How to Grow Your Veterinary Business
Ready to grow your veterinary business? If you play your cards right, you can stand out among the competition in your area and attract more pet owners to your business. The question is how? Marketing is key.
To start, a solid business strategy can help propel your veterinary clinic to greater heights. Find out how you can showcase which veterinary services your team does best while leading your team to business success.
Read on to explore some of our most tried and tested tactics for growing veterinary practices through an online lens. Plus, expand your knowledge on how digital marketing works in today’s interconnected world and how it impacts your business.
1. Optimize Your Google My Business Listing
Business directory listings are integral to a local veterinary practice’s success. These listings enable your veterinary practice to be much more visible online to any prospective pet owners in your area.
So how can your veterinary business maximize your business listing? First, you need to complete the listing information. This will provide your prospective clients with clear information and ensure they quickly find your business. If you have any contact detail changes or if you move practices, you should make sure that you update your business listing accordingly.
Next, you should add relevant photos and videos to make it easier for people to feel more incentivized to book an appointment with your practice. You should post pictures inside your clinic so people know what to expect. You should also show photos to help lead people to your clinic. By adding your own photos, you can create the best image for your practice and team members online.
A completed profile polishes your online presence, without this step, your practice can lose credibility and appear outdated or worse – unprofessional. Not only does dominating the search results grant your clinic visibility to interested clients, but it also makes it easier for clients to schedule an appointment. Best of all, updating your Google My Business listing is entirely free.
Here are some terms potential clients may use to search your veterinary practice on search engines like Google:
- Veterinary clinic near me
- Animal Hospital
- Medical care for animals
- Pet Clinic
Lastly, encourage your patients to leave patient reviews on listings as well. Patient reviews are modern word-of-mouth marketing. Their feedback can motivate more potential clients to visit your veterinary practice. Positive reviews will help more people trust your business and enforce an excellent public image.
2. Add an Online Store to Your Professional Website
While your services might drive your business profit, you should consider opening an online store on your professional veterinary website. Many veterinarians produce special merchandise as it is an excellent opportunity to partner with other local businesses and sell products to a broader audience.
If your business doesn’t offer official merchandise, you can opt to sell third-party products in your clinic. Adding an online store to your website can help your business increase its revenue. In addition, it can help your veterinary practice appear in more search engine results.
If you add an online store to your website, ensure the products lead potential patients to your standard services. Each product should be linked to relevant web pages so they can learn more about your business. The goal is for more people to explore your website and learn what services your business has to offer.
3. Build Brand Recognition With Ads
Do you want fast results online? Try boosting your advertising efforts! While you may have to shell out money before seeing results, this investment will be worth it.
There are plenty of ways for your veterinary practice to advertise itself to a broader audience, such as:
- Social media advertising
- Mobile advertising
- Pay-per-click advertising
- Print advertising
- Out-of-home advertising
- Broadcast advertising
Online advertising can help veterinarians like you promote your services not only to people within your area but to a broader audience. Digital advertising is very cost-effective. When you invest in pay-per-click advertising, practice owners like you only pay when potential clients click on an ad. Moreover, you can customize each ad to be visible to a particular demographic only.
Moreover, PPC advertising can help your business produce faster results because your veterinary practice would appear first in search engine results. Potential clients who may not know about your local practice will discover your clinic easier.
While digital advertising is integral in today’s practice management, your business should also explore traditional advertising. Why? Traditional advertising allows you to connect with your local audience. You can also potentially reach a more diverse market because your advertising efforts won’t be focused on a particular demographic.
While many pet owners have become digitally savvy, plenty of pet parents aren’t very well adapted to technology. By investing in traditional advertising, you can reach these potential customers.
Both online and traditional advertising efforts allow more people to recognize your brand. When more people know of your business, you can establish your clinic as a trustworthy partner in veterinary medicine.
4. Get A Photoshoot For Your Practice
If you want more people to visit your veterinary practice, you should take time to take updated photos of your business. Every once in a while, ask your veterinary assistants to take out their phones and photograph your clinic. You can showcase your new equipment, staff, and other updates to your practice.
If you can afford it, you should also invest in professional photoshoots. Why? Photographers have the equipment to position your veterinary practice in the best possible light. Moreover, your practice will appear more credible if you have professional-looking pictures.
Your veterinary practice must take new photos now and then because it shows that your clinic remains active. Moreover, it shows that your veterinary clinic is taking the time to improve its services. If you keep using the same old photos, your patients may think your practice is old and you have nothing new to offer them.
If your clinic specializes in a particular area of veterinary medicine, your photos should reflect your expertise accordingly. For example, if your forte is in feline care, you should showcase your clinic’s cat services. You may even showcase success stories to motivate more pet parents to visit your clinic.
What’s great about taking photos for your veterinary practice is that you can use the content for various marketing materials. You can post pictures on social media, your official website, email marketing materials, and more. If you and your team members take the photos yourselves, you lend a personal touch to your content, making your practice appear more relatable.
5. Highlight Your Company Culture
To stand out among the veterinary clinics out there, your staff absolutely matters. Becoming a successful veterinary practice entails showcasing how your company values every team member, including veterinary assistants.
Now, how can your practice highlight how much you value your workforce? You can explore hanging photos of your team members with their respective pets in your office. You can even post these photos on your clinic’s official social media pages with their permission.
Another great idea to showcase your company culture is to spotlight your employee of the month. Your veterinary team will feel appreciated when you take the time to show how much you care for them. By showing your appreciation to your team, you tell the world how happy and fulfilled your team is.
Every once in a while, you and your team should have gatherings outside work so that you can bond. These team-building activities allow you to improve your work relationships. Plus, they’re a great way to boost your team’s motivation at work. You should document these sessions and post them on your social media pages to show those veterinarians like you have fun too.
It should be noted that you should walk the talk when it comes to caring for your people. To become a successful veterinary practice, you should take care of your people first. When your staff is motivated, they’ll perform to the best of their abilities. Thus, your patients will be given the best care.
6. Check Out Your Competition
Okay, this one sounds obvious but it is sometimes criminally underrated. Take a look at what the other local veterinary practices are doing. Finding what your competitors are doing to market their business may help reveal what your procedure is missing.
How? First, check out their professional website, and check their social media pages too. Look at how their marketing may be different from yours.
Here are some questions to help you know what you’re looking for:
- Is their website design more colorful?
- Is there social media profile incorporates more humor?
- Are they more involved in their local community?
- Do they have a steady stream of online reviews? What kind of reviews do they get?
- Do they offer any different services?
- How is their practice ranking on Google compared to yours?
When doing competitive research, brainstorm ways to make your veterinary practice stand out. This is the best time to think outside the box and explore tactics to market your business differently. If you want pet parents to feel that your clinic is exceptional, you should highlight that X factor that makes your business the best option in your local area.
For example, if your competitors aren’t active on social media, you should double down on your social media efforts and develop a stellar marketing campaign. Explore what the best veterinary social media accounts are doing, and follow their best practices.
Suppose you find that other veterinary clinics in your area don’t highlight a particular service your business offers; you should create a campaign showcasing how your business specializes in that area. This positions your clinic in a unique light and shows your expertise in that particular procedure.
If you don’t have enough direct competitors, check out what the most successful veterinary practices online do.
Becoming a Successful Veterinary Practice and More
Practice ownership can be challenging, and growing your business can be exciting. How you market your clinic is integral to how potential patients perceive you. Therefore, you should take your marketing efforts seriously.
Fortunately, you don’t have to market your business alone. With the right partners, you can focus on what you do best and leave your digital marketing to the experts. We at iMatrix can help your veterinary business highlight what you do best. We use the latest technologies to ensure you have the best tools to market your business. For more information on digital marketing packages, including content creation, call 888.792.8384 or click here.
