How To Grow Your Veterinary Business

To grow your veterinary business, people need to be able to find you when they look for your services online and you need to have what they’re looking for. Here are some ideas for how to grow your veterinary business. 

How To Grow Your Veterinary Business Online

People who love their pets try to keep them healthy by looking online for the best animal care close to home. Beyond caring about animals and providing excellent service, you need to market your business in order for it to grow. Here are some marketing ideas to help you grow your veterinary business.

• Make Your Website User-Friendly - The foundation of your web presence is an up-to-date and informative website. A lot of the time, people will look for help online first so the easier they can find information about you, such as your location, contact information, pricing, and answers to frequently asked questions, the better.
• Optimize - Search engine optimization (SEO), helps people find your website. It increases the chances of your site coming up when they search for relevant terms, such as “veterinary clinics”. People will most likely want someone close by and using local SEO can help attract customers in your area. Some ways to do local SEO include putting the name of your city in your site's title tags, setting up your Google My Business page, and claiming your business on business review sites. 
• Be Social - Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram allow you to build interest and engage with people. With so many active social media users, it’s likely that the people you want to reach are there. 
• Spotlight Your Employees - Posting about your employees on your social media pages lets visitors get to know your staff. Try posting short bios of your veterinarians and office staff with information such as their education, hobbies, medical specializations, and photos. These bios will establish the trust potential clients need before putting the care of their pets in your hands.
• Advertise - With pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, you can select which keywords and phrases you want to trigger your ads. If your bids are near the top, your ads will appear at the top of the search results, before organic listings. You only pay when someone clicks your ad so you won't waste money on customers who never visit your site. While SEO campaigns can take time to start driving traffic to your website, PPC ads can start sending relevant traffic to your website as soon as they’re active. 
• Host Contests - Try hosting contests on social media. Think of something creative and original that’ll interest people, such as a pet photo contest. Create a competition where people post photos of their pets and other followers vote on their favorite. Contests like this are a great way to get people involved and provide an incentive to engage with you. 
• Content Marketing - Create and post quality content. You’re an expert on pet care so use that knowledge to attract the attention of pet owners. Post tips on animal care, make blog posts about current veterinary issues or create videos that address common pet concerns. This kind of content can draw pet owners to your site by showing that you’re an expert and care enough to share what you know. You can also post entertaining pet-related material such as pictures and videos of the animals you've cared for (with permission).
• Share Pet Photos - People love looking at animals so, with permission, take pictures of your patients and share them with your followers on social media. Owners will love seeing their pets get attention from other people. Posts that include images are also more likely to be shared, retweeted, and liked. Pet photos make your customers happy and build awareness of your business.
• Support Pet-Related Organizations - Use social media to help other animal-related organizations such as local shelters, ASPCA-approved kennels, and groomers that provide services that benefit local animals. Share their posts, create your own status, or tweet when these organizations are hosting events or running specials to show your followers that you care about the animals, not just getting clients and revenue. The goodwill you generate could also lead to beneficial relationships.

Other Ways To Grow Your Business

Beyond getting people to see you online, you have to have something to show them when they find you. Here are some ways to be more attractive to current and potential customers.

• Join Organizations - Being a member of relevant organizations such as the AVMA keeps you up to date on the industry and gives people more confidence in your abilities. For more organizations that you can join, check out vspn.org.
• Get Certifications - Relevant certifications help generate leads because they show people which procedures, surgeries, etc. you specialize in. You can find some certifications at ABVP.
• Offer More Services - The more services you offer, the more animals (people) you can help. Do you offer x-rays, in-house lab tests, or over-the-counter and prescription drugs in-house? You should also have a good email and SMS-based appointment reminder program, a good phone system so appointments don’t get dropped, and good vet software for managing patient records. Also, if you’re in a thriving market, and have enough support staff and doctors, you can also offer 24/7 service and emergency/urgent care. 

Marketing is an effective way to reach more pet owners and engage with current clients but crafting and carrying out a marketing plan takes time and effort that you might not be able to spare.

To learn more about growing your veterinary business, you can read our article How much should you spend on marketing your local business, or contact us now.

Tags: business growth, veterinary