It may seem difficult to keep up with ever-changing marketing trends and 'best practices'. Staying on top of this however will help keep current clients engaged and coming back again and again, while also ensuring a flow of new clients to your practice. Here are 10 things that you can do to boost your marketing strategy:
A strong online presence
An online presence is a MUST for your veterinary practice. An elegant, useful and easy to navigate website has the power to attract new clients and reduce calls through to your busy front-of-house team. By integrating a customer booking portal into your website, clients will have full visibility of their pet's profile and booking appointments will be just a click away.
Utilizing Google Analytics can clearly show you when, why and on which devices your clients are interacting with your website. Understanding this information can guide the direction of your online marketing strategy.
Develop a SMS strategy
SMS is a powerful method for direct communication that can boost revenue through increased appointments, product sales, and customer loyalty. Some ways that you can use SMS for marketing are:
- Promoting products
- Sending links to your online booking portal
- Check-up reminders
- Automatically confirm appointments with a simple Yes or No option
- Notify clients about health alerts and trends
- Remind clients of an overdue account
Incorporate marketing into your Financial statements
Financial statements are guaranteed to have a higher open rate than regular marketing communications. We can't avoid bills forever! Incorporating marketing into statements is a great strategy to ensure a higher viewer rate. Incorporate a simple reminder about an event, an appointment, a link to leave a review, or promote product specials to your payment communications.
Implement intuitive reminders and communications
At the bare minimum, clinics should be reminding clients for check-ups annually.
Go the extra mile and try center reminders on other intuitive milestones such as age, weight and, breed. Beat them to the ball and recommend check-ups before common issues escalate in to a problem, or even promote product sales . They'll thank you for it!
Feel good communications
Show your clients that you care. Not all communication needs to be focused on encouraging appointment bookings. Simple positive and ongoing communications such as wishing an animal happy birthday or congratulating your client for a customer anniversary can help build and maintain customer loyalty and happiness.
Tagging clients
Tags are a simple way to capture key trends, statuses or pieces of information about clients. Key marketing tags can help you allocate resource accordingly, or even target specific animals for a campaign! Tags might include, "how did you hear about us", discounts or freebies for loyal customers.
Content strategy
Offering valuable information to clients doesn't need to stop when they walk out the door. Developing a content strategy will boost the value that your clinic offers to clients. Content such as branded hand out sheets, a blog, and monthly newsletters can help meet your client's questions and needs in many ways.
Manage your reputation
Consider encouraging clients to leave a review online after their appointment. Reviews can help drive new traffic to your door and provide great content for customer testimonials and case studies. A simple question, such as feedback on your customer service can help inform your strategy on how staff should improve. Include a link to leave a review in your statements, follow-up communications and client clinical summaries.
Create a loyalty program or wellness plan
Loyalty programs and Wellness plans will keep your clients keep coming back. By signing clients up to a plan you can ensure constant and repeat custom. Clients appreciate loyalty services and security for their pet. It's a win for both parties!
Build out your email marketing strategy
Email marketing is simple and inexpensive to execute, and will take your practice a step closer to operating in a paperless environment. Email marketing offers you a platform on which to build your brand and create a name for yourself beyond the physical location of your practice. Some email marketing ideas include:
- Timely check up and vaccination reminders
- Offering limited time specials
- Valuable content from your blog, videos, and social media
- Tips, news and feel good stories from your practice
- Introduce new clients to different services or staff
Marketing your veterinary practice can be extremely successful if you are smart about the way that you reach out.
Did you know ezyVet practice management software can help your marketing strategy with SMS messaging, online bookings, intuitive reminders, communications, handouts, tagging, wellness programs and more?