Welcome to VetNetwork's Monthly eNewsletter

eNewsletter

September 2015

Finding Your Pet Care Niche | Veterinary Marketing 101 | CTAs Increase Your Business! | Contact

veterinary marketing newsSome Simple, Successful Ideas for Growing Your Veterinary Practice

Dear Colleague,

As Summer begins to wind down, we turn our focus to preparing for the seasons to come; similarly, the end of the warmer months is an ideal time to ensure your veterinary hospital's business remains strong and primed for future growth. Growing your practice's revenue starts with attracting new clients, and that's why we're using this edition of your monthly newsletter to share some of our favorite tips for getting back to veterinary marketing basics.

First, we examine a critical step every veterinary hospital should take in promoting their practice: identifying ways to provide benefits to your clients and stand out from local competition. Developing a reputation as an expert in a particular pet care niche is an extremely effective means of doing just that - and it gives pet owners another reason to visit your hospital first.

Next, we discuss the only type of marketing your practice should engage in: targeted veterinary marketing. In this article, we'll provide you with strategies for everything you'll need to customize your message to cater to the buying behaviors and perspectives of new clients from every demographic.

Our final article delves into an excellent way to maximize your marketing strategy's impact: calls to action (CTAs). CTAs, which are images or text that prompt users to visit your website or call your practice, provide you with an eye-catching, compelling means of engaging with pet owners. The right CTA can make the difference between a pet owner quickly scanning your website or blog entry or taking action to make an appointment or walk through your doors.

Ready to learn more about these vital additions to your veterinary marketing tool kit? Read on. It's our foremost goal to provide veterinary practice owners like you with valuable information to help you connect with pet owners and grow your practice. If you have questions, please feel free to contact me directly at (603) 743-4321.

Thank you.

Mark

Mark Feltz, DVM, Owner
VetNetwork, LLC
603-743-4321

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Chris SinkYour Veterinary Marketing Tool Kit: Finding Your Pet Care Niche

As a part of your veterinary marketing tool kit, you should always be thinking about ways to make your practice stand out from other veterinary hospitals in your area. A great way to do this is to develop a pet care niche, or particular area of expertise, that becomes associated exclusively with you and your veterinary hospital.

Focus on a Pet Care Area with the Widest Appeal

Think about the pet owners in your area – social, economic status, age, education – and the services that most often bring them into your hospital. Use that information to choose a topic that will have the widest appeal. Some ideas:

  • Preventive medicine and wellness
  • Nutrition and weight management
  • Oral health
  • Behavior and training
  • Senior care
  • Holistic and alternative medicine
  • Advanced surgery
  • Palliative care
  • Rehabilitative therapy

Establish Your Expertise as Part of Your Veterinary Brand

Once you have selected an area to focus on, you can:

  • Develop a series of veterinary blog postings around that topic
  • Create a set of informational videos
  • Add a special section to your website with articles (written by you) and additional resources
  • Post and tweet helpful topic-related tips regularly

Developing your expertise in one area can also benefit your veterinary website’s search engine ranking. According to Ryan Cruz from Traffic Salad, “Authority websites are loved by the Google. They want ‘experts’ writing articles on the web, and they will reward your efforts with higher rankings, more visibility, traffic and exposure.”

Your Niche Should Be a Part of Your Veterinary Marketing Toolkit

As a veterinary hospital owner, there are many important components of your veterinary marketing tool kit, including a well-designed custom veterinary hospital website, a logo, a social media presence, and email newsletters. While all these elements are a solid marketing foundation, establishing a pet care niche within your full-service practice can help you differentiate your hospital and take your reputation and revenue to a whole new level.

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veterinary marketing newsMarketing 101: Customize Your Veterinary Marketing Messages

Pet owners – like their pets – come in all shapes and sizes. You don’t provide the same preventive care or recommend the same vaccines for every pet. Likewise, you shouldn’t be using the same marketing message for all your clients.

So how do you segment your clients and create messages that will resonate with each group?

Veterinary Marketing Tip #1: Collect Pet Owner Data

Creating customized content and advertising isn’t possible unless you have information about the pet owners you’re targeting. But have no fear: Collecting key data about your clients doesn’t have to be costly, complicated or time consuming.

Here are three simple and effective ways to gather information:

  • Comment cards: Ask pet owners to take a few minutes to fill out the cards either before or after their appointment.
  • Surveys: Check out free online survey services like SurveyMonkey, SurveyMoz or FluidSurveys.
  • Call VetNetwork and we will create and add an online survey form to your website.

Veterinary Marketing Tip #2: Develop Buyer Personas

Once you have collected information about your clients, use the data to develop a few key profiles based on their needs and wants, referred to in the marketing business as buyer personas. According to marketing and sales software company Hubspot, “Buyer personas are generalized representations of your ideal customers based on market research and real data about your existing customers.”

For example: Are a group of your clients of younger, single pet owners? Families with children? Older singles or couples? You can do wonders to improve the effectiveness of your marketing simply by sharpening your messages to pet owners in each of these categories.

Veterinary Marketing Tip #3: Customize Your Messages & Delivery

Once you have created your buyer personas, think about the platforms you can use to reach each of these groups. For example, older pet owners are probably more accessible via email or direct mail postcard, while Millennials live on social media. Those time-crunched adults in between might love an app for your practice that allows them to effortlessly contact your hospital to schedule an appointment or reference helpful pet care information without needing to search the web.

Finally, develop different ways of talking about your veterinary practice and services that conforms to needs, wants and expectations of each of your client groups.

Targeted Veterinary Marketing is the Only Marketing You Should be Doing

Highly targeted veterinary marketing is what consumers of all ages and income levels have come to expect. When you understand the wants and desires of your target pet owners, you can develop precise, effective marketing content that will resonate with all pet owners and help your practice grow.

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veterinary marketing newsExtra! Extra! Read All About It: Calls to Action Increase Veterinary Hospital Business!

Buy now! Sign up for a free trial! Call us today! You probably read and hear these entreaties from companies often. Why? Because they work.

Calls to action

Calls to action (CTAs) are images or text that prompt readers to literally take action. They should be everywhere you promote your veterinary hospital: your veterinary hospital website, blog, email newsletter, mobile website, brochure, Facebook posts and Twitter feeds. Every time a pet owner clicks here, signs up, reads more, emails now, or calls today, they are one step closer to doing business with you.

CTA Strategies You Can Use for Your Veterinary Hospital Now!

Effective, compelling CTAs offer something of value in direct response to pet owners’ wants and needs. Examples of benefit-oriented CTAs that grab pet owners’ attention are:

  • Subscribe to our eNewsletter and enjoy the benefits of timely pet care information delivered right to your email inbox!
  • Call us today; we want to be your partner in your pet’s heath care!
  • Find out how to eliminate fleas for good!
  • Five simple steps to keep your senior pet healthy
  • Do you know the five must-have pet first aid items?
  • Find out why preventive exams save you money!
  • Get your free puppy or kitten exam coupon!

According to Hubspot blogger Ginny Soskey, great CTAs have the following essential elements:

  • Eye-Catching Design: CTAs should contrast with your website design and appear large enough to be noticed.
  • Copy That Makes People Want to Act: Use a concise, jargon-free phrase with actionable verbs to catch pet owners’ attention.
  • Clear Value Proposition: Whether they are signing up for a newsletter or getting flea and tick prevention tips, pet owners should know exactly what will happen when they click on your CTA.
  • A Specific Page (Ideally a Landing Page): A CTA is most effective if people are taken to a dedicated landing page after clicking it, rather than a random page on your website.

Don’t Delay—Read On!

CTAs are a smart way to maximize the impact of your marketing strategy. When done right, they increase your business by getting pet owners to engage with your content and your veterinary hospital. Interested in finding out more about how you can improve your bottom line with CTAs? Click below to contact us now!

Contact VetNetwork

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veterinary marketing newsVetNetwork Services

VetNetwork is a full-service marketing company dedicated to the needs of veterinarians and veterinary hospitals. Our professional graphic designers, web programmers, SEO specialists and writers are here to help take your marketing to the next level. If it's time to re-design your website, add a mobile site or our proven SEO services, give us a call today!

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Sincerely yours,

Mark Feltz, DVM and the Staff at VetNetwork
603-743-4321
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