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.
Well, what’s the spotlight episode? Well, the spotlight episode is where we’re talking
to folks actually working at zoos aquariums, museums, gardens, and a leadership in
particularly a marketing role. So today, Jim Bartu, the director of marketing and public
relations at the Nashville Zoo, Jim has been in the space for over 25 years, 24 years
at the Nashville Zoo. In fact, he oversaw like building this zoo from like the ground up.
So I mean, talk about a breath of knowledge, especially within Nashville. Jim is a graduate
of the University of Tennessee and he oversees four other marketing team members as part
of that marketing and public relations team. Yeah, excited to talk to Jim today. Get into
kind of all of his paid and earned strategies. We’ve got a few topics that we’re going to
cover with him, including how he’s really built a strong local media relationships over
the last 20 plus years that he’s been in market. I mean, how is getting the most out of
paid and earned media and why he’s not walking away from traditional yet? And you know,
Nashville, of course, being a big tourist market, what’s his intercept strategy for reaching
tourist while they’re there and some of the unique challenges that Nashville tourism kind
of creates for the Nashville Zoo. And they’re really looking beyond Nashville. So when
do you reach that saturation point in market? Jim’s going to share some of the things that
they’re starting to find out and where they’re going next beyond their own local market?
All right, let’s get into it. Jenny, today we are joined by Jim Bartu, the director of
marketing from the Nashville Zoo. Jim, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me, guys.
It got a great podcast. So I’m really excited to be here. Oh, thank you. That’s very nice.
Thanks. So, you know, we did a little intro for you previously, but when I hear from you,
what do you do for the Nashville Zoo? Tell us about a day in the life at your role.
Well, the beauty of my day is it’s always just a little bit different in the time that I’ve
been here. I oversee the marketing and public relations for the zoo. So pretty much any kind
of external messaging goes out of my office and marketing and public relations, as you know,
kind of they’re kind of two different animals, but they do marry in quite a bit with each
other and can help each other out in that process. So my job is to make sure that we’re kind of
on track with eating our goals or marketing goals, our PR goals. I’m also looking at some
strategic initiatives to try to advance some of the stuff that we’re doing with marketing
and public relations. I work with a very talented team of four other people that take care
of a lot of the grunt work that’s involved, particularly with digital media and media relations.
So I’m very fortunate to have that to where I’m able to kind of step back and look at things
in a little higher focus, a little more directional in nature. I think that’s why they call us
direction. That would make sense. So how did you land at a zoo? Why, why, why, why, why,
did you land in this industry? It sounds so much fun, but how did you get to Nashville,
but how did you get into the zoo space to begin with?
Yeah, that’s a really good question. I went to the University of Tennessee, majored in
communications with a focus in advertising actually. And when you were in school then,
at agency was really kind of what you were being trained for. So I looked for agency working,
couldn’t really find it in Chad Nigo, which was my hometown. And I started actually working
in TV news in their promotions department. I was there briefly and then got moved over to
their news department. And I was in charge of organizing the newsroom because news people
are for whatever reason, not very organized. So I started doing that. They quickly put
me into a producers role to where I’m actually writing the evening news. And I had no journalism
background besides the intro to journalism class that you have to take in school. So I
did that. I got hired by another station shortly after that. And I worked there for a couple
of years. So I was in TV news for about three years. I met my future wife there. She got
a job acting or being a health reporter up in Columbus, Ohio at the NBC affiliate up there.
So I moved up there with her. We got married. I was still looking for agency work. TV news
was great. When you’re young, you’re kind of on the receiving end of history. You get to
deliver that to the public. There’s a lot of exciting things about that. But it’s a, they own
you 24/7. And you know, it’s just day in and day out of telling people about the worst of
society in general. That’s kind of what news does. So I didn’t, I didn’t really care for it.
So again, I started looking for agency work up in Columbus didn’t really find anything. Picked
up a part-time job at the zoo, which was right down the street. I love zoos. So I was like,
yeah, I’ll go work there and you know, do whatever it is that they want me to do. I started
in guest services and a few months in. I discovered that they had a marketing department up there.
And I walked in and I, you know, I told them who I was and you know, where I worked and of
course, you know, they’re rolling their eyes. But they had a, they had an edit bay. This is
Columbus’s where Jack Hannes from. So they had a huge video library and they had an edit
bay and a TV station had loan them an editing machine. This was back when tape to tape editing
was still a thing. So they had this editing machine and nobody in the office knew how to
work it. And I said, oh, that’s a three quarter inch deck, you know, a system. I know how to
work this and they were like, I heard. How would you like, you know, to come work for us?
So that’s really how I got started in marketing at zoos. And then from there, I just, I made
myself as useful as possible. I started doing events. I learned about sponsorship. I learned
about rangling and taking care of volunteers. I learned all different kinds of stuff in the
marketing field. And I worked there for seven years. We had a kid. We wanted to get back
closer to family, which was Chattanooga for me. Nashville was an ideal town for that. And
they just happened to be Nashville zoo just happened to be in the market for a marketing
and public relations director. And I couldn’t, I couldn’t get them to answer the phone. But when
I told them that Carol and I were going to be moving down closer to family, my boss at
the time said, well, let’s go talk to Jack and see if he can, you know, get get the door open
for you. And that’s exactly what we walked into his office. And he said, yeah, I know Rick
real well. Let me call right now. We’ll get him on the phone right now. So you know, he called
him up and you have to talk to this guy. So that’s how he was really instrumental in getting
me my job down here. And I, I’ve been, I was hired. And I’ve been in this job for, for 24
years. It’s been a fantastic, fantastic job for ride. The zoo, when I got here was had just
gotten to this new property. This is about 188 acres. And there was really not a whole lot
here. It was a wildlife park before that. And then it, it, it kind of expanded into this
huge zoo over the course of two decades. So I’ve been really privileged to watch it, to
watch it grow and really become a mainstay in the city. It kind of went from a park that
nobody knows about to the number one attraction in, in the middle Tennessee area. It’s been,
it’s been a great ride. Can you go back in a time machine 20, 25 years ago and think about
day one month one of basically opening this, this zoo? Like how much has changed? I, I know
that’s such a big question, but. Yeah, no, it’s a, it’s a good question. Um, you know, when
I started, they had, they opened, um, they opened their doors in 1997 at this property. They
had, we’re running a zoo at another property outside of town, um, several years before that,
but they moved the property and opened up in 97. I got there in 99. So they were kind of
in the process of, of, of building a zoo. They had just completed a giant playground,
a jungle gym playground that the community helped build, which was really smart because
people would, would buy zoo memberships just to have their kids come and play in the playground.
Um, outside of that, it was just a handful of exhibits that already existed in the park
and we moved, you know, um, we moved zebras into an area that had buffalo when we moved, um,
cheetahs into an area that had wolves and, you know, we, we kind of, we moved tigers into
an area that had bears. It was, it was that kind of thing, um, that we kind of took advantage
of. There really was not a whole lot here. Um, I, I like to tell people that the best exhibit
we had back when I started was the backhoe because we were just building everything and any
time you go out into the park, you’d see more kids standing around watching somebody dig
a hole than watching the cheetahs, you know, it’s just kind of, that’s, that’s kind of how
it worked out. So it’s, um, it’s grown quite a bit over that time. I had no budget. So back
to the marketing end of things. I didn’t really have any money to market. I relied on the
generosity of local media outlets, um, to be able to send messages out. And this was prior
to social media. This was really prior to the advent of, of major, um, websites, as you
know them now, you know, a lot of it was taxed and, you know, some pictures here and there,
but it was really rudimentary stuff. So, earn media, the public relations end of what I
did was really kind of the, the beginning of everything that I had to do, everything
that I got, I got from earn media. Um, and that’s how, you know, we started and then eventually
they threw me some money and I was able to start buying some stuff.
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. Jenny, let’s, let’s start some marketing.
Yeah. So, um, you know, you’ve got a little money now, right? You, you, you build these relationships
that are so important over the last, you know, 20 years. So, you know, talk to us a little
bit about, you know, as you’re looking to continue to drive visitation and sure that you’re building
memberships with that local community and bringing people back for repeat visitation, you know,
how important and maybe how different too is it working with this local reps and vendors
in building those relationships in marketing and what are you kind of providing them to kind
of get a little bit more out of that as well. Yeah. You know, you bring up a really good point
there. Being able to, to recognize the value of earned media, to be able to negotiate
in if you’re going to make a radio buyer a TV buy, to be able to say, look, we’d really
love to be on your new programming. Um, what, anytime you have open space, we’ll bring
animals down. Well, you know, we’ll tell you about animals. We’ll also mention some
events that we have going on, anything that you can talk about and convince your, your
salespeople to kind of get in there and do that. If they’re allowed to do that, I know news
departments oftentimes like to have that solid separation aligned and that’s great. I, I,
I, um, I applaud them for doing things like that, but a lot of times they also have a need
for figuring out what they want to fill their different blocks and their shows for them.
We have a product that tends to rank really well. So we use that whenever we can. You
guys talk a lot about your podcast about the, you know, the, the benefits of, of digital
advertising and moving things over where you can measure them and really kind of get that,
that, um, that feedback on it. I think a lot of that stuff is great, but there’s a, there’s
a coldness to that transaction and, um, having that relationship with a local radio station
or local TV station and being part of that community process. Um, there’s still some, there’s
still some value in that. So I, I do put value behind something like that and we’ll establish,
um, a relationship and put money behind that relationship to be able to, to keep up that,
that appearance and the community. Yeah. So then we talk about a lot, right? Then,
especially with all the talk about moving to, you know, streaming TV, streaming radio,
it’s great. There’s a great audience there to get in front of, but as a, a nonprofit cultural
attraction, like you can’t, you know, at this stage, still, you can’t just completely walk
away from, um, the exposure that you get from working with is, is local stations and, you
know, right? Yeah. And being on those, being on those stations, being on that radio station,
these stations and, and they have their own social media as well. So you’re creating for them,
um, organic content that they share as well. And that helps us. All of that stuff helps us. So
we get the impressions from the buys that we get through streaming and streaming and we can,
we can measure all that. And yeah, there’s a lot of people over there and they’re all kind of moving
that way for their focus. But, um, those that are leftover to watch on regular broadcast
television or over terrestrial radio, um, there, there is a reach beyond just that aspect as well. They
have, um, a need to be able to reach into their audiences. And if we can be along for that ride and
be the focus of that, um, that helps us as well. And then we were talking a little before, um, about,
you know, you guys have obviously a, um, huge interest in the, in the zoo right now with the new
baby tigers, right? So how would you do work? I think you’re, you were talking about a station or,
a publisher that you’re working with and then kind of some exclusive stories.
We did. Yeah. Um, we actually, um, set up an arrangement with the local newspaper here in town,
the Tennessee and, um, to get some of the stories, uh, of the tiger cubs in particular in advance of
everything else that we’re releasing by minutes, right? So if, if there’s something happening,
we gave the Tennessee an access to our keepers, to our vet team, to our animal management team,
to be able to sit in and listen to all of the processes that go through in preparing for, um,
the birth of tiger cubs, which is a big deal. Some other tiger cubs are, are extremely endangered.
Um, so to be able to have these births is a big deal for us and, um, the best way to do that, the best
way to tell that story is to have somebody in there who knows how to tell stories and who has an
outlet to tell it to a lot of people, right? We can tell that story, but if we can get somebody that,
that has thousands of followers and thousands of viewers to tell that story for us and is connected
to the USA network and to share that out, the better off we’re going to be the Tennessee and values
that because they’re getting something that no, no other outlet in the city is getting, they’re getting
advanced access, special access to this particular process. And so we follow them through the birth,
through the, uh, nursing process, through the weighing and, um, physical checkups and then here,
shortly, we, they’re starting to go outside now because the weather’s been kind of nice and they’re
in a little private yard that we have, so they’re not available to the public yet, um, but we have a
moat in front of our main exhibit that they will eventually go out into. So in order for them to go
out into this main exhibit, they have to know how to swim. So we have to put them through a swim test.
We have, the diggers have to go through a swim test, um, and my mind goes back to camp when you have to
jump in and swim over to this buoy, you know, you know, so it’s, it’s not that advanced, but, you know,
we will have to put them into a big tank and, um, make sure that they know how to swim before they can
go out and we’ll, we’ll invite the Tennessee and end to cover that, um, and we’ll capture as much
of it as we can and share with the public as well. So I’ll take some great social media content.
I want to see them swim. Um, all right. So maybe we can dive into that just a little bit, like,
tactically, because, you know, Jenny and I were, we’re kind of media nerds, right? And admittedly,
we’re not PR experts. So do you just go to the Tennessee and say, Hey, we’ve got some baby tigers coming
up. You went in or, you know, what does that relationship look like? How do you get on their radar?
Break it down for us like a PR 101. Yeah. That’s, that’s exactly what I did. It helps to know it, it,
the years that I spent in TV news really helped me to understand what makes a good story, right?
Public relations people know this or at least they’re trained to be able to know this, but people in
the news business, they bathe in this every day. They know what it takes to make a story. They know
the elements that you need. You know, you’re going to need video and photos and you’re going to need
interviews with these particular experts and all of that stuff. The better that you can package
that up and say, I have, you can interview our, our mammal curator. You can interview all of our
tiger keepers. You can interview our lead vet. You can interview our CEO and president if you want
with this. If you think it’s going to go there, but we have all of these people available for you,
they can be available on this date. If you want to come out and do this thing and as the more that
you can set it up and drop it right into their lap, the easier it’s going to be to sell them on it.
Because you’re making their job easier for them. That’s what you want to do in public relations
in a intermediate situation is you want to be able to create these stories and put them as a nice
package with a bow on it for whoever it is you choose or you could also send it out to the masses
and see who else picks it up. A lot of times if you really want that special story, you should be
selective on who you’re looking at to be able to do that. We selected a reporter who has covered us
some of our stories in the past and to be honest, some of our really, really delicate stories in
the past about births, not all of our births have gone well. This reporter has done a really good job
kind of explaining and talking to the public about all of that. So she was selected as somebody that we
knew how a little bit more about our story and was going to be able to write a little bit more
about where we’re coming from in terms of animal care. That’s the relations in the public relations there.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s a little cooler than Excel spreadsheets and cost per points and
spots and dots. Right, Jenny? Of course. But there’s fun stuff in media too, right? So we love
our spreadsheets over here. But so you know, you guys have clearly done an amazing job locally working
with that community to help spread the word of what National Zoo is doing in the purpose edition.
But you know, at some point you’ve got to look at saying, you know, whenever we reach
saturation in the market with our paid dollars, right? So your earned dollars are obviously always
going to continue to go after that market. But you talked about some strategic advancements
that you were making with the National Zoo. You know, tell us a little bit about
when and how you’re looking at growing in terms of either visitor or tourist market,
versus maybe going to just some neighboring markets to help bring and grow a visitation.
Yeah. And you’re absolutely right. Earn, you know, public relations and earned media only get you
so far. You can’t control the message. You’re not in control of the message that’s put out there.
If you want to control that, you’re you’re really talking more about the paid media and if things
are the owned media end of things now, which has become a huge aspect of that. So we started doing
a lot more saturation in the market. We picked up billboards a few years ago, which is immensely
expensive, but it puts us in front of the audience on a day-to-day basis and reminds them that there’s
a zoo in town. It also reminds people that are traveling into town that there’s a zoo here as well.
So that helps us kind of with that with that exposure that what do you call it? What’s the
the 70% 60% that we’re doing? Yeah, impact. Yeah. Which impact. Not what is it? Impact. Yes.
It’s the impact ever. And you too can download your guide at attend.media.
That’s right. Yeah. I downloaded it and geeked out and made my own spreadsheet on it. I’ll have to
share that. Jim was not paying to say that. It’s cool. Yeah. So anyway, so yeah, we, you know, the
impactful ads you have to do. We did and we did this for a number of years. We run ads for the
events that we have and those are largely in town with traditional media as well as digital. We’ve
dabbled into the digital range with paid social and digital splads and search ads and things like this.
Last spring, we did a study to try to determine our brand awareness, right? We did a brand
health checkup. And what we discovered is we’re pretty well saturated in the market. Everybody knows
we’re here. Everybody knows what we’re doing here and who we are and even down to several of the
events that we offer here throughout the year are pretty well established. So we made a decision
to start reaching out beyond the Nashville DMA and looking at other markets. I don’t have a huge
budget. It’s it’s it’s it’s healthy. It’s much healthier than it used to be. But if I’m going to reach
out into markets outside of that, I don’t have a lot of money to do that. Digital is really
a good way to be able to start into that market. So we naturally kind of started leaning towards
that digital aspect just to put ourselves in front of people is they’re looking around the internet.
You know, I think I want to go to Florida. Well, okay, so I’m from Michigan. I think I’m going to stop
at Nashville overnight or Chicago to stop over Nashville overnight with my kids. Maybe we get in
there a little early and we go see something to do. I wonder what there is to do in Nashville.
That’s where that ad pops up. That’s what we get in front of people and start to say, you know,
this is a zoo here. So that’s the kind of thing that we’re looking into doing into some of those
key cities as well. I work. We have the benefit of working with the state tourism department
who is also very interested in a lot of those same elements while you’re making your way through.
Make a stop in Tennessee. Stay here overnight by hotel room. Nashville Convention of visitors,
people are very interested in putting heads and beds. That’s what helps pay for their
for their process. So if we can convince people to come down here and stay a night,
we’re helping them as much as we’re helping us. So they’re willing to help us with that process,
either financially or getting us co-op opportunities to be able to get our reward out there.
So we work closely with both of them to be able to help that process. I love it. So just to kind of
regurgitate what you’re saying and I’m going to use media nerd speak here, Danny. It sounds like
he’s run he’s he’s pulled some data. He’s making a data driven decision saying hey, we’ve our
brand awareness is through the roof with our local market. It’s time to go to spillover. Let’s
identify three or four markets and I’m assuming Jim this isn’t just one hour two hour drives, day trip
things. This is going to be more of an intercept strategy. You’re pulling people traveling through
Nashville, stopover, spend a day as you continue to your travels. Is that kind of some of it some of
it stopover some of its destination. We have cities like that. That’s a cool time. Birmingham’s on
there. Atlanta’s on there. You know these these people may be coming in for a weekend in Nashville
for whatever reason, right? And we’re just trying to make Nashville as who is part of that stop.
But yes, stopover traffic would certainly be a part of it as well. Love it. This is a lot of that going
around. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, so but you’re right data driven and then we you know we looked at
the metrics. If you go to your Google Analytics and look at who’s already visiting your website,
you get a good idea about who is already looking at your website from different cities. Where are
the top cities outside of your local city? Who else is looking at your stuff? Well, they’re looking at
that for a reason, right? They’re coming in from that area for a reason. Those are cities that you
already have fish biting at the line. So it might be a good idea to cast a little more fishing
pulls over that way and see if there’s anything else that you can capture from that area. And that’s
really kind of what drives a lot of our decisions on on which markets to go after. Good stuff.
All right, Jim. So what kind of the final question here, what do you think zoos and maybe other cultural,
local nonprofit attractions? What do you think generally those folks should be doing more of in
their marketing or maybe less of? Man, well, I think you know zoos in general and I don’t know if
there’s any other zoos listening out there, but I think zoos in general we could always do a better
job talking about the tremendous amount of conservation work that we do at the zoo. And that’s it’s hard to put
it’s hard to put advertising paid dollars behind something like that because it’s hard to justify
that connection of we’re doing really good work in the world to come and visit our zoo, right? That
connection is a little looser based and you want your marketing to be as connected as possible
to the end result, which is where digital comes in, you know, they have that son up tight. You can
follow people all the way to the ticket purchasing process. But in that our messaging, our external
messaging about conservation really should be should be taking a much more central focus. And we’re
we’re working to do that. We’re working to try to get more of that messaging out there. Again, a lot
of it is through the iron media platform to be able to get that done. But that’s that’s what I
recommend for zoos. For other nonprofits, you know, I think I’m a big advocate for iron media. I
have always been an advocate for that because it’s free. You know, it’s it’s just your time and it’s
just a matter of being creative on what kind of stories that you have up there and following
what’s happening in your local news and being able to reach out to those reporters and
and give them a little bit more of a of a local angle on what’s happening in national news or
even just another avenue of a continuing story that’s out there that’s being followed. So there’s
lots of different ways to pick that up and just kind of be relevant in the community. Jim from the
Nashville Zoo, thank you so much for joining us. Sure, yeah, thanks 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 MarketingAttractionsPodcast.com.
