5 Veterinarian Marketing Ideas To Increase Exposure

Posted: December 8, 2022 - By Health Dev

companions. You strive to provide your patients with the highest quality of care, and their well-being is your top priority.

As great as it would be for your commitment to pets and animals to be enough to attract and maintain clients, these days, it takes more. While recommendations from your current clients can encourage new ones to book appointments, word-of-mouth often isn’t enough. There’s also a good chance you’re not the only vet clinic in your area, meaning you have to contend with other practices vying for your target market.

If you want to stand out from the competition and grow your practice, veterinary marketing is a must. Here, we’ll go over why it matters and share a few top veterinarian marketing ideas to help you develop a strategy that works. 

The Role Marketing Plays in Your Veterinary Practice

A solid marketing strategy plays a vital role in your vet clinic, whether you’re just getting started or you’ve been practicing for years. Before we dive into some of the most effective tactics you can incorporate into your plan, let’s take a closer look at what veterinary practice marketing can do for you:

Attracts Potential Clients

Whether you’re a new or established vet clinic, there’s a good chance one of your goals is to grow your practice. Part of achieving that goal requires attracting more clients. However, you can’t bring in new clients if they don’t know you exist. 

A veterinary marketing campaign devoted to attracting and acquiring new clients allows you to get your name in front of potential customers. In addition to showcasing your veterinary services, your marketing efforts can highlight what sets you apart from other clinics (your unique selling proposition or USP) and establish you as a trusted animal care provider. 

Engages Current Clients

While attracting new customers can help you grow your vet clinic, you can’t forget about your current clients. Just because they’ve brought their pets in for an appointment or two doesn’t mean they’re loyal. If you have no contact with clients outside of the office, you run the risk of losing them. They might decide to look for a different vet, or another clinic could catch their attention with their marketing campaigns. 

Marketing efforts devoted to your current clients keep them engaged and help build loyalty. They keep your name at the top of those customers’ minds and remind them of your presence and devotion. That way, when your clients need veterinary services for their pets, they’re more likely to call your clinic for another appointment. As a bonus, it costs less to maintain current customers than to acquire new ones. 

5 Great Ideas for Veterinary Marketing

Now that you know why vet marketing matters, it’s time to take a look at a few effective tactics to incorporate into your overall strategy:

1. Hone in on Social Media Content

If you don’t have social media accounts for your vet clinic, now is the perfect time to get started. People spend about two and a half hours a day on various platforms scrolling through their feeds, watching videos, and reacting to posts. They also interact with some of their favorite brands and businesses, one of which could be your practice. 

You already work to establish genuine relationships with your clients during their pets’ appointments. An active presence on at least one social media platform enables you to stay connected with those individuals outside your clinic. It also makes it possible to reach and attract potential new clients. For example, if your current followers share your posts, you’ll appear in their friends’ feeds. Using hashtags on your posts also makes it easier for people to find you. 

There’s a lot you can do with social media. Here are a few content ideas you can share with the internet:

• Updates about your clinic (specials, seasonal offers, changes in your office hours, new product or service offerings, etc.)
• The latest veterinary industry news that may affect your followers’ animal companions
• Pet care tips 
• Employee or patient spotlights (be sure to ask your clients before posting their pets’ photos)
• Client testimonials 
• Excerpts from blog entries (include links to the original posts on your website)
• Videos (behind-the-scenes looks, product how-to guides, etc.)

No matter what platforms you choose and what types of content you post, be sure to update often and interact with your followers. In other words, respond to their comments and answer their questions. You can even pose a question as a post to encourage more engagement. 

2. Consider Starting a Weekly/Monthly Newsletter 

Email marketing remains one of the most effective and affordable forms of digital marketing available. It has one of the highest returns on investments (ROIs), returning $36 for every $1 spent on average. Research shows that 99% of people check their emails every day, and 58% look at their inboxes before doing anything else online. 

A newsletter is one form of email marketing. It’s an excellent (and non-invasive) way to keep your subscribers up-to-date with everything going on at your practice. What’s more, it allows for personalization. Beyond incorporating each recipient’s name into an email, you can segment your subscriber list based on specific factors (such as the species or age of their pets) to ensure they get the most relevant information possible.

If you need ideas for your vet practice newsletter, here are a few topic suggestions to get you started:

• The story behind how you started your practice
• Information about the products and services you offer (or the introduction of new ones)
• Important business updates
• Tips for ensuring optimal pet health and wellness
• Seasonal messages (including relevant information such as safe and unsafe holiday foods for pets, outdoor safety for summer, and more)
• Upcoming events you’re hosting or participating in 

Like social media, blogging, and other forms of marketing, consistency is crucial for your email newsletters. It ensures you stay at the top of your subscribers’ minds and increases the chances that they think of you when they need the types of services you provide. Consider sending your newsletters weekly or monthly for the best results. 

Note: Get permission before you start sending email newsletters. Place a sign-up form on your website and encourage people to subscribe. For instance, you can include a notice about your newsletter on your appointment reminders, mention it on social media, and leave a sign at your office counter. 

3. Start a Promotion for Veterinary/Grooming Services

Promotional offers can be an effective tool for generating new clients and engaging current ones. For instance, you can offer new customers a first wellness visit for free to encourage more appointments. After you get them through the door, you have the opportunity to wow them with your exceptional care. In the same manner, you can encourage repeat services from current clients with discounts on their next wellness or grooming appointment.

Further, consider launching marketing campaigns around offers available at your practice, such as reduced rates on dental cleanings for pet dental health awareness month or discounts on preventative medications during flea and tick season. You can use various marketing channels to do this, from email to social media, where you can boost engagement through a promotional post.

Another option to consider is hosting a contest on social media to encourage engagement and appointments. For example, ask people to share photos of their pets in costume during October. Then you can either have your employees choose the winners or create an album of entrants and have your followers vote for their favorites. The winning post can earn a discount or a free appointment.

4. Create a Blog to Post Relevant Content for Pet Parents

A blog is a great veterinarian digital marketing method that allows you to share relevant and valuable information with your target audience. It can also be a highly effective content marketing strategy with several significant benefits for your vet practice:

• Increases visibility online: Firstly, each blog post adds a new page to your website for search engine bots to crawl and index. Secondly, you can target specific keywords with your posts, which can help you rank higher on search engines when people look for those words and phrases. 
• Boosts web traffic: When you rank high in a search engine’s results pages, people are more likely to visit your vet practice’s website. If the information is relevant, they’re more likely to stay and may even start checking out your other blog posts or web pages. 
• Shows your personality: Prospective clients who happen across your content don’t know much about your practice or you as a vet. Blogging is a more informal form of marketing that gives you a chance to show who you are. 
• Builds trust: Providing valuable, expert veterinary information helps you to build trust with your readers. Over time, your blog (and practice) could become a go-to source for informative content and helpful pet care advice. 
• Creates opportunities for social media sharing: You can transform your blog posts into social media posts, giving your followers a chance to share your content with their connections. That helps increase online visibility.

5. Optimize Your Google My Business Profile

About 97% of people use the internet to find local businesses, and 80% of local searches lead to offline conversions. One way to ensure you appear in local searches is by optimizing your Google My Business (GMB) profile, a free listing on Google that features pertinent information about your vet clinic, including:

• Your clinic’s name, address, and phone number
• Hours of operation
• The types of services you provide
• Pictures of your clinic
• A link to your website

Your GMB profile also provides a location for current clients to leave reviews. Those reviews play a vital role in your online reputation as they offer valuable information about your vet clinic that can influence a prospective client’s decision of whether or not to schedule an appointment. Additionally, reviews carry a lot of weight for ranking higher in an organic listing during a local search. Google pays attention to the number of reviews you have and your overall star rating. 

However, keep in mind that not everyone will leave positive reviews. People are more likely to give negative than positive feedback, and your prospective clients will see this. If you want to maintain your positive online reputation, take the time to respond to negative reviews and try to resolve issues. Your efforts will show your commitment to clients, and people will appreciate it. 

What Else Can You Include in Your Veterinary Marketing Strategy?

If you’re wondering whether you can include anything else in your vet marketing strategy to attract new clients and keep current ones engaged, consider the following three veterinary marketing ideas:

Loyalty Program

A loyalty program rewards your most devoted clients for repeat purchases and keeps them returning. With this type of rewards program, your customers earn points or stamps, which they can redeem for specific services or product discounts. You can also offer a membership program, which provides specific services for a set monthly fee. For instance, members can receive unlimited office visits, free annual vaccinations, and discounts on diagnostic testing. 

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a tactic that involves optimizing your website to increase your organic ranking in online searches. You can take various steps to achieve this, such as:

• Use keywords (the words and phrases your target audience uses to find vet clinics and the services you provide) throughout your web pages and content
• Incorporate links that lead from one page to another within your website as well as to high-quality external sites
• Get backlinks from high-quality sites to your pages
• Ensure an optimal user experience on desktops and mobile devices

Along with boosting your visibility, a solid SEO strategy also encourages potential clients to click through to your website and check it out. Google Analytics can support your efforts by providing valuable data such as keywords and top traffic sources. 

Paid Advertising

Paid ads are one of the more expensive marketing strategies, but they can be highly effective and give quick results. If your budget allows, consider ads as a marketing tactic.

One option is to launch a pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaign on Google to attract new clients. Your ad will appear at the top of the search results pages above the first organic result, making you more visible to your target audience. Another option is to run ads on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. These ads place you in the feeds of your target audience members, increasing the odds they encounter them while scrolling.