February 2015 by Elizabeth Doyle and Summer Huggins

Audience: Executive Leadership, Shelter/Rescue Staff & Volunteers

Video Length: 37 minutes

Marketing dogs, especially hard-to-place dogs, is an art form as well as a systematic process. Learn how to create a winning system utilizing a volunteer force, as well as how to write effectively about those dogs to get adoption applications coming in. This presentation was part of the American Pets Alive! 2015 No-Kill Conference.

About Elizabeth Doyle

Elizabeth Doyle is the senior creative copywriter for Best Friends Animal Society, and head of their copywriting department. She’s been with them for over a decade, and is responsible for writing and overseeing the writing of the fundraising materials, stewardship materials, marketing materials and more.

Many years ago, after having her romantic manuscript pulled from a "slush pile” at Random House during somebody’s coffee break, prompting a phone call that she suspected at first was a prank, she became one of the youngest published romance novelists of the 1990s, and soon had seven books published in three different languages.

In her spare time, she became one of the early members of Austin Pets Alive!. She was in charge of the No-Kill Handbill, which at the time, she ran as a daily publication, she created an Austin pet-friendly rental list, and wrote a profile-a-day about an animal in danger at the shelter for a few years straight.

In 2002, she accepted a job with Best Friends Animal Society.

About Summer Huggins

Summer Huggins is a Community Consultant for an Austin-based tech company which builds online communities for associations and nonprofits. She started volunteering with Austin Pets Alive! in 2010 and has since gotten heavily involved in their Dog Marketing, Behavior and Social Media Teams.

Her inspiration to volunteer with her camera followed a cross-country trip to Nashville, Tenn., to adopt her oldest dog, Thunder. Seeing his photo online, she knew it was love at first sight. She also knew she wanted to be a part of helping homeless animals right here in Austin find their own perfect homes through photography and social media.