Digital Marketing for Veterinarians

Building a Marketing System for Your Veterinary Practice

Are you frustrated by your digital marketing results for your veterinary practice? Do you feel that your digital marketing agency doesn’t tell you how they’re marketing for you? Or maybe you don’t think you’re getting enough of a return on your investment (ROI) in digital marketing for veterinarians?

If you feel that you don’t have enough time in your day to spend on digital marketing because you didn’t go to veterinary school to market your clinic, then your digital marketing agency isn’t working for you. It’s time to get back to what you do best – to be a veterinarian and grow a successful practice serving your community. It’s time to work with a digital marketing agency for veterinarians that understands how to drive traffic to your veterinary practice.

Download our Free eBook – Digital Marketing for Veterinarians!

A successful system for marketing for veterinarians is comprised of:

Strategy Before Tactics

Understanding your target market is key to successful digital marketing.

“Everyone who owns a pet” isn’t your target market. Some veterinary clients are better than others – more enjoyable to work with, more profitable, or they refer you to new patients often. So, it’s time to get a clear picture of who you should target for your practice and what message you want to convey. Why should pet owners select you to be their veterinarian instead of your competitors?

Your messaging should reflect what’s important to your target market and what makes you stand out. Telling pet owners you care isn’t enough. You need to make your practice unique, to differentiate your practice from the crowd.

How do you make it unique to you?

You make your veterinary practice unique through testimonials, videos, and social proof. Boiling your distinct message down to its essence is critical.

Now let’s put your strategy into action. . .

Build a Conversion-Focused Website

• Your website is your online hub. It’s just as important as the appearance and operation of your clinic when it comes to attracting and converting your ideal target demographic into new clients.
• Your homepage must be fast, clear, differentiated, and look just as good on mobile devices as on a desktop (or better).
• By adding social proof reflecting your key message, and an easy way to request an appointment or contact you on your homepage, you’ll make it easy for the right clients to refill prescriptions, schedule appointments, or find their pet health records.

Content is Fuel

Your website is the engine of your online marketing vehicle, and your content is the fuel. Blogs, videos, webpages, and audio clips are all forms of content to help new clients get to know, like, and trust you. Why should new clients trust their precious pets to you?

Think about how your clients experience their visits to your veterinary practice. What factors do they want to know that will sway them to select your practice and come back as repeat visitors?

By answering their questions through the content you provide on your website (amplified by other channels like social media) and you’ll see your conversions grow consistently.

It’s important to keep in mind that nearly all content consumption occurs BEFORE a client ever contacts you. That makes it critical to put your best foot forward through your online content. Your content builds the awareness of your brand, and the trust necessary before new clients ever schedule an appointment.

Google is the Front Door to Your  Veterinary Business

Local SEO matters.

Google is the front door to your business. Even when someone is referred by a friend or neighbor, the first step they’ll take is to research you online before they schedule an appointment. What do they see when they Google you?

Local Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of publishing content that search engines recognize in such a way that increases the chances your content shows up at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) – ahead of your competitors.

By providing the answers, optimized correctly, to the questions searchers ask for, you’ve created SEO. Very simple in concept, much more complex in practice, but know this – publishing content in the best format for search engines is critical to building and maintaining your patient list.

Bonus tip: If you don’t know who manages your Google Business Profile, go figure it out right now. Like, now. Like, you’re already behind. Do it now!

Online Reviews are Crucial to Your Success

• Much of SEO is out of your control, but a key factor in driving new business is consistently asking for reviews from your best clients.
• Think about how you search for a business online. The star rating and a number of good reviews influence your decision.
• What do searchers see when they read your reviews?
• By asking clients to review your veterinary practice, especially on Google, you’ll be rewarded with increased traffic and rankings.
• Ultimately, people do business with people they like and trust, and reviews are the best way to show potential clients why to trust their pet’s care to you.

Download our Free eBook – Digital Marketing for Veterinarians!

Generate Leads the Right Way

If you want to grow, you should think about generating leads through paid search and social media advertising. The truth is, the days of just rolling out a website or Facebook page and watching the traffic roll in are over.

Sustained growth through digital marketing is a “pay to play” game, and you need to allocate a marketing budget for paid placements in search and social media. This is beyond sharing and boosting posts. Instead, it’s truly leveraging the data and tools online platforms make available to generate qualified leads for your business.

Yes, Email Marketing Works

Email works. Consumers have 1 or 2 email accounts on average, and they’re on them all day long – on their phone, at work, and at home.

So, build a consistent, problem-solving, educational email marketing program and you’ll convert a higher percentage of your potential new clients than your competitors. Plus, email is perhaps the most affordable digital marketing channel out there.

And don’t spam. You have to send high-quality messages that help educate and solve problems for new and returning clients. Spam will destroy your efforts very quickly.

Use Social Media to Build Awareness

• Publishing content – blog posts, videos, links to great sites – to your social media feeds is important, but you don’t want to “flood out” your competition by over-posting.
• Social media platforms now ratchet down access to business content so closely that playing a “quantity game” no longer makes sense.
• Instead, publish high-quality, problem-solving content (and some fun stuff – everyone loves cute pet videos), and you’ll see your engagement and following grow over time.
• “Organic” (non-paid) social media is a great way to keep your followers engaged between times when they’re in your clinic. If you approach social media that way – and involve your team – you’ll relieve many of the headaches that social media can present.
• Tip: Social media is “rented” land (vs. the “owned” land of your website). The platforms can, and do, change the rules of your “lease” frequently. Social media is no substitute for a high-conversion, optimized website and digital marketing program.

Build a Referral System

Many of your best clients and patients came from referrals, right? Where do you think the next one will come from?

Consistently asking for (and incentivizing) referrals from your clients, partners, and team members will rev up the number of referrals. . .or else referrals will continue to be occasional “happy accidents” who wander into your clinic.

Measure Twice, Cut Once

• If it isn’t measured, it didn’t happen.
• Traffic, conversions, overall growth, and the cost to aquire that growth are key factors to understanding the return on your marketing investments (ROI).
• Even a high-level understanding of your clinic’s growth and the overall marketing costs it takes to produce that growth will help you make more informed decisions moving forward.

Getting Started

All of this may sound like yet another full-time job to add to your plate. But, don’t worry. It doesn’t have to be. We’re here to help. Building and managing marketing systems for Veterinary Clinics to help them grow is what we do, and we’d love to help you.

To get you started, you can download our FREE ebook.

Or

Schedule a FREE Strategy Session today to talk about personalized recommendations and no-obligation ways we can help your clinic grow.