There are two primary groups of pet owners for pet licensing organizations to sell licenses to: owners of previously unlicensed pets, and owners with an active license due to expire. A vast majority of your annual pet license sales come from the latter group which is why it is critical to have a robust renewal system.
Every year, pet owners move out of town and pets pass away. Accounting for this, an ideal annual renewal rate for your pet licenses is around 90%. With this ideal rate in place, that leaves you just 10% of sales you need to make up annually by selling licenses to those who were previously unlicensed. DocuPet knows from our consultations within the industry that the average rate of renewals is just 65%, leaving organizations like yours needing to make up 35% of your sales annually just to achieve stagnant sales numbers.
Pet licensing organizations that are aiming to at least keep their annual license sales consistent have two options:
- increase the rate at which you sell new licenses, or
- maximize the rate at which your active licenses renew.
DocuPet’s program is able to generate renewal rates at 85% or higher for our partners. This is a major contributor to the compliance growth we are able to provide our partners year over year.
Best practices for achieving an 85% renewal rate:
Create multiple touchpoints
The average pet licensing program sends just one mailed reminder letter or postcard 45 days prior to a license expiration date. Often a second letter in the form of a “warning” may be sent a week or more after the expiration date. Consider these questions: what are the chances of someone missing that reminder letter? What if that person has changed their address, or what if they have forgotten to respond to the letter within the 45 day window?
It is important to create multiple touchpoints with pet owners across different communication methods. We send communications in the form of letters, emails, and automated phone calls so that remembering to renew your license couldn’t be easier.
Focus on the “Why of Pet Licensing”
Communicating more frequently with your pet owners gives you more opportunity to remind them of the “Why of Pet Licensing”. People who license through DocuPet understand what is in it for them. They know they are getting a free lost pet service and how to use it. They know that DocuPet is always on their side and that they can choose a fun designer tag along the way!
They also know that their license supports the community. DocuPet identifies the local animal care and control that license funding helps support and shares stories about the critical services our partners provide. Take the time to understand the successes of your own lost pet service for example and share data like the number of recently saved pets or overall success rates.
Track and improve your messaging
It is important to also measure and tweak your renewal program routinely. Track response rates and test different kinds of messaging to see which one creates more sales for you. DocuPet makes all of this easy and manages this entire process on behalf of our partners. We work with our partners to establish a calendar that best accommodates local policies and we report on program performance routinely. This system is implemented across all of our current partners and immediately available to all new partnerships.
Are you looking to boost your program’s pet license renewal rates? We would be happy to demonstrate our systems for you at any time. Click the button below to request a demonstration and our team will be in touch to find a time and day that works for you.