You’re listening to the Marketing Attractions podcast. Conversations on how nonprofit attractions
are increasing attendance and sharing their missions through marketing. Your hosts are
Ryan Dick and Jenny Williams of Attend Media.
Jenny, today we’ve got a spotlight episode. Aaron Ward, Vice President of Marketing at
the Palm Beach Zoo and Conservation Society.
Aaron’s got such an interesting background coming from National Geographic Travel and PBS
National where she worked in marketing and really while she’s new to the zoo space or
join the zoo space this year. Her background is all a mission-based conservation. She’s
going to share with us today how the Palm Beach Zoo launched a successful marketing campaign
around this mission-based advertising where there’s more good and it just recently wrapped.
She’s got some results and performance to share with us as well too which is great.
Yeah, I really enjoyed our conversation with Aaron. I hope I can say this. She’s a marketing
nerd like us. We were smiling laugh in the entire time. She’s going to give away a couple
little tips and tricks. This is one of my takeaways. She has a review generation strategy and
they’ll be linking the show notes on what the tool that she uses. That’s the first time
I’ve heard that a review generation strategy. I think something we talk about on this podcast
a lot is like carrying through that guest experience between hey they just purchased a ticket.
They’re going to come in all the way to they’ve just left our attraction so she walks through
some of her strategies to do that super interesting there as well. All right let’s get into it.
Aaron welcome to the show. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me.
I’m really excited. I’m a big fan. All right so your background isn’t exactly like born
raised that is you. How did you get into this zoo space? Yeah so my path is definitely one
that zig-zag’s. I actually started at National Geographic in the travel space. I was an editorial
assistant. I was an assistant. I was writing travel guides and doing digital content and
then one day someone in television came and said hey will you come be a writer for us for
expanding our production company into National Geographic Studios. And from there I started
writing pilots and doing casting and all sorts of stuff focusing on mission based conservation
work because National Geographic’s focus is that and they were looking for someone who could
write but also move forward with the mission. And so I got into television writing initially
in development and then moving into production in the field which was incredible. I got
to travel to some wonderful places all with this conservation focus. And then as things
progressed I got a little burnt out for the travel though I loved it dream job and got this
great offer to work at PBS National in DC to do marketing. I spent a lot of time there and
I ended up falling in love with how to market non-profit content. And then during right after
the pandemic we moved to South Florida and the love of South Florida and PBS said hey you
know you have to come back to DC and I said I’m not coming back to DC and this wonderful
position at the Palm Beach Zoo came up and it’s a combination of marketing and real life
conservation work every day in the field and at the zoo and so here I am working at a zoo.
That’s awesome story I don’t feel like we’ve had that type of background for anybody who’s
been on the show so far so but I guess can it give us a little bit of a preview into
what a day in the life of your role and your team looks like at the Palm Beach Zoo.
Yeah so the Palm Beach Zoo is a small zoo 23 acres but so much heart and it’s really this
beautiful wild place in the middle of West Palm Beach. But we’re a small team so that means
every day we’re out hanging signs and putting up a frames but also working on the strategy
side of things I make sure that we’re ahead by at least three to four months for each campaign.
I’m also on the leadership team so that requires decision making around the zoo working
with guest services, all like cross-platform and cross-departmental. We do website. We work
with tick on the ticketing system. You know everything you can think of I spend a lot of
time on reporting as well to try to make sure that all of our campaigns that we put out
there are measured and tracked and then follow our conservation message because we are a
zoo but we’re first and foremost a conservation society so that’s really important to us.
So I spend every day making sure that our internal messaging is external. So it’s kind of a little
bit of everything every day changes but the one thing that I had in common each day is
that conservation focus and being able to walk around the zoo and see the animals and
enjoy the guests saying hello and remembering why I’m here.
It’s not a bad way to do it. I always like the idea of walking around. You’re having
a bad day at the office and it’s like you know what I’m going to go take a step outside.
Oh yeah. We had actually we had a food editor here review our cafe. It’s kind of a new
take on how to promote the zoo. We had them come today and we did this tasting so we ate
so much food in our cafe because we were doing a seasonal fall menu and I just spent an hour
walking around the zoo because I couldn’t move after tasting.
I’m thinking like some of our audience or folks that maybe want to get into marketing
like attractions and it’s not all just spreadsheets and reports and deadlines like hey a food
tasting on a Tuesday. That’s not a bad way to do it.
No I really feel like marketing attraction is all about being creative. It’s as creative
as you want it to be. So you can sit at your computer all day long and just watch Google
Analytics if you really want to but I think more about it is the combination of the earned
and the paid and all your organic coverage right. It’s your all your external person,
your external external message and how the community sees you. So you can be as creative
and out in the world in the community or you can be at your desk. Okay. I like to be on the community.
All right so really cool background. Kind of new into the attraction space. So kind of
as a new marketing person doing attractions. What’s been like the most surprising thing
for you the last couple of months?
The most surprising thing for me is the instantaneous feedback that you get from your guest. Like
you make a decision and then you immediately get someone telling you how good or horrible
it was right. So before this I was marketing you know television content. So you were pushing
people there. You were looking at eyeballs. You were looking at clicks. You were looking
at streaming and you could tell if you were successful and not based on meal scenarios
essentially. But this is like you put up a new sign. You have a new program. You walk
over there and someone’s like this is not good. You’re like okay that didn’t work or you
know or I love that. Thank you. Please bring it back. And so okay this is successful today.
I had this many people in the zoo today. You can have instantaneous feedback and then instantly
pivot and I think it’s a really great blessing that to be able to work in an industry that
allows you to do such quick changes when you need to.
Okay. Can we talk about that a little bit more like you mentioned just getting feedback
from the guests while you’re walking around you know enjoying a nice lunch and enjoying
the animals and such. But is there any other kind of like feedback loops that you pay
attention to? Like how are you hearing? Are you getting feedback from guests besides just
like oh I don’t like that sign. Yeah so I always like to be in the zoo and talk to them.
So that’s definitely first feeling the vibe of the area is really important. But we also
have a review generation strategy that we put into play through a program called bird eye.
And basically what it does it it gives us all collates all the reviews from all the different
websites outside of Yale because Yale won’t let you do that. But so like Google businesses
are a big one. So we can see all the reviews there people can we have this feature where people
can message us. So we started a new drip campaign that connects people when they with us when
they buy their tickets. So there are different touch points throughout their journey. And the
last part of that campaign is a text message that goes to them at the you know 5 p.m. the
day they were at the zoo right it’s all automated through an API. So on that 5 p.m. on the
last day and the excuse me at 5 p.m. when when they leave the zoo and the zoo closes they
get a text saying hey how is your time at the zoo and they can take a three survey question
we do that sometimes or they text us through bird eye. So all of those negative would be negative
reviews comes to us and we actually have a messaging platform when we talk to them.
And John Tauy our amazing PR manager handles all of those messages that come from them.
So when we make sure that we’re on top of that review generation because Google business
can make a break use so we want to make sure that we’re responding to it and the negative
feedback goes to a specific place. That’s really cool. That’s really cool. Okay so bird eye
that’s the name of the product right. Yes. All right we’ll go ahead and drop that into
the show notes of this one. And is it the bird eye platform that you’re doing the text
message. Excuse me the text messaging through. Yes. So you could do it right on bird you
could give them the number and it goes into the platform where your call all your reviews
are together. So you can kind of see trends and patterns and insights to just on your reviews.
Okay. Man all right. Jenny I’m thinking we’re going to do an episode on bird eye.
All right. It’s taking the other part. This is really cool. This is why like we really love
doing this kind of stuff because I always say like we don’t work inside the four walls
right. We’re always on the outside looking in. So these little nuggets is is just I don’t
the reason we hit record and have these episodes. So thank you Aaron. Yeah.
You’re listening to the marketing attractions podcast conversations on how nonprofit attractions
are increasing attendance and sharing their mission through marketing. Your hosts are
Ryan Dick and Jenny Williams of attend media attend media is a media planning and buying
agency specializing in zoos aquariums gardens and museums for more information please
visit attend.media now back to Ryan and Jenny. All right. So you shared your background that
mission based conservation and writing a production plus your marketing experience
of PBS National you’ve come now to Palm Beach Zoo and you’ve just launched a wrapped up
a campaign for this zoo more good zoo more good and it’s all about mission based advertising
really. So give us a little bit of an overview of what that campaign was like and maybe share
some of the learnings that you had from launching it. Yeah. So zoo more good is about you
know doing more good for conservation for the zoo and it’s Palm Beach Zoo’s first conservation
focus campaign that’s public facing right. So usually you see like oh have fun at the zoo
down at the zoo we wanted to try something that was conservation focused so that people
understood that we’re a conservation society. So first and foremost it was an awareness
play about who we are now five years ago we had a new CEO Margo Mcnight and everybody
at the zoo is here for her vision which is to save animals in the wild and save animals
in wild places. So zoo more good was about talking about that the question was is could zoo
more good also drive engagement and revenue right. So so one of some of the things we looked
at was elevating the content so people engaged with it more and we saw we saw a oh a 52% increase
in engagement with our guests and with people who knew us outside of the zoo and on our digital
platforms. So kind of a combination of those things people wanted to engage and understand
with who we are now because we’re talking about this conservation messages and so we also
had a 19% increase in conversion tactics. We also had a 9% increase in interest so putting
out a conservation campaign focus really does work. I do want to say that we did this
campaign and we tested it during summer and Palm Beach Zoo is very much a seasonal place
right. So it’s a place where people leave for the summer and they come back in the winter
so it’s a different audience that comes here we do a kids free promotion at the same time
and it’s a community promotion where kids come and free with their adult ticket. Because
of that those variables my first time at the zoo I really learned how to do more good
affected the community so it had a lot of engagement less conversion. But the piece that
I really love that I learned the most from this is that where we had success was with the
experiential components that we added to the conservation message. So we had a we do we
have a coral dive team. I don’t know if you know this but Palm Beach Zoo has a dive team
where we where we survey healthy coral in Palm Beach County or in conjunction with NOAA
and all these amazing organizations. John tower the guy is just telling you about our
PR manager he goes out and he dives on behalf of the zoo. Like every Thursday he’s out
diving I don’t have a PR guy because he’s in the lotion and so it’s amazing and so we invited
media out to join us. An engagement in earned media went through the roof. People wanted to
hear about it we were all over the press we were front page of the Palm Beach post. I think
it’s all about adding your conservation messaging but showing that experiential component
when you invite guests in the zoo to talk about who you are. Yeah show something a little
bit different to right so maybe not what every every media out like it’s invited to go see
so they have something unique to share as well. So you mentioned some of those results the
52% increase in engagement the 18% increase in conversion tactics. Was this channel heavily
promoted or the I’m sorry the campaign heavily promoted through digital channels like were
you doing a broad mix of media channels and what we’re using to support it. Yeah so it was
a mix we did everything from paid Pinterest campaigns with this because the hour was real
the art was really elevated and it was a different way of looking at it so we got to use
it be creative with the channels we use so we did paid Pinterest and then we did YouTube
we did big billboards we did a mix it really became a brand play is how it ended so it’s
still optimizing in in the background we’re doing our zoo lights campaign now we do a big holiday
theme um light show from November through January it’s amazing and so that is our primary
campaign right now but we have seem more good optimizing the background and all these digital
paid platforms we had before just that lower percentages because the engagement was so high
we hadn’t experienced that before so our it’s kind of turning into our brand which is great
because we want to be a conservation society to our community or probably zoo but we are
as we more good. Yeah that’s awesome and then you can get it longer shelf life out of that as well
too versus just event specific um love that you said that you tested Pinterest we always say
don’t sleep on that channel especially if you’ve got good creative for it it can be a great addition
to a digital plan um but yeah I think um you know or I guess maybe now that you’ve got the new
campaign launching so you’re already in market for holiday? Oh yeah September 15th we go out to
members we yeah we’re all in the holidays you know we had a lot of interest from members we knew
that last year so we capitalized on that uh we said a survey out to our members and to you know
we win free tickets to anyone who bought a zoo like ticket before to to give its feedback and we know
people were interested in buying tickets earlier and hearing about holiday content earlier so
September 15th we went out to members on a pre-sale and then October 1st we went out to general
public. Great and then you said you’re running the zoo more good behind that like how are you
kind of managing both of these campaigns together? So we kept the plate the paid placement that did
very well with the more good going essentially we just did them at lower percentages so
um anything again like a billboard for example we do the digital billboard so maybe that’s at 15
percent where ads are you know zoo lights at 85 percent um the Pinterest campaign is still going
you know the YouTube is still going like the ones that do well um in our just gaining momentum we
didn’t want to stop it so it’s still in the works. That’s awesome um I mean anything else that you
want to share from just that campaign that stuck out as maybe a you know a new channel that kind of
blew your mind away in terms of performance or just yeah like if there’s another zoo doing something
mission conservation based like what are some kind of takeaways that you would share with them?
I would say lean into your authentic self part of the reason this campaign worked so well for us is
because we walk and we walk the walk we’re out there diving you know we’re out there saving
snail kites we’re doing the conservation work that we’re talking about and when you come to the zoo
you feel that I think the problem for us was that our public persona was not that so we were just
taking something that was very truthful to us and bring it at bring it out to the public in a
very honest way so keeping that authenticity and proving that we that is who we are really helped
and engage with others you know I think being able to talk about something you love is always
engaging and he draws people in. I just I’m just taking my notes here so food tasting at noon
and I’m not even in the afternoon on a bad way to spend a Tuesday I like it. Yeah very very
eclectic upon me too it’s great. All right so just one more question kind of with the nuts and bolts
stuff I really appreciate you sharing some of the numbers that you shared with us regarding the
zoom more campaign is there like a way that you guys were measuring the effectiveness is this like
maybe survey stuff or were you getting those numbers from? So there it depends on what you’re asking
about tracking for that so is it the guest? How they felt about it? It’s through surveys talking to
them that review generation content we talked about if it’s through like our buy on RDSP or through
our agency and things like that it’s basically looking at Google Analytics and looking at the
dashboards that they built for us to see how effective they were year over year month over month
things like that. If you’re looking at community awareness is measuring the earned media coverage
that we’re seeing from it and that’s I really feel that’s a good indicator of how people feel about
you and it’s not like the paid bread and content that you’re placing in the newspaper it’s the one
where someone is coming out and covering you and wanting to follow up and what that looks like.
So we’re truly becoming the experts in conservation in our area and people come to us for that earned
media so I can measure how well that’s doing month over month. All right Aaron our famous last
question now in terms of marketing what do you think nonprofit attraction should be doing more of
or maybe even less of? So the thing I when I came to the zoo the thing I realized that a lot of
attractions aren’t doing including us before I got here is creating a customer profile. It’s not
something that a lot of places are doing that that I have talked to and again I knew but that’s the one
of the first things I did when I got here was to create try and create a customer profile by exporting
data from our ticket system to find out who our customers are where they coming from why are they
coming here? Really understanding who your customer is will save you money on the long run. I think
looking at that customer acquisition cost along with who your customer is allows you to better target
who your customer is and being able to go to them will cost you less money and also you’ll be more
effective on it for conversion rates. So what kind of data are you pulling from your
ticketing system that’s helping you build these profiles? Everything so the type of the type of
take the type of ticket the zip codes the phone numbers the emails any survey data around how they
got you know how did you find us which we ask things like that and then using all of that putting
it together the type of ticket they bought with the ages they bought if they’re if it’s an animal
experience we have age restrictions we know that type of content so we can have an good idea
did they buy a senior ticket and that’s a certain age group did they buy an adult ticket did they buy
a kid ticket what did they do when did they buy all of that is really important to determine who
your customer is and where they came from are they in your community did they travel here you know
I found out that our animal experiences are a huge a really huge for tourists we have a
koal experience that people are coming miles and miles across the country for and so now we’re
putting our marketing dollars towards marketing that koal experience in airports for example so people
want to come here when they come here oh I want to go do that I can do that at Palm Beach Zoo or even
just you know using it to geofence and target places that you wouldn’t normally think.
Aaron let’s dive into this customer profile a little bit more so through your ticketing system
right you’re pulling out these profiles based off of the type of ticket that people are buying
and then how are you using that data to maybe keep in touch with them or you know build a drip
campaign like what’s kind of the process for you once you have all these profiles created.
Yeah so we have an automated export every hour of all the customer native that comes in to build
the profile but then to build a drip campaign which basically creates six to eight touch points
from when they buy a ticket to when they come to the zoo and it allows us to continuously
remain in contact with them and it’s the easiest way to create repeat visitors I feel we’re already
seeing success we just debuted in September and we’re already seeing success with repeat visitors
wanting to know more information and it looks like this so the data comes in you buy a ticket
and you’re coming to the zoo the next day depending on when you come to the zoo you know you’ll get
these emails later or earlier right it’s timed based on your visit and when you purchase your ticket
so the first email is thank you and here’s your time when you’re coming all pulled all automated
from previously coded content and then the next one is something like hey here’s all the things to know
you can buy an animal experience why don’t you come here and buy this and if you buy an animal
experience don’t forget your closed-ode shoes or here’s all these age restrictions that you need
to know about these animal experiences did you know you could upgrade to a membership
and then the day of we integrated text messaging so all of that data includes a phone number so
we text using that phone number that’s automated again and we say hey we’re so excited to see
you welcome to the zoo here’s the cafe menu you can order using this QR code and enjoy your day
and then we go into the last the last piece of it which is the survey piece and the review generation
piece where we serve them of a text message that just says you know how is your visit tell us about
it anything negative goes to bird eye into that text messaging platform anything good hopefully
goes to google where we push them out to to to go and then we send them a follow-up if we haven’t
seen them in three in three months we pull in our heartstrings and we say hey come back to the zoo
you’re saving animals in the wild here are conservation efforts the other thing we’re doing is we’re
hopefully using hopefully going to invest in an app and if this app will help us do push notifications
with our customers it will enhance customer experience when they’re in the zoo so they can have
maps get notified when chats are happening and really change the customer experience in general
but also when you’re off site we’re going to integrate that into the drip campaign so we’ll be
able to send the push notifications when they’re home being like hey come to the zoo today we’re doing
our rainy day guarantee because it’s raining and you get 50% off your ticket like hey maybe that’s a
good time to go to the zoo in the rain right and it’s real time and it’s based off hourly exports of
real data so it’s all relevant and it’s all targeted and you’ve linked all these platforms together
even though they’re not all connected which is so important right but love that you’ve given
multiple opportunities upsell the guests you’ve given multiple touch points for communication
based off of what their preference might be and you’ve also improved their guest experience by
making sure that they’re prepared for that visit by the time that they get there which is awesome
exactly it’s a holistic approach to what it looks like for them before they get here when they
get here and when they leave and how they think about it’s after you know we really want to be
turn them into ambassadors and want to come back again and again and again
awesome Aaron Ward vice president of marketing at Palm Beach Zoo and Conservation Society Aaron
thank you so much for your time this was great thank you for having me
thank you for listening to the Marketing Attractions podcast if you have a suggestion for a topic
or would like to be a guest on the show please visit our website at marketing attractions podcast.com
