8 Veterinary Marketing Tips to Boost Business This Holiday Season

As a veterinarian, you may see business go down during the holiday season. Why? Because people are occupied with parties, baking, shopping, choosing cute fall clothes, and more.

You know that animals’ health is just as important during the holiday season, though, so you’ve got to get the word out. But how do you compete with everything else that’s going on?

You’ve got to keep spreading the word and add a holiday spin while you’re at it. How do you do that? Here are eight tips for effective holiday veterinary marketing.

1. Offer Season-Specific Promotions

No matter the holiday, that day falls in a specific season. Use that season to grab your audience’s attention.

Say, for example, you want to market your business around Thanksgiving. Consider the risks and health issues typically seen in the animals you treat during that time of year.

Once you’ve nailed down the most popular issues, get your marketing game on. Let the public know about these issues and offer a discount to check for, prevent, or treat them.

2. Give in to Gifting

Many people like to give animals as Christmas gifts. Offer your services to ensure the pet that’s being given is healthy and ready for his or her new home.

All it takes is a cute animal picture, a message, and some holiday-appropriate decoration. You could create marketing materials featuring a sweet puppy playing in the snow with a message like “Giving boy’s best friend this Christmas? We’ll make sure he’s ready to play all winter long.”

3. Offer Education

Feel free to seek business from people whose pets aren’t actually sick. Instead of focusing solely on treatment, why not offer education?

The holidays are the perfect time to tug at peoples’ heartstrings–they’re already feeling warm fuzzies towards their loved ones. Remind them that a well educate pet owner means a well-taken-care-of-pet.

Whether you offer education for free or in small paying classes, you’ll likely get some additional traffic to your business. When they come, don’t forget to mention that holiday special you have going on!

4. Refresh (or Create) Your Website

If you’re serious about bringing in new business, you’ve got to have a great website. When people need something these days they take to the interwebs to find it.

If you don’t have a website for your business, create one. If you do have one, make sure everything is in tip-top shape for new and current clients.

A good website looks great and offers the information current and potential clients are looking for. Some of those things include your business address, contact information, hours, reviews, and services.

5. Add Blogs to Your Website

Blogs are great for bringing traffic to your website. And when people find their way to your website, they may just find their way to your business location, too.

Don’t add meaningless blogs–that won’t get you anywhere. Instead, post regularly about things that matter to your audience.

Talke about heartworm, over-the-counter medications for pets, why prescriptions are important, and why dental care matters. Feel free to add some fun posts, too, like “10 Hilarious Halloween Costumes for Your Yorkie This Halloween.”

6. Encourage Holiday-Related Communication

Get and keep people interested in your services by getting them talking about their pets and the holidays. Whether you do it on Facebook, your website, or a white-board at your business location, people will love sharing their holiday memories with their pets.

Even better, set up a bulletin board so your visitors can share photos of them and their pet(s) celebrating the holiday season.

7. Use Facebook Ads

Facebook ads are invaluable when it comes to getting the word out. More than 2 billion people use Facebook regularly–that’s a huge audience just waiting to be reached!

You can place a handful of different kinds of ads on Facebook, so it’s worth looking into each kind. From sidebar ads to videos, there are great ways to market your business all year round.

During the holidays, ad some holiday-related flare, just like you would in your other marketing materials, to get people to click on or view your ad.

8. Don’t Forget to Strategize

However you decide to market your business, you need to have a strategy in place. Choosing and creating marketing materials at random is much less effective than having a plan.

What sorts of things should be part of your strategy? Look at what your competitors are doing and when. Consider the timing of your ads–offer a fantastic deal the week before Christmas for all those last-minute shoppers.

Know what you want to be known for. Research keywords and find out how to use them to your advantage on your website and in your blog posts. Don’t forget to use holiday keywords too, if that’s what you want to rank for.

Once you’ve created your strategic plan, stick to it. Things will go much more smoothly than if you had no plan at all.

Veterinary Marketing During the Holidays Should Be Fun

Far too many people find the holidays to be full of stress and go-go-going all the time. Don’t be one of those people. Instead, have fun with your veterinary marketing this holiday season.

Holiday marketing is all about finding the perfect combination. All you’ve got to do is promote your business regularly and add a little holiday flare.

Is social media not your thing? You should make it your thing if you want to get the most out of marketing. Check out our guide on using Instagram to promote your business.