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There was a period in the 1970s when many animal protection groups tried to shock the public out of ignorance by filling their publications and other written communications with photos of abused animals, animals who’d been euthanized, and litters of juvenile animals looking plaintive.

While these images and the disheartening messages that accompanied them influenced many people to spay and neuter, such tactics also confused and alienated the public, made people feel helpless, helped to fuel the rhetoric that would later divide the movement, and perpetuated the image of animal care and control agencies as depressing animal death-houses.

But if shelters shouldn’t be showing the public the results of their behavior, what’s left to show them? What makes for a good outreach piece?

When designing outreach messages, shelters would do well to heed the research of scientists who’ve studied pet behavior. Their findings have shown that many pets’ adorable habits come into being because the critters see which behaviors we reward with pats and treats—and shape their tail wags, rump wiggles, and paw swats accordingly.

It’s great to keep this research in mind when devising images and messages for your organization’s outreach materials: What gets the response you want, and what doesn’t? What will get your organization remembered and fawned over the way you fawn over your animals? What will make people behave the way you want them to behave?

Advertisements for products typically have two goals: to “brand” a product or organization into the consumer’s mind and to influence the consumer’s behavior. Social marketing pieces for animal protection agencies should be designed with the same goals, and in order for the goals to be met, an outreach piece should have certain basic traits.

It should have a single and clear primary message.

The group AnimalKind, based in Raleigh, North Carolina, has been running ads in major dailies encouraging people to spay and neuter their pets. Since it’s more important to the group that people remember the message than that they remember who delivered it, its logo is much less prominent than it would be in a piece designed mainly to promote the organization.

Joan Williams, who started AnimalKind, spent six months talking with animal protection groups and veterinarians to get their feedback on the most important message the public needed to hear. All of them agreed it was a sterilization message, so that’s what AnimalKind’s ads have focused on.

“I think that because the problem feels complex, people feel the communication has to be complex also,” says Williams. “And that’s where they miss the boat. A good piece of communication has to be singularly focused. You’ve only got a second to make an impression.”

It should speak the audience's language.

That means more than making sure to provide outreach pieces in Spanish if your agency serves a large Hispanic community; the language has to suit the audience metaphorically as well.

“Something I always suggest is being careful not to speak in the messages that motivate [only] you or the people who are already believers,” says Valerie Holford, senior vice president of Fenton Communications, a public relations firm that specializes in social marketing. “Figure out the target audience based on who you need to take action to reach your goal. Is it that you need the mayor and the city council to fund a particular program? Look at who the target audience is. ... What moves them? What makes them tick? And then speak in messages ... that are always focused on what motivates them.”

A campaign that ignored audience motivation and language, Holford says, was the’80s-era anti-drug effort that enlisted then-First Lady Nancy Reagan as its primary spokesperson. “It was a preachy sort of telling people, ‘You shouldn’t do this—that’s wrong.’ And frankly, she’s not the right messenger, because kids didn’t find Nancy Reagan appealing, so the strategy was flawed from the start.”

AnimalKind set out with a better strategy: The ads Williams’ group produced don’t focus on the animals euthanized in shelters as a result of overpopulation; instead, they pick up on the things most likely to appeal to—and irritate—John and Mary Smith, the average American consumers. The ads tout the medical benefits of spay and neuter, highlighting the fact that the surgery may help prolong a pet’s life. A smiling dog sits above the message: “Three more years of wet kisses”; under that, the ad encourages people: “Don’t wait. Do it now.” Another ad announces Williams’ estimated monetary cost of pet overpopulation: “Over $1 billion in taxes.”

Williams and her colleagues talked to numerous individuals in and out of the animal protection field, and that helped them decide on the direction for their spay/neuter advertisements. “After doing that research and reading the national [studies], it was very, very clear to us what the messages should be,” she says. “How to get people to spay and neuter—with the many benefits there are, we determined in rank order which were most important. [Our ads] hit on all the hot buttons that can change perceptions and urge people to act.”

While you may not have the resources to conduct scientific market polls, there are ways to get feedback about what your messages are actually communicating to the general public; Holford recommends testing any messages you develop on a group of people who aren’t in your circle and who may not know the issues as well as you do. “I always try to do informal focus groups on any project I do—even if it’s just my husband!” says Holford.

Its form should complement, not undermine, its function.

When the Maryland SPCA developed bumper stickers that were cute, eye-catching, and funny, something surprising happened: people actually wanted to put them on their cars, rather than simply feeling obligated to do so. Bright yellow with a funky, readable font, one sticker reads, “Feline Groovy”; another says, “Proud parent of a 4-legged kid!” All have the shelter’s logo featured prominently. The stickers are friendly and fun, and they do a great job presenting the SPCA as the same; other promotional materials carry similar messages and images to ensure a consistent “brand” for the organization.

“You can see the stickers on cars everywhere when you drive around Baltimore,” says Andy Malis, whose firm developed the design. “[We’ve tried to give] a look and feel to all their communications pieces now, and I think that’s helped a lot.”

The Humane Society at Lollypop Farm in Fairport, New York, took the opposite approach when designing the materials for its anti-animal fighting campaign. The tough message, We’re Looking For a Fight, and the gritty texture and aggressive font of the pieces convey both the seriousness of the issue and the determination of the local task force to combat dogfighting. These materials weren’t designed to make the shelter look friendly—they were designed to convince a tougher audience to report suspected dogfighting in their neighborhoods. The materials from both organizations reflect a “look” appropriate to their respective purposes.

It should specify an action for people to take.

Your outreach materials should support your goals by providing the audience with a way to respond. If you have a poster saying “Save Our Strays,” make sure there’s information there on how the public can help do that. If you tell them to spay or neuter, you should also include information about where they can go or whom they can call to get their pets sterilized. If you ask them to support the shelter with donations, provide a phone number or address for them to do so. If you’re requesting that they support a particular piece of legislation, provide contact information for the lawmakers they should call.

Don’t inspire your audience and then leave them feeling helpless to act on their inspiration; make it as easy as possible for them to take action on your message once they’ve received it.

If you need help in employing these strategies, you can always go pro—or rather, go pro bono. Advertising and public relations firms often do work for nonprofits at greatly reduced rates or even free; you just need to start looking.

Check with your staff and volunteers. Get folks together and find out who they know. Maybe your humane education coordinator’s sister works in advertising. Maybe your adoption counselor went to school with a local producer. And your volunteers may be an untapped resource—remember, you only see them scooping poop and walking dogs, but they may have jobs, talents, and connections that could be invaluable to your cause.

Get on the Internet—or just check your phone book—and track down local agencies that might be willing to help. If you’ve seen catchy mailings from other local nonprofits, give them a call and ask them who helped them with the piece. Check out the websites of local ad firms to see if they do pro bono work; if you like what you see, send a query letter. And even if you don’t see any charities or nonprofits on their list of clients, don’t assume that’s a closed door; the agency may be willing and may not yet have been approached, giving you a leg up when you come in with your mission and messages.

The great work that fills your days may be the very thing folks stuck in corporate jobs may be dreaming of doing in their spare time. To those working desk jobs, scooping poop and cuddling cats seems exotic and refreshing; helping homeless animals has loads more appeal than marketing the latest in an endless series of widgets.

Williams, who brought together AnimalKind in order to try to bring some of the central messages of the humane field more into the public eye, says that after 15 years working in advertising agencies, she was longing to do something really meaningful. “My soul was crying out to do volunteer work of some sort,” she says. “And I had animals my whole life, and they were all strays, but I had never known that there was this sort of underground network of shelters ... that were doing what they did.”

When she started learning about the work of animal groups, Williams was stunned that she’d never known about it before; she ended up recruiting other friends from the advertising and public relations fields in order to form AnimalKind. And there are other people like Williams out there, just waiting to find out about you and your mission—waiting to help you shape your outreach campaign so that not a message or minute gets wasted.