bhimani: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:22:38.767 --> 00:22:41.907
Sarah Bhimani: Every outlet has their own personality.
00:22:41.907 --> 00:22:51.847
Sarah Bhimani: And so, and it changes a little bit too over time, depending on attrition, who's coming and going from those stations and the leadership at those stations.
00:22:51.847 --> 00:22:55.587
Sarah Bhimani: So there are stations and reporters that love animals.
00:22:55.587 --> 00:23:01.687
Sarah Bhimani: And then there are stations and reporters who are just like, you know, I could take it or leave it, right?
00:23:01.687 --> 00:23:09.427
Sarah Bhimani: So I think, and Mary, this is something that you taught me at AHS is networking is so important, right?
00:23:09.427 --> 00:23:21.927
Sarah Bhimani: So doing research of who the local journalists are in your area, seeing who covers beats that are relevant to your organization, or is it somebody who just loves animals?
00:23:21.927 --> 00:23:28.187
Sarah Bhimani: Maybe they have a dog or a cat and they love posting photos of their pet, you know, that works too.
00:23:28.187 --> 00:23:29.647
Sarah Bhimani: And then trying to network with them.
00:23:29.647 --> 00:23:32.187
Sarah Bhimani: So networking can take a lot of different forms.
00:23:32.807 --> 00:23:38.007
Sarah Bhimani: It doesn't just have to be like sitting down for coffee and talking about your organization with them.
00:23:38.007 --> 00:23:50.647
Sarah Bhimani: It could also be coming up with a really great, well thought out and prepped pitch that's ready to go that you can just hand them and say, hey, if you're ever looking for a story, here's one that's ready to go.
00:23:50.647 --> 00:23:54.287
Sarah Bhimani: I can get somebody for you for an interview anytime you need.
00:23:54.287 --> 00:23:55.967
Sarah Bhimani: That can be really helpful.
00:23:55.967 --> 00:24:17.287
Sarah Bhimani: Or it could be like, if they're really active on social, if you start interacting with them genuinely on social media, liking their content, reading their articles, maybe you can start commenting little snippets here and there, connecting what they're writing about to your organization to start to build that awareness for them.
00:24:17.287 --> 00:24:22.547
Sarah Bhimani: Then you could move on to requesting a coffee meeting or something like that.
00:24:22.547 --> 00:24:33.467
Sarah Bhimani: I think doing research and getting to know who's working in your market is really important and then finding ways to create those touch points with them is also really important.
00:24:33.467 --> 00:24:34.307
Mary Tan: Yeah.
00:24:34.307 --> 00:24:42.907
Mary Tan: What's so interesting is that, I personally used to always only pitch in Minneapolis, but now I'm pitching in other markets.
00:24:42.907 --> 00:24:51.707
Mary Tan: I have to admit, it's a little bit more challenging because the local news people, they trust their local PR people.
00:24:51.707 --> 00:24:57.807
Mary Tan: When I'm pitching something to Philadelphia or Phoenix, I'm coming in as an outsider.
00:24:58.207 --> 00:25:11.967
Mary Tan: So one of the tips I have is whenever I send out a press release to markets where I don't necessarily know a lot of people is that I always make sure that there's, I'm mentioning a local person.
00:25:11.967 --> 00:25:17.007
Mary Tan: So for example, we did a series of press releases for a pet store in Phoenix.
00:25:17.007 --> 00:25:23.927
Mary Tan: And I knew because I was formerly a news person and it's like this, I feel like TV news is this weird little cult.
00:25:24.247 --> 00:25:29.507
Mary Tan: That you're always like one person away from somebody that knows somebody that you know.
00:25:29.507 --> 00:25:32.147
Mary Tan: And so what I did was, you know, I did just that, Sarah.
00:25:32.147 --> 00:25:35.527
Mary Tan: I did a lot of research as to who the animal people were.
00:25:35.527 --> 00:25:41.707
Mary Tan: Just by, you know, trolling them and looking at everything they do on social media.
00:25:41.707 --> 00:25:45.587
Mary Tan: And Alex is really good at like trolling, but it works.
00:25:45.587 --> 00:25:57.327
Mary Tan: And then, you know, like I just always, if you're pitching to local media especially, the pitch really needs to be about someone or something in that local market.
00:25:57.327 --> 00:25:58.707
Sarah Bhimani: Yeah, that's a great point.
00:25:58.707 --> 00:26:02.127
Mary Tan: Because like we have, you know, cat food, dog food manufacturers.
00:26:02.127 --> 00:26:05.187
Mary Tan: And it's always like, how are we going to pitch the story?
00:26:05.187 --> 00:26:11.887
Mary Tan: And they want, for example, they'll say, we found out that a lot of our customers live in Ohio.
00:26:11.887 --> 00:26:19.587
Mary Tan: So then we have to target, we've got to find a way to make the Ohio connection to the cat food.
00:26:21.667 --> 00:26:24.327
Mary Tan: Which is really, which can be challenging.
00:26:24.327 --> 00:26:27.187
Mary Tan: And that's where, you know, storytelling is the main thing.
00:26:27.187 --> 00:26:31.047
Mary Tan: But that's one thing I loved about nonprofit and animal welfare.
00:26:31.047 --> 00:26:34.007
Mary Tan: Like the people stories are endless.
00:26:34.007 --> 00:26:40.387
Mary Tan: And even though animal welfare is about animals, really it's about the people caring for the animals.
00:26:40.387 --> 00:26:41.807
Mary Tan: Cause the animals can't talk.
00:26:41.807 --> 00:26:43.267
Mary Tan: They can just look cute.
00:26:43.327 --> 00:26:44.707
Sarah Bhimani: Right, exactly.
00:26:44.707 --> 00:26:47.747
Sarah Bhimani: Yeah, and that's something, the people are so important.
00:26:47.747 --> 00:26:57.607
Sarah Bhimani: And so it's just what you said, Mary, identifying those stories that make what you're doing in the community tangible for other people.
00:26:57.607 --> 00:26:59.927
Sarah Bhimani: It's not just the animal stories.
00:26:59.927 --> 00:27:02.527
Sarah Bhimani: It's also, how is this impacting you?
00:27:02.527 --> 00:27:03.007
Mary Tan: Yeah.
00:27:03.007 --> 00:27:10.627
Mary Tan: So let me ask you, do you think that small pet startups and small one or two person rescues, you think they can do their own PR?
00:27:11.207 --> 00:27:13.707
Sarah Bhimani: You know, it kind of depends on the person, right?
00:27:14.187 --> 00:27:32.527
Sarah Bhimani: If a person who founded that rescue or organization is media savvy, has lots of connections, is extroverted, loves getting to know people, then maybe if they find those connections and network, it could be hard.
00:27:33.547 --> 00:27:40.947
Sarah Bhimani: So leaning on other experts in the PR industry can be super helpful.
00:27:40.947 --> 00:27:47.647
Sarah Bhimani: For me, when I started at Animal Humane Society, I just had basic PR knowledge and skills.
00:27:47.647 --> 00:27:49.427
Sarah Bhimani: I knew how to put together a press release.
00:27:49.427 --> 00:27:51.567
Sarah Bhimani: I knew how to coordinate interviews.
00:27:51.567 --> 00:27:58.787
Sarah Bhimani: But really everything I've learned about PR has been on the job and I learned a lot from Mary when she was my boss.
00:27:58.787 --> 00:28:18.307
Sarah Bhimani: And so even if you aren't coming into an organization and having mentors that way, if you can identify mentors or people who are willing to help teach you the ropes in the community, then yeah, maybe a smaller organization might be able to handle their PR on their own.
00:28:18.307 --> 00:28:26.247
Sarah Bhimani: But it might be harder to keep a consistent role of stories going out to media every month.
00:28:26.247 --> 00:28:31.307
Sarah Bhimani: It might be, you might have a couple big stories that you want to get out there every year.
00:28:31.367 --> 00:28:34.847
Mary Tan: All right, well, Alex, do you have any other questions?
00:28:34.847 --> 00:28:44.827
Alexane Ricard: I have another question and it's a bit different from what we talked about, but you mentioned your role is, so you handle public relation, but you also handle internal communication.
00:28:44.827 --> 00:28:47.987
Alexane Ricard: I just wanted to know more about that internal communication role.
00:28:47.987 --> 00:28:48.687
Sarah Bhimani: What do you do?
00:28:48.687 --> 00:28:50.827
Sarah Bhimani: Yeah, yeah, great question.
00:28:50.827 --> 00:28:57.527
Sarah Bhimani: So internal communication is communication that's focused specifically to our staff and our volunteers.
00:28:57.527 --> 00:28:59.987
Sarah Bhimani: So we're a big enough organization.
00:29:00.087 --> 00:29:05.547
Sarah Bhimani: We have around 300 staff and over a thousand volunteers.
00:29:05.667 --> 00:29:14.547
Sarah Bhimani: So keeping everybody in the loop on what's going on and all the different parts of the organization is really important to make sure we're all kind of moving in the same direction.
00:29:14.767 --> 00:29:22.787
Sarah Bhimani: So we have a weekly staff newsletter that I put together, as well as regular volunteer communication that I put together.
00:29:23.207 --> 00:29:27.167
Sarah Bhimani: That's the aim of it, is just keeping people in the loop with what's going on.
00:29:27.647 --> 00:29:51.867
Sarah Bhimani: Not just, you know, need to know information about, like, open enrollment and benefits and budget and that kind of things, but also, like, FYIs, like, this is what's happening in community outreach, you know, this month, or this is what's happening with this vet tech training program, so that people are in the loop, especially, you know, for our frontline customer-facing staff.
00:29:51.867 --> 00:30:05.427
Sarah Bhimani: If somebody comes in and says, hey, I saw something about this on social media, or I saw something about this in the media, they're not just standing there like, I don't know what you're talking about, you know, they have the talking points that they need to interact with that person.
00:30:05.427 --> 00:30:09.667
Sarah Bhimani: So I really enjoy the internal communication side of stuff.
00:30:09.667 --> 00:30:15.947
Sarah Bhimani: I really enjoy knowing my audience and learning all of the different elements of our organization.
00:30:15.947 --> 00:30:23.567
Sarah Bhimani: I get to talk to directors and staff in all areas of our organization, so it's been a great learning opportunity for me, too.
00:30:24.407 --> 00:30:26.207
Mary Tan: All right, that's so awesome.
00:30:26.207 --> 00:30:28.387
Mary Tan: Well, thank you so much, Sarah.
00:30:28.387 --> 00:30:34.187
Mary Tan: We're kind of at the end of our show, so we want to wrap it up.
00:30:34.187 --> 00:30:43.647
Mary Tan: And we are so excited to be doing this for all of you out there who are making life better for animals, just like Sarah.
00:30:43.647 --> 00:30:46.607
Mary Tan: So do you have a question that you won't want us to answer?
00:30:46.607 --> 00:30:54.507
Mary Tan: Well, reach out to us on Instagram or Facebook under the Whisker Report, and we'll try to answer it in a future podcast episode.
00:30:54.507 --> 00:30:59.527
Alexane Ricard: But as we always say, bark loud and purr smart.
00:30:59.527 --> 00:31:00.907
Mary Tan: Thank you, everyone.
00:31:00.907 --> 00:31:02.767
Alexane Ricard: See you next week.
00:31:02.827 --> 00:31:06.127
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