A Wrexham company helping to give a new lease of life to cats and dogs with an innovative pet donor card programme is calling on the nation’s animal lovers to sign up their pets to the tissue donor register.
Veterinary Tissue Bank, which is one of just two such facilities in existence, the other one being in the United States, has already helped more than 10,000 family pets in need of tissue transplants for orthopaedic surgery. This includes the incredible story of Larry the lurcher, a beloved family canine who helped 83 other dogs following his death.
And director, Dr Peter Myint, and his team have created a digital strategy to raise awareness of the pet donor programme, as well as informing vets that VTB can supply bone allografts required to perform vital orthopaedic procedures.
He said: “We are passionate about the work we do, and our biggest challenge is that we are a small team with a small marketing budget – but we are determined to make a huge difference.
“Having a digital business adviser who was like a mentor really helped to give us the confidence to put together a digital strategy, including marketing, from which we’ve already started to see results.”
“I don’t have a background in marketing, so we have used free support where possible, including attending a Superfast Business Wales workshop and follow-up 1-2-1. Having a digital business adviser who was like a mentor really helped to give us the confidence to put together a digital strategy, including marketing, from which we’ve already started to see results.
“We tweaked the website to make it more user-friendly and targeted niche publications and online forums including Facebook groups to provide content and be interviewed for articles. This combination has played a role in increasing the number of pets signed up to donor cards to 400, which has the potential to help hundreds of thousands of other cats and dogs.
“The stories we tell on social media, such as that of Larry the lurcher, receive lots of positive engagement, and it paints a picture of the impact a person’s pet can have after they have gone.”
Dr Myint and his team have a vision to significantly increase the donor registration numbers, increase bone graft supply, and develop the stem cell treatment side of the business.
“The stories we tell on social media, such as that of Larry who helped close to 100 dogs, receive lots of positive engagement.”
“So far, we’ve only made small steps, but we are very aware of the value of digital,” he added. “We recognise that we have much more to do: there’s so much I want to achieve to take the business forward and digital is at the heart of that.
“For example, we want to create a new website for the pet donor scheme and turn the tissue bank into the go to place for veterinary tissue banking and our products. In addition, Superfast Business Wales also provided guidance on the benefits of CRM systems and how to implement them, so one of our tasks is to migrate our customer data to a cloud-based solution to make our marketing easier.”