Email Helps Pet Camp Connect With Customers

San Francisco’s Pet Camp doesn’t use email to hard sell it’s pet boarding and care services. Instead, it uses the inbox to build the emotional connection with dog and cat owners.

Mark Klaiman, senior counselor, says the facility mails to its 6,000+ name list about once every three to four weeks, sharing community news, offering updates about the camp, linking to blog posts on issues like how to care for aging pets or to publicize contests.

Klaiman and his wife Virginia Donohue, Pet Camp’s camp director, started the business in 1997. “When we were dating before we got married, we wanted a place we could take our pets to work,” he says.

The facility is a decidedly more interactive experience than normal dog and cat boarding fare, offering activities “citified” animals don’t usually get to partake in, like a heated, indoor pool for dogs, the jungle-like Cat Safari play area for felines or the landscaped Savannah dog play yard.

The majority of the business is overnight care, although there is a good amount of day care for dogs, and some cat owners do bring their felines in for playtime at the Cat Safari.

The main camp houses about 180 animals—usually about 150-160 dogs and 25 cats at any one time. The cost depends on several variables; the daily camp fee is usually in the $20-$25 range, with additional charges for activities like playing in the pool.

The facility uses both email and its blog to talk to clients about issues in the pet world, rather than just to talk about themselves. “If I hear people talking about something in the lobby, chances are other clients are thinking about it too,” he says.

Of course, that’s not to say there is no promotion of the business or its services in the newsletter. As holidays near—and boarding spaces book up—the newsletter is a great place to remind people to pick up the phone and make their pet’s reservation. Plugs are also included for gift certificates, a new customer referral program and the Frequent Camper club as well.

When the Savannah opened, the enewsletter was used to invite people to an open house. Another open house was run as a fundraiser for a local shelter/pet clinic—that pulled in 100 people who brought their pets by to enjoy the Savannah and make donations to the nonprofit.

Klaiman notes that email is a way to tie all the various online communications together, linking recipients to the blog, Twitter feed or its Facebook page, where it holds contests such as a recent “Kool Kat Photo Competition,” where people could win a free week at the Cat Safari part of the camp. “We want to be integrated and use our content in as many places as possible.”

To encourage folks to “like” Pet Camp on Facebook, the first time after they come after “liking” the business, the human clients gets some Pet Camp swag like a baseball cap or tote bag, while the four-legged client gets a special homemade treat.

Pet Camp is also starting to incorporate surveys into the newsletter, such as a recent one asking whether an upcoming outdoor movie night nonprofit fundraiser should be family-friendly or adult oriented (the latter won).

As for the ROI of such efforts, Klaiman admits this can be imprecise. “But on a personal level, we get a lot of comments on them. And it all comes down to whether you’re communicating with your clients and if they care enough to read your material. Because if they’re not reading it, it doesn’t matter what you’re writing.”

Comments happen both in person—several local business people he saw while running errands congratulated Klaiman on the opening of the Savannah after it was promoted in the newsletter—and via email. One that generated a lot of response was a newsletter where he poked a lot of fun at his wife. “People wanted to know if she had read it before it mailed.” (She did.)

That kind of copy style is typical, he says. The tone of the emails—produced on VerticalResponse’s platform—are pretty flippant. “I write them all—I couldn’t farm them out. I want them to sound like me speaking so when people walk into my lobby, they know ‘oh, that’s that idiot who writes the newsletters,” he says with a laugh.

For example, in the spring, during the hoopla surrounding the royal wedding, Klaiman wrote that he couldn’t understand why everyone was making such a big deal. After all, in San Francisco, a queen getting married is nothing unusual.

“People loved it, but I wouldn’t suggest sending that one out everywhere,” he says. “You have to know your community and they knew we were being tongue in cheek.”