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Your Veterinary Marketing Efforts Are Not On Vacation This Summer
Dear Clients and Friends,
Summer is here and most of the nation is experiencing record temperatures and drought conditions. Here in northern New England, a heat wave has kept our air conditioners set on high every day since early June.
The hot summer is slowing some of us down; however, it is not slowing down consumer spending. Spending is up and this has a lot to do with the incredible increase in smartphone sales.
Currently, more than 360 million mobile phones are active in the United States. More than half of those are smartphones. And 26 percent of those smartphone owners would rather give up their computer than their smartphone, according to a recent Google study.
Meanwhile, smartphone owners are accessing websites more than ever from these devices. Studies show that mobile browsing has increased a whopping 1,000 percent in the past two years.
That all adds up to powerful proof that you need a mobile veterinary website to stay current and competitive. If your practice doesn’t have a website that is specifically designed and developed for a mobile phone, you are probably losing business. Learn how not to let this happen by reading The Importance Of Having A Mobile Veterinary Website.
Also in this issue, we address how to boost the effectiveness of your Internet presence in Developing a Website that Sells Your Practice. This article will help you decide how well your current site is working for you, and what you can do to enhance it to bring in more clients.
Finally, we get back to basics with Why It Is Important To Have A Great Veterinary Hospital Business Card. Because even amidst all these technological advancements, your veterinary hospital’s business card still speaks volumes about you and your practice. With minimal costs and high benefits, this simple tool plays a key role in forming a potential client’s first impression of your hospital
Think about these suggestions. Thank you for subscribing to our veterinary marketing newsletter. And do enjoy the rest of this ever-so-hot summer.
—Dr. Mark Feltz, DVM, and the Creative Team at VetNetwork
Your Veterinary Hospital Needs A Mobile Website
With the majority of US cell-phone users now owning smart phones, most pet owners will soon be “Googling” for a veterinary hospital while on-the-go. If your hospital’s website is not optimized for a mobile device, you may lose out on business.
VetNetwork is now developing mobile veterinary websites to help veterinary hospitals stay in touch with their clients 24 hours a day. Studies show that mobile browsing has increased by more than 1000% in the past two years. Researchers predict that by 2014 more people will be accessing the internet from their phone than from a home or office computer. There’s no reason why your veterinary hospital should be missing out on this expanding and crucial market.
Websites optimized for mobile viewing can generate nearly twice as much traffic as websites not optimized for a handheld. Today’s (and tomorrow’s) potential customers won’t struggle through a website that doesn’t properly load or fit their mobile screen. Mobile viewers are looking for a veterinary mobile website that loads quickly and displays the most relevant information in an easy-to-read design.
Your Veterinary Hospital’s Mobile Website Package Includes:
• Efficiently Loading Homepage
• About Us Page
• Location Page with Real-Time Directions to your Hospital
• Services Page with Bulleted Lists
• Veterinarians Page
• Emergency Services Page
• Contact Page for Sending Messages
All pages include photos along with your veterinary hospital's personal branding.
It’s time to optimize your veterinary hospital’s website for mobile browsing. Marketing your practice through mobile devices can boost your credibility, help generate traffic and increase business. With more people using mobile phones for their internet connection, this is a market you and your hospital simply can’t afford to ignore.
Call VetNetwork today so we can set up your new mobile veterinary hospital website.
Developing A Veterinary Website That Sells Your Practice
By now, you know that a website is necessary for the success of your veterinary practice. Research shows that the Internet is where most pet owners will find their next (or first) veterinarian.
If your website can’t be found, or if it is too difficult to navigate, pet owners will go somewhere else.
Creating a website that effectively sells your practice is not easy. A Do-It-Yourself approach will almost certainly lead to mistakes. After all, this is not your area of expertise. A professional web design team can help you avoid five important mistakes when developing a website for your veterinary practice:
- The development team: Superior website design and development both require a team approach. A creative designer will be able to handle the aesthetic aspects, but that person probably does not have the coding expertise needed to develop the site. Someone familiar with creating SEO-friendly content will also be needed to ensure that your site can be found on Google. Make sure your website is developed by a full-service marketing company with an experienced project manager who understands the entire process. You may know a junior web designer who can do the job for next to nothing, but you will end up paying more in lost opportunities in the long run.
- A bad design hampers usability: Website pages that play music or have animated “talking-head” narrators can cause visitors to immediately navigate away from your page. A prospective client visits a veterinary website to get information, not be annoyed. Other features to avoid:
- Using a free or cheap hosting plan: There are many demands on your marketing budget, so you may think that using free or cheap website hosting is a good idea. No. There are many reasons why this is a bad idea. The most compelling is that free and cheap hosting companies do not guarantee your site’s longevity. Without notice your website can disappear. Free and cheap hosting companies come and go, and many run out of money and shut down. If this happens, it is nearly impossible to recover your website.
Free and cheap hosting companies often include banner and popup ads that appear with your website. You have no control over these ads. Some free and cheap hosting companies also require that you use their templates, further restricting your design options. In general, you will find that these companies have little technical support, slow response time, and may even have viruses on their servers.
Writing and Updating Your Content: You may think that you understand your practice better than any copywriter, but the content on your website should be written by a professional website content writer. A good writer knows how to appeal to your audience while also writing effective copy that can promote the benefits of your services. Your message needs to be written in plain English and not in technical jargon
Having original content with all of the right keywords is vital in keeping your veterinary website visible in search engine results. Do not copy content from another website. This is illegal copyright infringement, and penalties can be severe.
Your content should be updated regularly with news items, event announcements and even a blog to keep it fresh and interesting. Above all, be sure you have the site proofread. Multiple errors will make your practice appear unprofessional and untrustworthy.
You probably don’t have the time to do this. Let a professional keep your site updated.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): A beautifully designed and eloquently written veterinary hospital website is of no value at all if it can’t be found on Google. Optimizing your website so Google can find it is absolutely necessary if you want to rise to the top. Even in your own town, your competition will beat you to the top every time if your website isn’t optimized with veterinary seo.
Decades ago, it would have been unthinkable to open a practice or launch a business and neglect to take out an ad in the Yellow Pages. In this digital age, your veterinary hospital website is as important to the success of your practice as was the Yellow Page ad of old. It deserves the attention of experienced designers, coders, writers and SEO experts who know how to put your veterinary practice online in a beautiful, functional way.
• Confusing “mystery” navigation: The path leading through your website should be easy to follow. Visitors navigating through the pages should be able to quickly find what they want. Relevant content should be obvious and almost never more than 2 clicks away.
• Slow-loading graphics: Be sure graphics are optimized for the web, and load quickly into the browser window. No one will sit and wait while a picture or video loads.
• A design that doesn’t center in the browser window or doesn’t work in all browsers: A good web developer will avoid these design mistakes.
Your Business Card Speaks Volumes About You and Your Practice
Your veterinary hospital’s business card can speak volumes about you and your veterinary practice. With minimal costs and high benefits, this simple tool can perform an important PR function that will pique the interest of future clients. Even in the digital age, a well-designed veterinary business card remains an incredibly important component of any hospital’s branding and marketing toolkit.
Pet owners have many choices when it comes to choosing a veterinary hospital. Therefore, you need to always go that extra mile to convince them that your hospital is superior to all the others.
The advantages of having a great business card are:
• Inexpensive, non-aggressive advertising
• An easy, painless networking tool
• A simple, credible first-impression for local pet owners
According to John Williams of “Entrepreneur” magazine, business cards play a key role in forming a potential client’s first impression. A business card reveals not only how much pride you take in your profession and your work, but may also communicate the benefits of your hospital – all in a matter of seconds. This first impression then turns into lasting impression each time a client or pet owner sees your card.
It’s important to understand what your business card is capable of saying about you and your practice, and how you can best display this in a three-inch paper platform. Knowing precisely what to communicate, and the methods of best displaying it, however, is no easy task.
In only a few words and symbols, you should communicate that you, your staff and your veterinary practice are:
• Credible
• Qualified
• Provide beneficial services to pet owners and clients
• Dependable
• Unique (going further than your competition)
Conveying these appropriate traits is accomplished through:
• Applicable contact information and credentials
• Impressionable images, symbols or logos
• Well-crafted text and/or tag-line
These elements must all fit together to create a lasting image of your hospital and the care and benefits you provide to pets and pet-owners alike.
The veterinary marketing and design team at VetNetwork can help you create an effective veterinary business card that meets your budget and your needs. Remember, when executed correctly, a business card can serve as a powerful branding and advertising weapon.
Leave it to the creative professionals at VetNetwork to ensure that your veterinary marketing needs get the care and attention they deserve.
Cartoon Corner
VetNetwork Services
For more than 10 years, VetNetwork has been providing cutting-edge veterinary marketing solutions to veterinary practices with unprecedented insight in the following areas:
• Facebook and Social Networking
Every service we offer is designed to meet your individual goals and budget guidelines.
A phone call to us means results for you. Call VetNetwork today.
Sincerely yours,
Mark Feltz, DVM and the Staff at VetNetwork
800–564–4215
vetnetwork.com/
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