Rescuing Dogs on Facebook!
Our Facebook FastTrack training began exactly one week ago. We held a 48 hour contest for students to get their Facebook ads and landing pages up and running. STUART JORDAN sent in this glowing report about his passion which is Dog Rescue:
Hi there,
The first sessions were everything they were promised to be and more. Honestly, you got me so inspired on Tuesday afternoon that I was setting up my ads while I was listening to the session.
(To be totally honest, I actually started work on this before the first session based on the promo videos and the tele-seminar.)
My initial application is a little off the wall, but is actually showing some promise.
First, some background. My day job is marketing consultant. In my spare time I have become very involved in dog rescue.
(I have a very interesting story about missing my first Jeff Walker session because I was driving 3 hours to save a dog at a shelter that was scheduled to be euthanized, but that’s another story.)
My entry in the contest is all about marrying my profession with my passion. I have made it my mission to use my marketing knowledge to help market our dog rescue efforts.
As most things in life, the key to successful marketing (in our case getting dogs adopted) is all about getting the attention of qualified prospects. For dog adoption, this is extremely difficult because most people that would adopt dogs never set foot inside a shelter. So, we have to find ways to get the dogs in front of potential adopters.
Last February, we ran a live event where we had 30 dogs gathered together for people to see them. While very successful, this event takes weeks to plan and only can be run 2 or 3 times per year which doesn’t really cut it when you have dogs that need adoption all the time.
(For that live event, I did my first search advertising for the dog rescue, using everything that I had learned from Perry in the past to run Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Facebook ads to promote the event. You’ll see the summary of that initial Facebook attempt on the first screen shot.)
Back in February, I found the Facebook experience to be quite frustrating as this was before I had heard any of your advice on the differences from Google. At first, I wasn’t bidding their minimum and my ad wasn’t being run.
Out of sheer frustration, I pushed the bid way up and the ads started running. Later on, when I heard your stuff, I realized that I had stumbled across tip of how to get ads to run.
So fast forward to June. We have 20 dogs looking for homes. So, after hearing the teleseminar and seeing the videos, I decided to give Facebook another try. It made more sense than Google because it was all about user defined interest as opposed to immediate search activity.
I took your advice about using photos. I took your advice about writing ads that appealed to the audience’s interests and emotions. And I made the efforts very granular.
My advertising is very local. We’re running a 50 mile radius around our home base. Also, the keyword targeting is very tight. (thank you for the tips on how to use the keyword took as I never would have found them without knowing how to search for them.)
According to Facebook, the initial audience targeted is about 10,000 people.
Right now, I have the ads pointing away from Facebook to our website because I am still figuring out how to build the custom form for our Fan page. I also have to drop the FB conversion tracking onto the page, but I have that covered for the moment because I have Google analytics on our website which is giving me some additional data as well.
The landing pages currently are unique for each ad. The individual dog ads go to a corresponding page with information about the dog. The Combo ad goes to a website that was set up to support adoption activity. (website is www.loveabull2010.com)
The results may look small compared to other people if you look at raw numbers, but I can tell you that they are significant. On the Georgie and Jude ads, we have tripled visits to their respective website pages compared to what we were getting from the equivalent of SEO.
For us, that is huge.
Now ultimately, we all know that the real results is sales not clicks (in my case that would be dog adoptions). And it is too early to have data on that as an adoption first requires an application and home visit. Also keep in mind that we are talking about a lifetime commitment to the dog and a $200 adoption fee.
But, I am convinced that this is going to work. And the results so far seem to say I’m on the right track. If this can become a regular marketing tool to help get the dogs adopted, I’ll be very happy and totally satisfied that the course was a good investment (I’m already convinced that the course has paid for itself.)
Thanks so very much,
Stuart Jordan
Norwalk, CT
About the Author
Entrepreneur Magazine says: "Perry Marshall is the #1 author and world's most-quoted consultant on Google Advertising. He has helped over 100,000 advertisers save literally billions of dollars in Adwords stupidity tax."
He is referenced across the Internet and by The Washington Post, USA Today, and the Chicago Tribune.
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Congrats Stuart!
Lovely, Power to you! What a great passion
Wow! That’s really impressive and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE YOUR PASSION it’s mine as well, but I already have 5 animals I’ve rescued and no way to pay my rent so I need a blitz o rama of a design for this month.
I have never worked with Perry, but am going to purchase his course once I can afford to, I want to get into his coaching, but that’s millions! I am impressed, so impressed by your achievements and will be subscribing to your fan page on FB.
Thank you Perry for helping Stuart to find his passion and his love for marketing and mold them into a beautiful symphony!
Nicole Jolie
Great to see the passion Stuart the only thing that threw me off was the name http://www.loveabull2010.com even though the above article was talking about dogs. I had to visit your website and realized it was pit bull dogs. I don’t know what I was thinking. Anyway its great to see people who care and rescue any type of animal.
Good luck, Jordan. I hope your efforts and Perry’s knowledge help many more dogs get saved.
Outstanding Stuart! As a dog lover and owner of 2 rescue dogs myself, i was moved by your post.
Keep doing what you do!
I missed the first release (vacation) but am on the waiting list for the next one and look forward to its release.
Hi Stuart – Glad to see it is all going well for you old friend. I have two dogs myself – neither are adopted, but I think our next one will. See, you have inspired me as well! And BTW, your cross-promo on Linked-in worked -that’s how I found this!
I think what your doing and the way your doing it is great. A pet being adopted by someone who will not treat it well is worse than never being adopted at all. I am actually a cat person, but feel just as much remorse when I see a dog being mistreated.
Remember, Facebook is still evolving as I’m sure you’ve noticed. People on Facebook seem to be much more responsive to visual stimulations from what I’ve deducted.
Keep up the good work. The rewards will come.