Implement this strategy for vet practice growth

Vet Practice Advice, Vet Practice Marketing, Vet Practice Marketing Strategy

“We must allocate a budget and find some time to market the practice”

How often have you had that thought?

Knowing where to start, which direction to go, how much to invest, what return you want, and the steps you need to take to reach your goals can be bamboozling.

When you have a full-time job that is not in marketing the whole concept can feel like a time-consuming, unfamiliar, scatter-gun approach to moving forwards.

In this blog post we’re breaking everything down so you can focus on the why’s and the hows to help simplify the process and convince you of the importance of having a marketing strategy.

Follow this three-step process

1: Identify – Label your pain(s)

Pain points include:

Need more turnover
Need more clients
Want to grow health plan membership
Clients don’t know what we do
Clients don’t know we have a health plan
Our branding doesn’t match what we do
Our website is out of date
Our website doesn’t work on a mobile device
Our team need help to have better conversations

2: Evaluate – Work out the customer journey

Once you’ve identified your problem, look at the current customer journey and see where the gaps are.

Not sure what the customer journey is?

It’s a roadmap that takes you from zero to hero with your clients, engaging them as strangers and turning them into your biggest fans.

The customer journey is modelled on healthy and successful human relationships. It creates a predictable flow of loyal customers who go from being unaware of you to becoming your greatest advocates, telling all their friends how great you are.

But this doesn’t just happen naturally.

You need to keep communication regular and consistent and educate them about everything you do and how you can help them.

Regular and consistent is the key! And targeting is the dream.

Focus on your chosen pain point again and look at the communication points you currently have to help people make the choice that gets you there.

On average, people need six to seven touchpoints before they make a decision!

Are your clients seeing your messages?

Touchpoints include:

your website,
social media accounts (Facebook / Twitter / Instagram),
emails,
Google business profile
reception areas,
paid advertising,
printed literature,
community publications,
your team!

Do you have a good mix of touchpoints?

Tip

Send regular emails to your plan members to remind them of the benefit of being a part of your practice, promoting other services they might find useful, good-news stories, and educational blogs.

3: Strategise – Work out your plan of attack

Using the knowledge you’ve gained from your review, design a marketing strategy that covers missing touchpoints.

You don’t need to go all guns blazing, and you don’t need to plan out activities for a whole year if it’s daunting.

Still, it would help if you had a regular and consistent flow of multi-platform communications in places you don’t already have them and for a long enough time to show a measurable result.

At EDD we like to start with a 90-day plan, then evaluate wins and losses towards the end of it before refining what we’re doing and then plan the next 90 days.

Tip

Create a buyer Persona (a description/profile of a customer) for your ideal customers. A persona for each type of your clients will help you depict their typical day and help you work out ways to engage them with content that is useful to them. It will also help to understand which touchpoints will directly affect them.

What would we do if you handed us this project?

It’s often easier (and cheaper) to get someone else to do the work whilst you get on with your day job. And as we design and deliver marketing strategies as our day job, so we know what works and what doesn’t.

We can’t give you a full blueprint strategy in this blog because our tailor-made marketing plans are bespoke and based on a thorough evaluation of your goals, existing marketing activities, and the current market climate in your specific demographic.

Here is an idea of the items we could include:

A website – a new one, or redesigning and managing an existing one.
Website campaigns – with engaging downloadable content to help attract new website users
In-practice videography/interviews and health plan promos
In-practice photoshoots
Logo and branding design
Printed materials – leaflets, posters, powerful direct mail letters, targeted postcards (personalised even down to the species photograph on the front and pet names!)
Google and Facebook ad campaigns
Social media graphics to advertise services and health plans
Staff training
In-practice touchpoints such as pet carrier tags with QR codes and “Ask me about our health plan” staff badges
Email campaigns, laser-targeted with messages customers can relate to
Press advertising
Direct mail

Our team will help you work out your pain(s), look at what you want to achieve and by when, and then design a strategy to get you there as soon as possible.

Why delay increasing your profitability?

You might just get there eventually, or you can get there much sooner.

We can do this for you if this is too much to add to your working day.

If you are worried about cost, don’t be! We’ll design a plan to meet your budget (although you need to be realistic – the more you are prepared to invest, the better the return – FACT!). You can choose equal monthly payments (starting at 90-day plans), all with your approval every step of the way.

Remember…

We don’t just manage your subscription payments.

Our in-house design and marketing experts will help you grow your plan, grow your practice, and ensure your clients follow your personalised customer journey and become your biggest fans.

Our done-for-you packages are proven to get results fast.

“Easy Direct Debits are experts in the field who exceeded our expectations. Have been helping us to create professional branding for the business, engaging content for the website, promotional materials etc. We cannot praise them enough. Such a pleasure to work with people who listen to your needs and create desired results in no time. Top class in its field. 100% satisfaction guaranteed.

6 Stars out of 5.“

Tomasz, Clinical Director / Sutton Bridge Vets

Whilst what we do is always bespoke to your practice and your goals, the steps we take have been tried and tested – all without you having to worry about the return on investment or depleting your precious time or resources.