RESEARCH & ANALYSIS PAPER

Organizational & Situational

Executive Summary

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HEA began as an at-home business in 2006, then expanded into a multiple location agency throughout its successful fourteen years as an organization. Amanda Reitz began HEA with her dedication to saving the lives of countless cats and dogs, saving many from being euthanized at shelters. HEA has a headstrong mission to save more and more animals, one at a time. HEA has had recent success with multiple social media platforms. They use this media well but could benefit from using it more consistently. HEA has been becoming a successful organization, however, they have had more challenges to overcome due to COVID precautions. The targeted audiences HEA has consists of these three main types: volunteers, those who adopt the animals, and those interested in helping the animals. Their main goal is to maintain their current audiences, and to then obtain further audiences for their social media content. HEA’s end of the year event is expected to be a successful event for them. This would be the case if they use the same social media method they have used in the past for their other events. The “Tired of 2020” event would provide user-submitted images to be used in a 2021 calendar and voting for favorites by donations to HEA. This event would be most beneficial if shared in a social media format with livestreaming, posts, pictures, as well as among other sharable factors.

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Background of HEA

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HEA first began in 2006, when young Amanda Reitz found Walter, a homeless dog found in Northern Wisconsin exploring the wooded state border. Amanda and her parents homed Walter in the family garage, and he became HEA’s first rescue. This was the beginning to HEA, also known as Happily Ever After. HEA is an agency that helps animals who have a difficult time getting adopted. HEA takes in dogs and cats who would have been euthanized at their previous shelter. They then give the animals a home either through adoption, foster, or a forever home at the HEA facility. HEA became a full family organization after Amanda’s brother joined the HEA Team in 2016. The Reitz family is dedicated to making the best life for all cats and dogs “one by one”. 

Soon after HEA began in the Reitz family garage, they opened the first HEA Sanctuary in Marion Wisconsin in 2006. This property was previously owned by Amanda’s grandfather, and is now used as a place to give our four-legged companions unconditional love. HEA continued to grow when they opened their first Adoption Center in 2010. HEA expanded further in 2016 when they had their grand opening for their Green Bay location. They began Destination HEA, a program that allows future adopters to spend the day and night at the sanctuary, in 2019. As the organization developed, the five pillars of Happily Ever After became adoption, education, spaying/neutering, rehabilitation and sanctuary. HEA is continuously growing with a strong dedication to the animal’s happily ever afters. HEA continues through their mission, as there are still many lives left to save.

Assessment statement: The objective of HEA is to continue growing their organization.

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Situational Analysis

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HEA has had many recent challenges as well as successes. Like many other current organizations during the pandemic, HEA had to shift the way they connect with people. During a typical year, they are hosting 3 to 4 core fundraising events, as well as hosting or participating in many smaller, community-based events. Due to Covid-19, those events are not currently happening. This forced HEA to pivot how they connect with people as an organization, and to do so in a way that is safe and socially distanced. This has also led into finding creative ways of raising funds and community awareness. Since HEA relies on these events to help raise lifesaving funds, adjusting to new creative ways of fundraising has been a challenge too. Challenges are not always bad and while it has certainly been different, they have learned a great deal along the way!  The strategies that have worked well for them, especially considering COVID, include advertising on social media platforms and utilizing the internet to run their events. Their Hour of Love event, which is typically an in-person focused event, had to shift completely virtual this year. They used the Facebook Live function, group video chats, as well as internet group games (group trivia night). Their Online and Social Media ads for this event were one of their strongest campaigns in the last two years. Although, they still utilize the typical strategies of connecting via email and print newsletter, as well. 

            Most of what HEA is about works well for their organization, but they could benefit from updating their social media presence. Their Facebook page is their largest presence over their other social media channels. They created two Instagram accounts in 2019 that helped their presence grow significantly. Also, they have a Tik Tok account, but need to post more to grow their following. There is not necessarily anything that already exists they should change. The point they stress is that new ideas are very much welcomed. For example, the idea of social media takeovers is something Jess Danen is familiar with, but never considered for Happily Ever After!

Happily Ever After consider themselves a no-kill shelter if 90% of their animals are not killed, but they want to account for the 10% that are forgotten about. The animals considered “not adoptable” by normal standards will spread the message as a sanctuary for ALL animals not just the majority. This idea of becoming 100% no-kill is not common for those deemed “unsavable”. This may serve as a model for other people and organizations of similar planning.

Assessment statement: The goal of Happily Ever After is to increase their presence in the community through social media and become a 100% no kill animal shelter.

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Audience Analysis

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Currently, HEA is heavily supported by their volunteers, those who donate both monetary and physical products, and event attendees. HEA has a total staff of about eight people, and the rest is run by the volunteers. The community surrounding HEA also has many major contributions that HEA itself considers as part of the volunteer work towards their organization. HEA also has an audience that uses their sleepover cottage to spend time with the animals to determine if that animal is a good fit for them or not. This is helpful for encouraging those interested to adopt or foster. Another major audience already supporting HEA is the people who foster animals and those who adopt the animals to a forever home. These supporters care for the animals outside of the organization, rather than in the buildings where it resides. HEA currently has a significant number of supporters but are always trying to reach out to more target audiences.

HEA seeks to increase several types of audiences already within their reach. The audiences they already have, they’re always looking to expand on. The volunteers within HEA may be numerous but they are looking for more individuals to help them, as well as foster parents for the animals as well. The audience they’re targeting are majorly individuals to adopt animals and give them forever homes. A secondary target audience is people who can volunteer either their time, money, resources or other means. Besides people who aim to adopt animals and volunteers, HEA is also targeting foster parents, although the organization’s focus is more towards individuals who can adopt permanently.

The audiences HEA has and is intending on targeting is entirely appropriate for the goals of the organization. They are completely established in calling for people can adopt animals and give them homes to stay in for the rest of the pet’s life, as well as established in looking for volunteers to help aid their mission to prevent the forgotten 10% of animals killed in shelters. For the most part, HEA has solidified the audience they have, and the audiences are highly appropriate for what they are trying to achieve, but there could be a few other audiences they could include such as new individuals for events and reaching out to those who have already adopted pets from the organization. It would be good to reach out to them since they may encourage others to do so if the adopters had a good experience with HEA.

Assessment Statement: Happily Ever After has a strong audience already, and their goal involves maintaining that relationship while simultaneously gaining more of that same audience to maintain the relationships.

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Brand Analysis Across PESO

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HEA already utilizes written communication through email and the “Companion” quarterly magazine.  Although, they focus on their new social media accounts. This is considered a shared media channel. The first Instagram handle, @adopthea, is a channel to promote the current animals up for adoption at the Green Bay Adoption Center, Marion Sanctuary, and foster care. The second handle, @heanokill, is a channel to interact with the community as well as future adopters.

Across their social media accounts, they are semi-active. On the Instagram handle that promotes animals, they are very active. Every day, they post pictures and information of the animals currently available. It is very professional, heartwarming, and attention-grabbing. Their tone is informative, uplifting and welcoming. On the main organization Instagram handle, they post anywhere from one to four times a month. It is also very professional as well as interactive. They ask their followers questions in their posts and have hashtags to follow. Both accounts do not utilize Instagram stories, reels, or IGTV.

Their Facebook page is their largest social media platform in use, with about 15,000 likes. The utilize the page to host fundraisers, promote their animals and interact with the community all in one place. Roughly, they post on Facebook every day. Their tone within this platform is exciting and positive. It helps maintain and add to their following using this tone.

As for Tik Tok, they do not use it as often as the other platforms. If they would like to utilize it for advertising and interacting, they should use it on a regular basis. HEA posts roughly twice per month, and their videos gain about 200 views overall. The algorithm catches on to a few of their videos, however, if HEA uses it more frequently on a regular basis it may boost their brand. If not, it might benefit them from deleting the account, so they can focus on other platforms to gain attention.

As for Earned media, they do not utilize influencers, bloggers or media relations, that we know of. In this case, we think they don’t need influencers or bloggers as it doesn’t send the right message. They could always benefit from media relations like local newspapers, online news outlets or magazines.

With Paid media, they have partnered with PetSmart, Petco, and fleet farm. If they continue with this type of media, it will also increase their audience across all platforms.

The communication channels they have started to use are right for their audience. Social media will help get the attention of young and old animal lovers interested in adopting, fostering, or attending events (even if they are virtual). This also pertains to existing adopters, foster families, and event attendees.

While their channels are used correctly, they are not used to their fullest potential. By using Instagram stories, or the newer features (Reels and IGTV), they will get their goals and presence seen by the audience they want.

Assessment statement: The goal of Happily Ever After is to continue their use of paid and shared media. This will keep the channels they use active and gain the interaction of the community they need.

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HEA The End of 2020 Event-Situation Analysis

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HEA has a set of goals for their End of 2020 event they intend on implementing in the end of the year. One of the largest goals that HEA has is to spread the word about the contest the closer to the date is. They aim to get the general public informed on what the event is focused on, to have people vote on calendar images submitted by individuals who have adopted from the agency previously. The next goal the agency has is to gather images to be submitted for voting. The final goal HEA has for this campaign is to encourage people to vote for their favorite photo of the sleeping animal, and the top 12 animals voted for will appear in the 2021 calendar. Their main strategy is to gather donations and using the animals since they sell themselves more than not.

The main audience that HEA is going for is people who can and are willing to donate to the organization. This audience is more geared towards the general public and is gathered by spreading of the campaign through social media, however the audiences they must obtain before the campaign are individuals who have adopted from the center. Those individuals can send in images to add to the calendar that will encourage the donation audience to contribute. Reaching these audiences should not be difficult, since HEA already has email lists, social media, and a magazine published.

The methods HEA should consider reaching the donation audience is by distributing most of the campaign through social media. The e-mail list will be the most beneficial for contacting the audience that will provide the photos, while the magazine will be most helpful for advertisements of the campaign overall. The goal is to reach the appropriate audiences using these methods and taking each step to gather the photos, create the voting timeline, and distribute the calendars once made in a timely manner.

There are a few challenges involved in how HEA continues forth with the campaign. The biggest challenges are creating awareness for the campaign overall, encouraging individuals to donate to the campaign, and finding individuals to provide the photos for the campaign. These challenges are expected and anticipated to be minimal. Some failures that could occur during the campaign could be technological failure, whether of devices or wireless, but these are out of HEA’s control. Failures that are in HEA’s control involve reaching the right audiences at the right time, but with good organizational expectations, HEA can mitigate these challenges. For the campaign to be most successful, HEA needs to create donations for the calendars while simultaneously making enough calendars for those interested and donating.

For each of the channels available to HEA, the messages should be shaped to make best use of each channel that will be used. Creating advertisements for utilization on HEA’s already established platforms would be the ideal way to establish a paid design. Specializing advertisements that can be used on Facebook and Instagram would be the most beneficial, however, YouTube would be more appropriate as an owned or shared media. Other shared media does include posts shared by those on Facebook or Instagram, who would likely share it to interested secondary audiences who may share it to tertiary audiences. As for owned media, since HEA already has pages on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, it would be appropriate for them to allow a “media takeover” which would involve either and individual from the organization or a trusted third party to use their social media for a set amount of time. This can increase awareness since it can be exciting to some to see more than just one person posting social media for HEA. It would be important to do this either one channel at a time to prevent confusion for those consuming the media.

Assessment Statement: The goal of this event is to spread the word about the Tired of 2020 event. The current use of media is efficient and the way the platforms are being used is efficient but continuing to use social media in that way for this event will be most beneficial for the furthest reach.