Promoting long-stay or hard-to-adopt shelter animals in the best light possible

Think of me as 50% digital storyteller, 50% shelter animal caseworker. 🦸🏻‍♀️

First, you tell me which shelter animal needs extra marketing love. I'll gather animal history and first-hand volunteer observations, then create bespoke videos + messaging designed to give them the positive promotion they deserve. I also provide a thorough, shelter-specific marketing analysis and other optional goodies.

No past video footage? No problem. I've spent over a decade coordinating UGC (user-generated content) remotely. I can do it with my eyes closed (which would be awkward, but you know what I mean). Just put me in touch with someone who has a working phone and spends the most time with the long-stay animal and I'll take it from there. 🫡

This process is meant to be as turnkey and stress-free as possible, so I'm always open to feedback. Book a quick call with yours truly to get started! 

• Full animal history audit* prior to content creation (ideally surrender or handling notes from Shelterbuddy/Shelterluv/Chameleon/etc. and first-hand volunteer observations)
• (1) vertical video under 60 seconds (meant for Facebook/Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and/or TikTok)
• Personalized, scroll-stopping social caption to accompany the video 
• Thorough marketing analysis with easy-to-follow recommendations on the animal's shelter bio, photos, and social posts + any process tweaks that could be limiting their visibility (not a full shelter operations audit)
• BONUS: You keep all raw footage I collect during this campaign. That's FREE evergreen marketing content!

*Everything you share stays fully confidential. Nothing developed for your animals goes public without your consent.

⭐ November Special to Honor Adopt a Senior Pet Month ⭐

Senior animals are discounted @ $400 each for the base package

Two animals (of any age) marketed in November from the same shelter are discounted @ $810 for the base package

OPTIONAL goodies for an extra touch of good marketing juju. Nine times out of ten I'll recommend boosting the content with customized audience targeting to get more eyeballs and clicks on the social post, but I completely understand if that's not in the budget.

• Paid promotion (boosted social post): 
  • Management: $200 for one platform — post setup, monitoring, backend troubleshooting, and insights recap included (+$100 for every additional platform; Facebook/Instagram counts as one)
  • Ad spend: $100 minimum (goes straight to the platform, not to me) — amount discussed prior to agreement
• Additional content piece + caption refresh: $200 — this can be either another video or a clever static image carousel
• Aftercare performance review: $125 per animal — social insights review + next-step recommendations (within 1 month after posting, if animal hasn't been attracting public interest)

🦸‍♀️ Repeat Rescuer Reward 🦸‍♀️ 

Every 4th animal from your shelter that uses my publicist service receives a $125 credit applied to any add-on! Animals do not need to be marketed at the same time. No expiration. (Ad spend not included, we still need money to market!)

Enjoy my work! All final videos come with music embedded in or suggested tracks to add natively in the platform.

Miss Terry, a volunteer favorite, spent over sixty days at a municipal shelter. Ten days after her pet publicist video went live, she was picked up by a rescue! 🥳 

This post received 24K video views, 474 engagements, 119 shares/reposts (all organic, no ad spend!)

Tucker was in a foster-based rescue since 2018. He needed immediate placement after his current foster passed away. He was adopted two weeks after his first publicist video went live, which started as a trial-to-adopt. 🥳 The above video is the second I made. It never got posted thanks to Tucker's adoption (yay!), but it showcases how I use an animal's history & endearing quirks to create content that speaks to their ideal demographic.

The 1st video received 8.3K views, 234 engagements, 66 shares/reposts, and performed 520% better than their other reels!

Lady - just wrapped up, results coming soon!

Gorgeous Benny had a bunch of stop signs (no cats, no kids, no noisy city life). After researching his county's demographic and what he needed in a home, I decided to go against my own strategy and use his stop signs to his advantage—creating a curmudgeon-y persona that audiences enjoyed. After his publicist video went live, the rescue received multiple DMs and comments asking about Benny the grump. (One person even said they are rehoming their cat to a friend so Benny can join their rural home surrounded by trees and quiet. Now that's commitment!) 

This post received 14K video views, 547 website visits with a "cost-per-visit" at $0.18 (which is AWESOME; the nonprofit benchmark is $0.60 - $1.10), 273 post engagements and 160 shares/reposts.

"Working with Nina was easy and stress free!! I know one of the big things in our field is finding time to do the extra like making good videos and keep up with trends. Nina worked directly with our volunteers through their preferred communication (text). She was incredibly understanding, provided guidance on posting, and continues to follow our shelter and support us to this day. Highly recommend using Nina!!!"

- Stephanie Jackson, Louisville Metro Animal Services

"Nina is amazing! I encourage everyone to invest in her helping you! We had a dog in our rescue for over 7 years and she helped get him adopted! All her work was very much appreciated and helped us shed a new perspective and light on things to change!"

- Kelsey Quinn, Lending Paws A Hand

"I cannot recommend Nina enough. She is probably the best video creator available to shelters and so thorough. She goes through everything with a fine toothed comb to give your long stay pet "Hollywood Celebrity PR" level content and does it in bite sized chunks that allows all levels of shelters to have access to those skills without having to sign an expensive long term consultant contract for crap you don’t need. Her laser focus, skills and thoroughness on your long stay is something we haven’t seen before in the industry. Wish she had been doing this for decades."

- Finnegan Dowling, Mutual Rescue

For publicist work, not always. Since adding a new person on the backend of a social platform can take a significant amount of time (and headaches!), I'll only post for clients when a paid promotion is activated (via ADD-ONS) since I already have to set up targeting and monitor the campaign.

As much as I would LOVE to be that magical, I cannot guarantee the ultimate outcome. What I can guarantee? You will get 110% of Nina integrity, knowledge, and work ethic. I take what I do very seriously and animal welfare is what I get out of bed for.

Remember, marketing is only one piece in getting an animal adopted. If your website looks like a NASCAR event (visually busy with text and images everywhere), there are 45 clicks to get to the adoption page, or the application requires an organ donation, that is going to heavily influence the outcome of this work. This is why I include a marketing analysis so you can walk away with knowledge, social best practices, and website tweaks to attract potential adopters as efficiently as possible. I got your back.

Read my testimonials

Think of it this way: Recent shelter research has estimated $30 per day to care for a healthy dog. By that estimate, one month equates to roughly $900 for one animal. If you're on this page, you most likely have spent way more than that on your long-stay. If a $450 investment in pet publicity helps them get adopted a few days or weeks sooner, you could be saving your organization hundreds of dollars while freeing up space for another animal.

Also, this work doesn’t just stop at one animal. Strong content can bring in new donors, adopters, fosters, and supporters. Unlike traditional consulting, a Pet Publicist (me!) allows you to only pay for what you need when you need it. This service is also designed so smaller organizations can access consultant-level skills MINUS the work of explaining the animal welfare world. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! 😉

I thought you'd never ask! 🦸🏻‍♀️ Check out my creative consulting services for nonprofits.

If this is a more nuanced ask, send me a message.

🐕‍🦺 Frontline shelter knowledge. I know the ins and outs of frontline animal shelter work through years of volunteer experience, long-standing mentorships from 30+ year shelter professionals, and my work at a national animal welfare nonprofit.

📹 Video production roots. I started my career producing social videos at Maker Studios (the first ever YouTube talent network) and Disney before "influencer" was a household term. I know how to create authentic content that builds emotion and inspires action.

😺 Creative for good. Animal welfare organizations deserve the same caliber of marketing strategy that national brands pay millions for. I'm using my 15 years of creative + digital marketing experience to promote long-stay animals in a way that makes sense for what they need in a forever home. (Less stop signs, more green lights!)

📲 "Audience-first, not platform-first" philosophy. I study audience behavior and how we ACTUALLY use platforms in our day-to-day, then build creative around that reality.