The Veterinary Marketing Podcast

This has been an amazing year, and although there is still 1 more episode that will be released I thought it would be a good idea to go back and take a look at some of the best lessons that I learned in marketing as well things that I learned from interview all the amazing guests that I had. I think a lot of times I am the kind of person who is always thinking about cool new ideas and often times after I learn these new strategies sometimes I forget to reflect and take time to think about application. I suspect that lots of people who listen to the podcast are this way too. With this I think that it is a great time to reflect on the best insights that I've learned. One of the favorite things I get out of doing the podcast is that I get to connect with some really smart marketers and I learn a bunch while doing the podcast too. So I hope you enjoy today's episode where I break down the coolest things I've learned this year. I have a few requests for you as we go into the new year. I want to make this podcast the highest quality it can possibly be, so if you ever have anything you want to learn about, guests you think I should have on, or any feedback in general, please let me know! One last thing, if you could leave me an honest review in iTunes I would greatly appreciate it! Please let me know if you ever need any help or have any questions. 2016 is going to be an amazing year!

I hear a lot of times that veterinary practices have a difficult time telling if their marketing actually produces a positive return on investment. When I hear that I figure that their marketing likely isn't directing specifically at an offer or a lead magnet. This week I cover how to create offers at your veterinary practice that will help you sell products or services online or how to create offers that you can trade content for contact information with your current or potential clients. When you create an offer, there are really just four main elements to the whole process. The elements that I cover are: first figuring out what your offer is going to be, creating the headline, creating the copy or content and then creating the call to action. What should you offer at your practice for sale online with you digital marketing? That depends on what kinds of clients you are looking to attract, what kind of content you've created for your practice and also what kind of resources you have to put towards your marketing. I am really opposed to having your marketing offers just being centered around discounts. Discounts are lazy and easy, do better marketing but don't try and compete only on price. There are always exceptions to this rule, but make sure you use discounts only when appropriate or you'll find yourself having to come back to discounts every time you create a promotion. The next piece that you really need to focus on is your headline. Headlines are really important for marketing because they immediately identify to the reader what they offer is about and it hopefully segments the interested clients from the non interested people. I talk about 3 headline formulas that work really well in generating interest while at the same time segmenting buyers from non buyers. After the headline I talk about 6 different ways to begin the conversation in your copy. Your copy is going to be either video, text or images/infographics and picking the right medium will be important based on where you are going to be advertising. Once you have the copy the next piece is creating the call to action and I cover how to use pricing to increase conversion as well as tips for making the purchase process as easy as possible.

If you're ever considering building your own website or having a developer create a website for you I think that Wordpress is a great option for you and your veterinary hospital. Wordpress, for those of you who don't know, is an online, open source website creation tool written in PHP. In plain terms, it is likely the easiest and most powerful blogging and website content management system that is available. Since it is open source, wordpress is free to download and install on your servers, which is really cool. What we're talking about today are plugins for your Wordpress site. Plugins are pre-built pieces of functionality that do specific things on your website, so that you don't have to go out and code a piece of software to make your website custom made. For example, maybe you want a live chat or appointment setting feature, so you'd go out and find the right plugins to do that, which there are already pre-built ones. Plugins can be both free and also cost money, but the ones I'm going to talk to you about are going to be free. Plugins mentioned in this episode: Wordpress SEO by Yoast- This plugin helps with SEO, and really helps you approach your content and site from a SEO standpoint without having to get a really in-depth knowledge of how to do SEO on your website. This has feeature that do everything from give you previews of how your content will look in search results to create XML sitemaps that you can then submit to Webmaster's Tools. Shareaholic- This is a really good social plugin that lets people engage with your content across social media. It also has a google analytics integration so you can measure your social efforts. Easy Content Templates- This is a great tool when combined with my 31 Veterinary Blog Posts Ideas Guide, don't worry about what to write, just be able to sit down and grind out some really good content. Editorial Calendar- This is great for creating content with a group of people. So if you want to get the whole team engaged, or just plan your content around the calendar, this has great features for getting your content published. Google Webmaster Verification Tools- This can help your hospital integrate with google analytics, google adwords and google webmaster tools. It makes pasting your user ID very simple. Measure your marketing or you're just guessing! New stuff to check out this week: Dr. Braden Collins at Bunbury Eaton Veterinary Hospital doing some really awesome holiday photo competitions. This is great! Take a look Click Here Dr. Cody Creelman's new VLOG on Youtube, check it out, it is epic content, click here Danielle Lambert's new SnoutSchool.com Scoop, stay up to date on all kinds of pet related events and holidays, click here

Today's episode is going to be a little bit advanced, but stick with me here, I think it is really worth the effort to at least understand the marketing concepts that we're going to be talking about. In fact, I think that the subject of today's podcast is likely the best opportunity that there is to market your veterinary practice. Today we're talking about Facebook Pixels. So What Are Pixels? Pixels are pieces of javascript code that Facebook provides. You put the Facebook pixel in the head section o your webpage so that when someone visits the site,the piece of javascript runs or "fires" and you are now able to track the person who is visiting that page or the event that just occurred. So pixels allow you to do two main things, one is build lists of audiences who have viewed certain pages or pieces of content that you create and/or they allow you to track and optimize ads for events like newsletter opt ins, form opt ins, purchases, cart abandons and other things. In the past, with Facebook pixels you had to create unique pieces of code every time you wanted to either create a new list to market to or track an event, but Facebook has recently changed the way pixels work. Now you get a base pixel that is standard for, the way you customize them for event tracking is by placing a little identifier that Facebook provides for you to copy and paste into your base code. So once you copy and past your pixel into your veterinary hospitals web pages, what can you do then? This is where some marketing strategy comes into play. By using segmented content built around offers that you have at your veterinary. It is really easy (at least comparatively) to get people to click and consume content instead of getting people to actually opt in to something to build your marketing list, so using pixels allows you to create segmented interest based lists without having people opt in. So I cover several examples that you can test, that will allow you and your practice to actually attract new clients, easily measure ROI and create content that your audience really wants. Facebook video also has a really cool pixel feature within the Power Editor that I cover. I know that this is definitely one of the more complicated episodes, but if you can implement the ideas in today's podcast your veterinary practice will be able to create dependable growth.

One of the most common questions I get from veterinary professionals is, "Is my website good enough?" It can be difficult to know when it is time to redo your site, especially if you don't know anything about programming or building websites. That is what this episode is all about, how do you go about finding the right person or company to help build your veterinary practice's website. This week's episode is pretty cool, because I have my twin brother, who has been a professional web developer, software developer and mobile app developer for a decade now, and he helps us go over exactly what you should think about if you are considering changing up your practice's website. Barrett Breshears, who you can find @barrettbreshear on twitter, currently works as a self employed IOS developer building mobile apps for businesses and start up all around the world. He's also built many websites for large and small sized companies and so I've been wanting to have him on the show for quite a while so that he could share some insight with my audience since I always get questions on how to find a web developer. So how exactly should you know what to get, and once you know what you want, how much should it cost? The whole experience of trying to get a new website can feel a lot like applying for auto financing and buying a car, how do you know if you're getting ripped off or not? We cover things from how to know when you need a new website to how to find the right web developer for your veterinary practice. We also discuss how much typically websites should cost and the best ways to know if your developer will actually be able to perform. One of the most important pieces that we cover in today's episode is making sure that you know what you want done so that you can get an accurate bid. The items that you absolutely need to know are: how many pages you want made, what kind of features you want to have, and how the site should function once it is complete. Having a clear idea of exactly what you need done and getting everyone to have the same scope for the project is a good way to make sure your new site gets done quickly and doesn't go over budget. Although Barrett doesn't build veterinary websites anymore, you can still ask him questions via twitter @barrettbreshear Items mentioned in this weeks episode: Test your site speed: http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/ Google Webmaster Tools: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools

Have you ever really thought about why you are creating a piece of content or specific ad? You likely have a desired end result like having someone read an article, share, comment, like or click but do you sit and actually think about what the person on the other end is experiencing? In this week's episode I talk about the three types of clients there are out there and how to figure out which is the best fit for you and your practice. If I were to ask what was most important in running a business most people would focus on the product, saying having a perfect product is most important. Product is absolutely important, if you or your veterinary hospital performs badly consistently you will go out of business, but on the other side providing amazing care sometimes isn't enough. I am sure you know of times where there were veterinary practices that had amazing staff who deeply cared, but for whatever reason the business side didn't make it. An important factor to have when considering what kind of marketing, whether it be content marketing or direct response ads, is who are you going to target. There are basically three groups of people that all of your potential clients fall into and they are as follows: People who don't know what they don't know. They are ignorant of the problem and the solution. People who are open to a solution and understand the problem but aren't actively looking for a solution People who are actively looking for a solution. Obviously each of these groups of people need to be handled and approached differently because they have different lenses through which they see you and your practice. The first group of people are the most difficult to market to, because not only do you have to prove to someone that they have a problem, you then have to show them you are the best solution to the problem they had no idea they had. The second group of people could be anyone from ma current client to a prospective client, and this group of people is far easier to reach because they are not that hard to convince. Maybe these people have simply forgot that they need to bring their pet in again. The third group of people that I talk about in this week's episode, is by far the most valuable immediately because they want and need what you have and are actively looking for it. Different types of advertising work better for each group and I talk about what kind of marketing works best for each type. If you consider the perspective of the person who is viewing your content you will be able to create more compelling marketing and be able to help more pets receive care!

I'm a huge fan of email marketing, and I hope that you and your practice are collecting emails. If you aren't collecting emails that should absolutely be where you start. A couple of reasons that I absolutely love emails is because for one, you own the list. No one can take away the emails that you've gathered. In some cases, especially with social media platforms, you're basically just renting the lists. You don't own it and if any of the rules change you're pretty much out of luck which can be a big problem. Since you own the list, if you are good at email marketing, you can use it to really influence your current and prospective clients. If you have good emails you can drive behavior and traffic into your practice. Having a slow week or month? Send out an email sequence and get some clients coming in through the door. So obviously since veterinary professionals are some of the most busy people that I've ever encountered, it is really important that you automate as much of this as possible. With automated emails you need to be using an email marketing system and for that I suggest either Mailchimp, Aweber or Infusionsoft, depending on the budget you have and what features you are looking for. Whatever you use it should be relatively easy to use, give you the ability to segment your lists of clients and also have automatic email capabilities. The email sequences that I talk about in today's episode should be able to be set up once and not have to be touched again. Whenever you can set up a marketing system and have a return that pays off for years is a huge win for anyone who is marketing because the return on time that you spend is so high. With email sequences the more you have the better in my opinion because you can create such segmented and relevant campaigns depending on what people like and engage with, but you likely have pets to care for, so I've narrowed it down to 5 that I think every veterinary practice needs. The 5 email sequences that I cover in depth in this week's episode are: a welcome email series a review email series a win back series a current client sales series and an engagement/segmentation series With each of these email series I think you'll see a huge return on investment. Remember that often times people get really busy and they just don't have the time and energy to think about things that they need to do for their pets, so not only will these email sequences help to drive more clients into your practice but they can also help to provide better care to pets as well.

Unless you're a full time marketer, you probably haven't thought too much about where you are getting traffic from, but you should be! There will always be new ad platforms, social media channels and websites to drive relatively cheap traffic from, but which site should you drive traffic from? Where are your best potential clients spending time right now? What are the best places to promote your veterinary practice's content and offers? These are all questions that we answer on this week's episode. For those of you who don't know, traffic is just clicks to your veterinary practice's website. Traffic is mostly looked at as a commodity but the truth is not all traffic is created equal. Putting ads on craigslist will definitely yield different kinds of clients than you would find on places like Linkedin. So where should you be advertising? First of all are you even advertising? I talk to lots of practices who aren't even advertising and I think this is a serious problem for a few reasons. The first reason, is if you want to grow your veterinary practice and create systematic predictable growth, you need a way to drive clients. The other reason you should be doing digital advertising is that if you are solely relying on organic traffic you are allowing someone else to be in control of your business. Organic traffic algorithms change all the and your site could be completely removed from the search results. So now that you know you should be using digital advertising, the next step is to figure out who your best potential client is so you can find the best places to advertise on. Is your ideal potential client a successful business person, who is a college grad and makes 125,000 a year? You might want to consider linkedin. Once you define your potential client use sites like alexa.com to find the demographic data. Now keeping line with the thinking that you don't want to have all of your eggs in one basket it is important to be testing and trying out a couple different traffic sources because even with paid traffic things change. Sure, Facebook marketing is great right now, but what if your ad accounts gets disabled or what if it becomes extremely expensive because competition grows stronger. Always be testing and trying new platforms that you feel would be a good fit for your content and your audience and you'll be able to create as many clients as you would like!

On this week's episode I have a special guest, Dr. Caitlin DeWilde, the founder of TheSocialDVM.com and we cover social media marketing for your veterinary practice. Dr. DeWilde has great insight because she is a DVM as well as a social media expert and so she understands the time and financial constraints that practices face when they are trying to create social media marketing plans. Dr. DeWilde holds her DVM degree from the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine, where she was the president of the Veterinary Business Management Association. Dr. DeWilde also holds a B.S. degree in Agribusiness and Animal Science from Southeast Missouri State University. She currently serves as Vice President for the Greater St. Louis Veterinary Medicine Association. In addition, she is also a member of the Missouri Veterinary Medical Association and the American Veterinary Medical Association. She currently practices part-time at a St. Louis animal hospital. Dr. DeWilde was also recently named as one of just 10 national veterinarians to the AVMA Future Leaders class of 2014-2015. A lot of times I talk about some advanced marketing techniques that sound good in theory but when it comes to application it is difficult to find time to implement, and that is where Dr. DeWilde comes in. She really understands the difficulties that practices face and so she is all about creating creating solutions that are practical for practices. We also cover topics ranging from what the most common mistakes practices are making to what the best social media platform is. She also explains what she thinks about boosting posts and paying for distribution of content. Dr. DeWilde also has a special offer for listeners of the podcast. If you would like to get a free social media consultation visit TheSocialDVM.com and contact her to have her evaluate your social media efforts. Dr. Dewilde also does social media management for veterinary practices, which may be a good idea if you are having trouble managing your practice's social media.

Any time that there is a new way to generate new clients at your veterinary practice is good news! This week, Facebook released their new lead generation ad type and I think this is big news for your veterinary practice's marketing. In this week's episode I break down some new changes that Facebook has released with native lead generation and how to use them in your practice so that you can generate new clients. I'll show you how to set up these new ads, what steps to take to make sure you're collecting the right information and then how to download the leads once they start rolling in through this native lead gen platform. What is native lead generation you ask? Well whenever an app or social media platform allows you to collect information within the app or platform, this is native lead generation. What this does is allow the potential client to interact with your brand and opt in without having to leave the place you're at. Engaging natively is really important because it makes the content or ads that you have far easier to consume. This is why I am SO SO against you using all of your social media channels in the same way. If you have your Twitter account linked to your Facebook account you're going to get really low engagement because people behave and consume content differently in these different places. Each space has its own tone and context, and so if you make it easy and appropriate for people to engage natively you'll have higher conversion rates. So what is really exciting about Facebook's new ad type is that they let you collect your potential clients info without having to leave the Facebook app. I've been testing this ad type and the potential seems really big for these apps. Here is how they work, basically you create the ad in the power editor and then you create a web form to use along with the ad. You can customize the web for to collect as much info as you would like, but remember, the more info you collect, the lower the conversion rate usually. The application of this new ad type will work really well with segmentation and creating specific offers for those segments. I'm really excited to see how veterinary practices use this, but remember that it is important to constantly be testing. A large benefit of this ad type is that it allows you to really easily measure how much a lead costs.

One of my favorite things about Marketing is that you have the ability to choose who you work with and who you attract to your digital marketing pieces. I bet it isn't said too often but you can choose who you work with and what kind of clients come to your practice. I am sure that there will always be some difficult clients, but what if you just focused on attracting clients who were just like your the favorite clients you already have. Now I definitely understand the difficulty that a lot of veterinary professionals have when they try and define who they want coming in to the practice. Obviously they want as many people as possible to bring their pets in and they want to provide high levels of service and care, but if you get to choose who you work with, what would that person look like? In today's episode we cover exactly that, and more by creating your ideal client's avatar. If you think about your favorite clients you probably have a good idea what they look like, but we go way more in depth in creating your ideal client avatar. A client avatar is a marketing term that represents what your client is like, and we go so far as to create a name, demographic data, phrases expression that person uses and much more. Creating your client avatar really gets you to think in terms of your ideal client so that when they read your content or see your marketing they identify with it immediately and are drawn to your practice. When you are thinking about the ideal client, think about several of your favorite clients and try and figure out what are some of the commonalities between them. What makes this person tick, what are some of their fears, what are some of their pain points or what is it that will really make this person feel like they are valued at your practice. Imagine what your practice could be like if the majority of your clients were exactly like your favorite clients. Once you have gone through the process of thinking more about who your client is and what truly motivates them you'll be a far more effective marketer. Everything from the content that you create to the email you send will be created with better positioning and should connect with the potential client. This exercise will also help you to define the demographics you use to create and target your ads as well.

Digital marketing is changing faster than ever! It is crazy, but also really exciting because I feel like we're in the golden age of marketing. Highly sophisticated marketing tools and techniques are available to everyone now, if you are able to keep up to date, which is what this week's episode is for. There have been some really big updates, and so this episode is about whats new and what you need to be keeping your eye out for. The three areas that I'll be covering in today's episode are: Snapchat's update, The Facebook Business Manager and why I think it is time for you and your practice to switch over to that, and lastly Instagram ads! I've been really excited for Instagram ads, and I'll definitely be doing a full episode on Instagram here shortly. The release of Snapchat's new facial recognition animation is a really big deal I think. Even though on the surface it might look pretty silly or not that important I think it is big for a few reasons. First let's talk about something that is important to think about when you're approaching social media, which is when should you start considering a platform/app/social media outlet so that you're not always chasing the next shiny object. Marketing is a pretty predictable pattern now, although it is unlike anything we've ever seen in history so far. Typically in the past, the established older generation would control the distribution of content, IE Radio/TV/Newspaper, but now the youth are driving what is cool and interesting with respect to content creation and consumption. So you'll get a platform like Facebook, where it is adopted by the younger generation, it comes to a point where it is adopted by older generations and finally you have days like for the first time last month there were a billion people logging in. Amazing! Social networks work like that, you get youth going finding new things, they put their attention there, eventually more people adopt and integrate and when you have the attention of a large number of people you get advertisers. So in any social network you have the opportunity to grow your brand before all the advertisers migrate over and hopefully you can really engage and attract clients before advertising becomes really established. Facebook is definitely reaching maturity in its ad platform, but places like Snapchat are still in a way that you can be early to the game. The latest update really shows me that Snapchat is doing a good job at innovating and staying relevant, so you need to be checking this out, even if it just from the standpoint of a consumer so that if your practice decides to start using it you'll know how it works and what works best. Be sure to follow my snapchat @VMPBrandon. The next update that I think everyone needs to get on is the Facebook Business Manager, which you can find at Business.facebook.com. Here you can access a bunch of really cool features and you definitely get a different feel than just using the standard Facebook Ad Manager. The reason why I think it is great to use the business manager is because if you have mulitple people using and posting to the account you'll be able to easily manage them here. You'll also be able to access the custom audiences, the new pixels and most importantly add your Instagram account. If you hadn't heard, Instagram is rolling out ads, and this is HUGE! I've been waiting for Instagram ads forever, and they're finally here! In order to advertise on Instagram you need to add your Instagram account to your business manager. You can do this by going to settings and clicking on Instagram account. Facebook continues to innovate and do an amazing job with their ad product, so it is so so so so so exciting to see the same demographic choices available within the power editor to create Instagram placements. I'll definitely be doing an Instagram episode here in the near future. The definite theme of the episode this week is that you need to be working on becoming a practitioner of these digital marketing platforms. See how people are using the social networks, how they interact with brands,and how they engage and comment on ads. If you can see people who are having success, duplicate what they have and cut down the time on the learning curve. One thing to really take note of is what makes people angry so that you can avoid doing harm when you go to a new platform. If you have any questions or comments be sure to let me know: [email protected]

Have you ever though about what actually matters when you are doing content marketing, or direct response marketing? I hear practices tell me all the time, "we've tried that (insert marketing platform) and it doesn't work", but what does that actually mean? In this week's episode I try and help you determine what kind of marketing results you should be focusing on and one type of result that you shouldn't be worrying about, which I call Vanity Metrics. Vanity Metrics can be things like, impressions, reach sometimes "likes" or re-tweets, basically anything that on the surface seems impressive, but when you dive deeper you discover that it isn't really producing anything. When the metrics you are following are just activity based rather than results based is when you can get into difficulty with your marketing. A lot of times too, these kinds of results seem impressive or exciting, but they don't help to drive clients in to your practice. I will say that there is always difficulty in trying to figure out what the ROI of your marketing is or should be. I think that a lot of times in social media when you are building community, educating clients or creating engagement that it can be difficult to quantify the result in terms of ROI but you should be able to quantify the engagement and drill down into what meaningful engagement actually looks like. For example posting an educational article that you are doing solely for educational purposes and then to have no one like, comment share and you get a low click through rate would be pretty easy to identify as a loser. Creating marketing with the end goal in mind will help you be a better marketer and allow you to generate better results. Instead of saying "This marketing doesn't work" you'll be able to find out what part isn't working, correct it and create success.

One thing that I keep seeing over and over with the veterinary industry is that everyone has TONS on their plate. It shouldn't really be a suprise with as much work as a veterinary hospital sees that there simply isn't time for marketing activities like content creation. On this week's episode I go over how to use virtual assistants or freelancers to do marketing activities for your veterinary practice. In case you don't know, virtual assistants or freelancers are people who are skilled at specific task that you are looking to achieve and will work for you on an as needed basis. Often times, virtual assistants are found in different parts of the world where the currency echange rates and costs of living help to create situations where you can find highly qualified workers for aa really reasonable rate. I've had lots of luck finding virtual assistants in India and the Philipines who do amazing work at really affordable rates. When thinking about what kind of tasks you want to outsource think about these three questions: what Do I don't have time to do, what do I dislike doing and what am I bad at? These are things you can outsource. One thing you need to do for sure is define what the task description is, what is involved in the process and what the desired outcome is. This should be easily definable and measurable. Being able to measure the outcome is crucial because if you can't measure the outcome you won't be able to tell if it is worth outsourcing. Once you've definied what you want to outsource, create a job description and go to a site like upwork.com or guru.com and post an ad. There you'll get dozens of applicants. You can see how many people have used the applicant, view reviews and see resumes. Often times you'll get people applying who are asking between $3-$20 per hour depending on skills and location. After having the job posting up for a few days I then select two or three applicants to test. The test that you have applicants do is really important because you want virtual assistants or freelancers who will read the emails that you send, follow instructions and make your life easier. If they don't read the instructions or follow the instructions you give them explicitly you will have a difficult time getting work done the way you want it. For example if I have a person who I want to create graphics for my content, I'll create a test where they have to read the article I've written, get an idea of what it is about create 3 graphics that convey the same idea but are in 3 specific sizes and then email the result to a specific email address. I'll make the graphic sizes a really specific size to make sure they read the email and follow all the instructions. Creating a template along the way is very important as well because you'll likely have to re-use the process you create every once in a while. You don't want to have to reinvent the wheel every time you need someone to do some freelance work for your veterinary practice.

If you've been watching any financial news at all you've probably been feeling pretty nervous. Financial Pundits are saying that we're in a buble or that we're heading for a correction. Well if you remember the last time this happened in 2008 you probably recall that things slowed down a lot. From what I've been able to tell from practices is that the last recession really hurt their practices. I'm not saying we're going into a recession, but I do think that there are things you can do to be prepared should any downturn happen. Whether you are a veterinary practice owner, or an employee at a veterinary practice, there are lots of things that you can do to help secure your veterinary practices' marketing. Creating stability and making sure that you have the skills and resources in place is what is really important. So in this episode I go over the things you should focus on when the economy is good and then what to do when the economy is not so good. The main concepts that I think can really help your practice are growing and building when times are good like they have been for most practices. Many of the practices that I've spoken to have been enjoying 6-8% growth and while this is awesome it is important to take as much advantage of this market driven growth as possible. Make sure that you are building your email lists, that you are growing your social media audience and that you are connecting and establishing a relationship with your clients. If the economy gets bad it is important to already have the marketing skills you would need to drive clients in to your practice. It is far better to have ads and marketing figured out now when times are good and you can afford to test than in the future when you don't have funds coming in to supplement your marketing tests. I go into depth about things you can do when the economy isn't so good as well. I'm definitely not an economist, but I think it is important to take notice of where the economy is heading so that you can create growth no matter what the economy does.

I've had Danielle on the podcast now 4 times, and I always enjoy our interviews because Danielle is a great practitioner of what she preaches. She has the unique perspective of being a practice manager as well as an amazing marketer so she is able to share some great insight. In this week's episode we go into what she is doing with social media marketing in her veterinary practice as well as what she is doing to help her clients with their social media efforts. Danielle K. Lambert is a social media coach and veterinary practice manager. She's the founder of SnoutSchool.com, the only social media tutorial site created by a veterinary professional, for veterinary professionals. Danielle bases her coaching on experience gathered as a veterinary practice manager at Quinebaug Valley Veterinary Hospital in Danielson, CT. In her spare time, she enjoys taking too many iPhone photos of her Brussels Griffon, Archer, and screaming at Tom Brady every Sunday during football season. In this episode I catch up with Danielle to see what she thinks about Facebook, and if it is still where she thinks there is a huge opportunity. We cover also cover what kind of ads she is running these days on Facebook as well as some of the major changes Facebook has made to profiles. Along with a few other topics on Facebook, we cover Instagram as well as Snapchat too. Be sure to check out this full episode and be sure to subscribe get Danielle's FREE guide, the 5 MUST-HAVE social media tools for your veterinary hospital. Click Here For The Guide. Also Be Sure to Check Out Danielle's Facebook Marketing Group, it is epic! Click Here for the Snout School Facebook Group

In this week's episode, I talk with Dr. Mark Olcott, co founder and CEO of Vitus Vet. Dr. Olcott has a really unique background in veterinary medicine and has worked in all kinds of practices. We discuss content marketing, using segmentation in content marketing to how to use mobile apps in your veterinary practice. Dr. Olcott definitely has a great background in marketing and he shares a bunch of great info with us this week. One thing that Vitus Vet does that I think is really cool is it allows for your clients to get really useful and potentially life saving info be made available to them. Having your pet's medical records available after hours can really help, and I think this will help you and your practice if you choose to use Vitus Vet. Giving your clients this info via the app that they offer also creates a great incentive for pet owners to actually download your app. Having an app for your practice is great except you have to compel your clients to download it, and I think that Vitus Vet has a great way to offer value so your clients will download it. Another way to be sure to add value is through segmentation. Segmentation is where you divide your client list up into different parts so that you can deliver really relevant content. The more relevant the content the better, that way your clients will want to consume your content. Vitus Vet lets you get info and distribute highly relevant info, which allows you to educate and stay in front of your clients. When you're able to stay in front of your clients more you won't have to deal with Dr. Google as much and you'll have better client retention as well. Be sure to listen to this whole interview because it is full of great info that I'm sure will help you and your practice. Also head on over to VitusVet.com to check out their app, they have a free version to try out.

Disney is one of my favorite brands because they have some of the most amazing marketing out there. Not only is their marketing amazing but they consistently put out the amazing content. In today's episode, I break down how you can apply some of the same principles that they use in their content and their theme parks to help market your veterinary practice. I am a huge advocate for content marketing at your veterinary practice and I really think that it should be the center of your marketing efforts because it helps your practice's brand in so many ways. Content marketing allows you to educate, entertain and stay in front of current and potential clients. Content marketing is what solves the problem of Dr. Google and it helps to provide more transparency on the value that you provide. Without the content, which was Mickey Mouse cartoons, there never would have been a Disneyland. Walt Disney Built his brand by being a content creator. One factor that makes their content so great is that they are amazing story tellers. If you struggle with creating interesting stories, I found a great list called The 22 Rules for Storytelling According To Pixar, check that out because they've really figured out a way to tell stories. Disney is a master of telling stories but they are also a mastere at repurposing their content and this is something that I think every veterinary practice can really learn from. Repurposing is where you take a piece of content, let's say a blog post or something and you turn it into something else. Maybe you write an amazing blog post that shows step by step how to potty train a puppy, you could repurpose that into graphics, videos and other native social media posts. Rupurpose your content and you'll be able to re-use your best stuff and not have to constantly come up with new ideas. The last piece that I cover in today's episode is segmentation. Disney allows their clients to identify themselves as interested in specific pieces of their content and then sells them stuff. It is pretty amazing and you have probably never realised that this is what they are doing.

Consumers in general are getting to expect more instant gratification. People want access now! From Uber to Amazon's same day delivery service the way that clients are interacting with brands and companies is becoming ever more on demand. Vet24Seven ads a level of on demand interaction that I think clients are going to be looking for. Here is how Vet24Seven describes their app: "Vet24seven provides animal owners with veterinary consultations via their mobile device from veterinary practices in the Vet24seven Network. Vet24seven brings veterinarians directly to clients via the more than 1.5 Billion smart devices worldwide. Today's pet owner is busier than ever and the convenience of Vet24seven virtual consulations fits in perfectly with their active lifestyle. When an animal owner sees a behavior or sympton that concerns them, they can now connect via video and chat with a licensed veterinarian from their mobile device to get fast answers and peace of mind. Vet24seven is an excellent resource for pet care questions, emergency triage, routine assessment, post-surgery follow-up, rehab follow-up, chronic care, or hospice care." In today's episode I interview Dr. Edward Blach DVM, MS, MBA, on their app and cover everything from how it works, to what uses it could have for helping to market your practice. Dr. Edward Blach, co-founder of Vet24seven, is an avid entrepreneur who serves as a business and market specialist in veterinary medicine, often assisting companies in developing a vision for the future of the industry. His unique background combines veterinary medicine, market research, business development, and management. Dr. Blach is the former Chief Executive Officer of Hagyard Equine Medical Institute, Lexington, KY, one of the oldest and largest equine veterinary practices in the world, which includes more than 50 veterinarians. Some of the really interesting ideas that Ed gave us on this episode for marketing uses include new client acquisition, some hospice care uses, emergency uses and much more. I think that the team at Vet24Seven is really impressive and they've thought of everything you could imagine, they actually gave me a look at how their entire platform works and it is really easy to use. One of the things that I really liked about Vet24Seven is that they don't charge practices to get set up, so I really think that this is a great idea for any practice to try out, especially with some of their best clients.

I have heard so many times from people, "I've tried Facebook ads for my practice, and the don't work, so I'm not going to waste money there". But if I asked them why it didn't work they wouldn't be certain what wasn't working. One thing you can be certain of is that if you're going to be doing advertising you're going to be creating ads that don't perform very well more often than they do, especially if you're starting out. Advertising can take lots of testing and measuring to get the kind of response rates and return on investment that you're looking for. In this episode I talk about what can go wrong and how to fix it. In digital marketing you have huge amount of data that you can process and see what isn't working, if you know where to look. When you create an ad there are really three components that can have problems. The first component is your traffic. Who you're showing the ad to, who you're targeting is important because if you aren't matching the message and the offer with the right group of people you could have the best ad and landing page ever but never convert. Imagine you were showing ads about cat dental month procedures to people who only were alergic to cats. That would be a bad idea, and you would almost certainly get no conversion at all. If you show an ad about puppy plans to people who just bought puppies, you'll have a lot better of a shot. The second item that comes into play is the actual ad itself. Did you really create an ad or did you just boost an informational post? Is there an interesting headline an interesting picture that compels people to click or take the action that you're looking for. Is there a clear call to action? All of these elements are really important factors that help to get people to actually click. The last item that I cover in today's episode is the landing page. This piece is critical because often times advertising companies will send traffic directly to a services page. Expecting or assuming that the person clicking will know what action to take will set you up for failure, which is why having a clear concise landing page is really important. I cover in depth what each of these important elements should have, and specifically what veterinary practices should focus on in their marketing and advertising.

Creating content that moves people to take action might be the most valuable skill anyone could have, and in this week's episode I'll be covering the basics of copywriting so that you can help turn more of your traffic into actual paying clients. Copywriting is the art and science of writing copy (words used on web pages, ads, promotional materials, etc.) that sells your product or service and convinces prospective customers to take action. This is important to understand if you are going to be creating any content online whether it is blog posts, social media posts, as well as advertisements. When thinking about how to convince someone to take action, it is important to think about what actually motivates people, how to grab attention and then how to inform clients of what is important so that they move forward in the direction that you're hoping they go. In this episode I go over the main elements you need to consider when creating content or an advertisement so that you can convert at the highest rate possible. Ultimately, the better that you can write copy for your content and ads, the more successful you're going to be at helping pets. Good copywriting doesn't only help you sell things, it actually helps you improve compliance and provide better care for your clients. If you can help educate in a way that creates a desire to take action then you'll be able to provide better care. If you're tired of hearing what misinformed clients thing about certain procedures or care then you'll want to be sure to listen so that you can more easily win over your clients with your copy.

Have you ever wanted to hire an advertising company, or maybe you've gotten phone calls from someone claiming to be a local advertising specialist and wondered if you should hire them? Deciding who to hire to do your digital marketing can be very difficult, especially if you not even sure what they'll be doing. In this week's episode I walk you through what you need to consider before hiring a company to do your advertising. The first step to getting your ad company is deciding what goals you want to achieve. Do you want more clients for a basic exam, are you wanting to run a dental promotion? What is going to be your goal for the ad campaign? One thing that I really think you need to do though before you begin is set a goal that will actually generate revenue by driving clients into your practice. Likes, clicks and impressions are great, but unless they turn into actual clients then they aren't worth very much. Going one step further, having a way to actually measure the marketing you are doing is also really important. How will you know if your marketing is actually working unless you can measure it. In addition to talking about the qualities that advertising companies should have I discuss a list of red flag items that should immediately raise concerns about whether or not you should hire a company. Hopefully with this list you should have enough info to go out and test a marketing company. I do really think though that anyone who wants to hire a company should at least test out and try some ads on their own, even if it is just 5-10 dollars because the act of running the ads will give you some insight into what goes into this

Helping clients feel like they know your brand or veterinary practice can be a difficult task and what can help create a brand that is personal and interactive is good storytelling. On today's episode I talk with Jane Dawkins on the show today who is Marketing Communications Officer, Ontario Veterinary College University of Guelph and one of the reasons that I wanted her on the show is that I'm a huge fan of her work. She is constantly producing awesome content on the OVC's social media platforms and so I wanted to get her take on marketing. What I think she is doing a great job at is that she is consistently producing great content and creating a brand around her storytelling. I think there are some great applications in that for veterinary practices, first she is taking something tends to be kind of impersonal and making it personal. This is a problem that every veterinary hospital faces and is something that good storytelling can solve. She also is working with students who are doing a great job at creating personal brands as well. So we get in to a bunch of really interesting topics and it was really fun to have her on. There is something for everyone on today's podcast, whether you are a practice owner, an employee or even are still in Vet School. Items Mentioned in Today's Episode: Jane Dawkins on Linkedin OVC on Twitter OVC on Instagram OVC Snapchat: @ontvetcollege Shannon Finn's Blog on How To Use Social Media While In Vet School

This is a special episode of the podcast because it is the first anniversary of starting the podcast! I can't believe a year has gone by already! In this episode I talk about what I think has been the most important things that have happened in marketing and where it is going for your veterinary practice. I also answer some questions submitted via email by listeners. Thanks to everyone who responded to my email request last week for questions! It has been an amazing experience developing a podcast and growing it and I want to thank everyone who has listened and contributed along the way! I love connecting with listeners and I love doing the podcast, it has definitely made me a better marketer. When I started I never would have imagined that so many people would listen and that I'd be able to meet so many awesome people through the show. I'm definitely going to continue doing the show so long as I feel I'm able to provide value and create good content. I've been amazed at all the people who have reached out and one of my favorite things to see is when a practice starts trying and testing new marketing at their practice. Most practices and people won't take the time to learn and execute new marketing ideas, so if you're willing to test out new ideas you'll likely be successful because there just isn't that much competition out there. In this episode I cover topics on everything from what you should focus on in the next year and also cover some great questions as well. Topics on the questions ranged from what would be the top 5 things you would do if a practice only had a website and a yellow pages ad to what is the biggest mistake you see veterinary practices making. Thanks again to everyone who listens and be sure to reach out if you ever need anything!

Content creation and consumption continues to change as people and technology change. Remember when people never thought that they would ever purchase something online? Remember when people used to be private and not share every detail of their lives online like they do now with social media? I think that live-streaming is that next step of content consumption and creation that people will be adopting and that is why I'm so excited to have Dr. Cody Creelman on the podcast again to talk about how to take advantage of this new way to engage with clients. Dr. Cody Creelman is a beef cattle veterinarian and practice owner of Veterinary Agri-Health Services in Alberta, Canada. His veterinary interests include bovine pathology, large animal surgery, cow/calf and feedlot production medicine. Cody is also very passionate about veterinary mobile technology. This includes consulting on veterinary application design projects, as well as digital marketing and social media platforms. Check him out on his website, Twitter(you can see him post his live streams here), Instagram, Snapchat (creelmancody), Vine, or YouTube…… he is active on them all! How people interact with brands is pretty interesting to think about and smart marketers are always seeing where the new way to engage and attract attention are. Live streaming is a great utility(for now) that you can use in conjunction with your current social media channels to give you a greater depth of relationship and create content that is hopefully really engaging and educating. Dr. Creelman shares with us the basics on Meerkat and Periscope, the two most popular live-streaming apps, and gives us some best practices for using them. He also shares how he uses live-streaming for his practice as well gives examples on other uses that it could have for in practice marketing. This episode is full of awesome advice from a vet who is actually doing it and using it, so be sure to listen to the entire episode.

People who work inside the veterinary industry are some of the most knowledgeable and passionate people I have ever encountered. They spend years getting trained to do their job, but one area of training that veterinarians don't receive is how to run their veterinary practice from a business standpoint. This industry is unique because the people working in practices have to provide care to several different species and have to treat everything from emergencies to standard preventative care. Often times this causes practice owners to get so tied up being a technician in their business that they don't have time to work on growing an actual business, and this is what the E-Myth tries to help with. This week's episode I have Dr. Peter Weinstein as a guest to talk about his new book, The E-Myth Veterinarian. Dr. Peter Weinstein is the executive director of the SCVMA, a speaker, and consultant.He explains how veterinarians spend so much time in vet school to become a really good practitioner or technician, but what is really lacking is business training. So often I hear people in the industry say, if you provide good care then that's all that matters, but the truth is that along with great service and care you need to spend time running the business and being the business owner. It is true that you have to do good work to retain clients, but the thing is, the practice down the street is likely filled with veterinary professionals who love animals just as much as you do. Caring more than the other practice won't cut it, you need strategies and systems to help grow your practice. In this podcast I usually just cover marketing, but in this episode, Dr. Weinstein shares his insight from years of working in practices that are really powerful. Marketing and branding needs to take place not just in your advertising or social media but you need to have consistency once someone makes it into the practice as well. We also cover how much you should actually know about marketing and advertising to be effective, the benefits of being pro active VS reacting to everything that comes up and how to often you should be thinking about marketing in your practice.

I run across helpful tools every now and then and in this week's episode I share with you my favorite tools that I use in marketing. The tools that I mention in this episode help you to either market more efficiently, engage better or make your life easier. I'm constantly amazed at the really high quality free tools that get put out there that you can use whenever you want, you just need to know what tools are out there! Veterinary Marketing Tools That I talk about in this week's episode: Tool number 1: Follow.net Follow allows you to see a high-level overview about any site, across a variety of sources. Data that you can view quickly includes: Traffic Estimates, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Display Advertising, Affiliate Marketing, Contextual Advertising, Twitter Mentions, Web Mentions, Blog Posts, Whois, Reverse IPs. This tool lets you do a bunch of research really quickly and lets you keep tabs on any competitors, especially in paid advertising. Tool number 2: Snip.ly Snip.ly is a URL link shortener that when clicked offers a customized call-to-action snippet at the bottom. What it lets you do is curate content really quickly. Curation is when you find something that would be beneficial to your audience that is from a source that isn't your own. By adding a call to action to this content you can potentially convert clients. Tool number 3 Overvideo App Video is getting increasingly more important because your clients love consuming video. Overvideo is an iPhone app you can use to create visual calls to action when you post video to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. It is very simple to use on your mobile device Tool number 4: Semrush.com This is a great resource that tells you competition levels for keywords, as well as search volumes of keywords, who is ranking for what. I especially like this tool when I'm checking out competition especially for Tool number 5: Lower Third for Hangouts on Air Branding If you ever do hangouts you'll want to check out this tool called Lower Third. Lower Third lets you easily add a graphic banner or overlay anywhere on the screen of your hangout so that you can brand it. It makes it look a lot more professional. I think hangouts are great for educating clients live, plus it drives clients to your Youtube and Google Plus page. Tool number 6: SumoMe.com Sumome.com is a suite of 10 tools created by Noah Kagan and Appsumo.com that help you to convert more of your traffic into opt ins. They have tools that range from opt- in pop ups to heat maps and a bunch of really amazing products. Tool number 7: Portent Idea Generator for Writer's Block If you ever have trouble coming up with ideas to write about this is a great tool. Oh by the way be sure to get my 31 Veterinary Blog Post Ideas (that's free too) Tool number 8: Swayy.co This logs in to your social accounts and sees and suggests things that would be beneficial to post bast on your community. IT is super cool For example it gave me an article that I could post about which was the dog eating festival. This tool combined with Snip.ly is a really great content curation strategy. Tool number 9: Google Analytics This is the staple for measuring marketing at your veterinary practice. If you aren't on Google Analytics please get this on your site. Even if you have an analytics suite through your web developer you need to be tracking what is happening!!! Tool number 10: Mail Chimp I choose this one just because it is free up to 2,000 contacts Tool number 11: Canva for Social Media Image Design Canva is basically like a really easy to use version of photoshop for creating images. If you want to easily create native image sizes for content then this is a great tool! Tool number 12: EMV Headline Analyzer for Headlines Ever wonder if you're writing a good headline? Headlines are so important for your open rates and really help with engagement as well, and this gives you an emotional marketing value, check it out here: http://www.aminstitute.com/headline/ Tool number 13: Quicksprout.com For SEO Analysis If you go here and put your website in, it will give you a SEO overview on things you need to work on and things you are doing well. It is pretty cool because it gives you a really broad overview, so you can use it to see if you have any large problems. Be warned you will be pitched SEO services! Bonus Tool: Google's Mobile Website Tester Is your site mobile friendly? Make sure you aren't being penalized! https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

In a perfect world your clients would all have large savings so that if they ever had unexpected pet care expenses there would be no problem. As good as this sounds, it simply isn't reality. Things happen in life and most pet owners aren't ready for unexpected problems. The good news is, there is VetBilling.com which offers payment plans to veterinary practices. The crazy part is VetBilling.com doesn't charge veterinary practices anything to use them. In this episode I interview Suzanne Cannon about how VetBilling.com helps veterinary practices add a powerful tool of recurring automatic payments. We talk about how they screen potential installment payment candidates, how they handle setting up installment arrangements and much more. I think that Vetbilling.com is an amazing tool and a definite no-brainer to use at your practice! Having products that help no pet get left behind while maintaining a profitable business is a win-win situation that helps you to communicate that you care for your clients. It is probably pretty likely that you've used some kind of payment plans at some point in your practice, but with VetBilling you don't have to worry about the admin, the collections or any of the headaches. Items mentioned in this episode: VetBilling.com

In past episodes I've talk about using landing pages, but have never really gone over how to create landing pages for your veterinary practice, and this episode changes that! In this episode I discuss what elements your landing pages should have, and the best way to approach landing pages in general. The three types of pages that I go over are: Squeeze Pages-shorter opt in only pages where you are trying to generate new potential clients Long form sales pages- longer written word pages that try and sell a product or service Video Sales Pages Sales pages that try to sell a product or service but use a video instead of written word. There are unique applications for each of these landing pages and I talk about how and when to use each. One thing that practices also overlook is that they try to go to far too fast, so I discuss how to create a lasting relationship with your client so that you can build trust, rapport and then ask for your client to use you for a product or service.

Should your veterinary practice's marketing efforts focus on growing organic traffic or paid traffic? That is a question you may not be asking, but there is a good chance that what you're doing to market your practice is pushing you one way or the other. First what is organic traffic? Well I define organic traffic as people visiting your website who you have no control over, so that means search engine traffic, social media distribution that you don't pay for, direct type in traffic and referral from links in other sites. Paid traffic is what you pay for, so adwords, facebook ads, twitter ads, bing ads, etc. I know that lots of practices want to get as much organic traffic as possible and focus on SEO. While I think SEO is great, I think for most practices it is hard to scale, especially in the ways that they are executing it. So I jump into several topics that you're definitely going to want to consider when you're deciding what type of advertising to focus on and invest in.

Almost every veterinary practice has some type of traffic coming to it already. Just by the nature of being online and being a legitimate local business it is likely you're getting organic traffic to your site and your site may be working alright, but I guarantee it could be doing better! When you make improvements to your conversion it typically makes any marketing that you are doing more effective, so this is definitely something you're going to want to work on. In this episode I cover 5 tools that are tremendously helpful in creating higher conversion for your digital marketing. We talk about tools that help to measure engagement with your site, to things that help you create powerful landing pages and even touch on different means to engage with potential clients. The best thing about improving conversion is that tiny incremental improvements make huge differences over time. Imagine making small tweaks to your marketing that helps you increase your opt ins by 1 or 2 or even 3 each day. This little difference would help you generate anywhere from 365-1,095 new potential clients who you can communicate with. This could make a huge difference for your practice from a financial aspect.

Often times I hear veterinary professionals say how overwhelming learning digital marketing can be, and I totally get it, there is so much to learn and implement. What kind of marketing should you be doing, should you focus on this social media platform, is your website good enough? You could do marketing full time for your practice and still be constantly learning and keeping up with new things and ideas, so if you add managing a practice in there it makes it a lot more difficult. Around 3 and a half months ago, Dr. Karen Metzler from Summerfields Animal Hospital in Fort Worth Texas reached out to me from listening to the podcast. She was just starting to learn about digital marketing and since then has grown a tremendous amount in her knowledge and ability to apply what she learns. I asked her to come onto the podcast because I think we can learn a ton from her. Dr. Metzler graduated from Texas A&M's, College of Veterinary Medicine in 1997. She has experience in emergency medicine as wells as general practice. She has specific interests in surgery, dentistry, internal medicine, exotics and cardiology. If anyone is busy enough to have excuses to not learn or implement new ideas it is definitely Dr. Metzler. The topics I discuss in this interview include how to decide what to test, how much she feels that she needs to know about a subject, and much more. I know you'll find value in this week's episode so be sure to listen to the whole thing!

This week we have Dr. Dave Nicol on the podcast, and we talk about marketing strategies and principles that will help to grow your veterinary practice. Dr. Dave Nicol is a marketing expert who speaks internationally on veterinary marketing, management and staffing. Dr. Nicol has a very unique perspective on marketing because he owned a practice, which he just recently sold for a really nice return, that he grew by using digital marketing. We discuss everything from his ideas on social media and how to properly use social media for your veterinary practice, best practices for collecting emails, as well as a great way to quickly evaluate PPC and SEM agencies. We also dive into several marketing principles that have allowed Dr. Nicol to grow his client email lists so that he can drive clients into the practice and create paying clients.

In today's episode we get into the nuts and bolts of what actually makes good SEO for your website. We talk about best practices, things you should be doing and things you definitely need to avoid. If you want more organic traffic coming to your site then this is the episode for you. In last week's episode, we were able to set the foundation of how SEO works, what search engines do and what kind of expectations you should have in regards to SEO. Contrary to popular belief of many Veterinary Professionals, SEO isn't a magic wand that suddenly sends streams of traffic to your website on command. You need to wokr at SEO because it is constantly changing in order to try and give better results to people who are searching. With veterinary practices, local SEO is extremely important, and so when we talk about SEO in this week's episode, it is all about how to drive local searchers into your practice. There are 2 parts to SEO that we cover, on site SEO and off site SEO. First I cover on site SEO, or how to format and adjust your website so that it is optimized for search engines to identify your site and the content on it so that it can deliver it in relevant searches to potential clients. Off site SEO are things you can do that aren't on your website, but are things like link building, submiting site maps to webmaster tools and evaluating current links that you have pointing toward your site. Both are important and we cover the basics to make sure you're on the right track.

Almost everyone these days knows about SEO because SEO (or search engine optimization for those of you living under a rock) is an extremely important part of your veterinary practice's traffic. Online search through Google, Bing or Yahoo has become a part of life and has completely changed the way that people make purchases. In fact, now over 85% of people use online search to help make a buying decision in most of their purchases. So in this series about Search Engine Optimization, I'm trying to make SEO less mysterious and remove the misconceptions about what makes for good SEO and what you need to be avoiding. In this episode, part 1, I'll be covering more conceptual items. I'll tell you everything from how search engines work to how to get started and figure out what kind of keywords you want to be targeting. I also cover the different types of search queries people make and which ones are the most important for you to focus on for your practice. Everyone who does marketing for their practice will one time or another need to know how to speak the SEO language and at least have a basic understanding of how SEO works. I can't tell you how many times I've heard practice managers say "I need to call my web development company, they promised I would be in the first spot with my site" and think to myself, they have no idea what SEO actually is! After this series you should be able to either create a SEO plan for yourself, or if DIY SEO isn't for you, be able to speak intelligently with a SEO company to know what is possible and realistic.

Do you ever have trouble writing emails, email newsletters and getting your emails read? Lots of veterinary professionals have trouble with how to write emails, how often they should write emails how much content they should put in there. If you're like me you have probably heard everything from emails don't work to emails are a great tool. Well I happen to think emails are a great tool and they are something you can use to really boost engagement and business at your practice. In today's interview with Dr. Mike LoSasso, we go over all of the important things to consider when writing email marketing campaigns for your veterinary practice. Dr. Mike LoSasso is an expert copywriter and owner of Newslettersforvets.com, a service that writes your practice's monthly newsletters. Dr. LoSasso has a tremendous amount of experience having owned and run a veterinary practice and is currently an emergency veterinarian at Emergency Animal Hospital of Collin County, and he shares his wealth of knowledge in this episode. I feel that email is extremely important for your veterinary practice because this is a list that you actually own. With other marketing, like social media or search engine optimization, you have no control. You are essentially renting your lists as long as the platform lets you. Changes in SEO algorithms or policy changes within social media can make it difficult, especially if you aren't keeping up with everything. With email you get consistency and reliability(as long as you are consistent and reliable), the only issue is you have to get the emails opened to be effective. Not only did Dr. LoSasso share great info with us, he also created a special for Veterinary Marketing Podcast listeners where you can get two free months of newsletters created for you by visiting NewslettersForVets.com/VMP Items mentioned in this episode: Aweber.com Mailchimp.com NewslettersForVets.com/VMP

If you talk about paid digital ads, most times you'll be talking about Facebook ads, Facebook Dark Posts or Google Adwords. Of course all of these ad platforms have great potential, but are you overlooking something by not testing out Twitter ads? I think that twitter is seriously underestimated when it comes to their ad platform and it has the potential for veterinary practices to interact with and attract lots of clients. Twitter has 5 types of ad objectives that you can create, and I go over each ad type as well as the what the possible veterinary marketing ideas for each ad could be for each. Out of the five ad objectives that I go over, I think two have some really big potential for veterinary marketing. As apps become more popular ways for veterinary practices to market themselves, I think the app ad types will become really powerful tools for marketing. I also think that the twitter lead generation cards are really awesome because it lets you convert traffic natively instead of having to drive someone to a landing page and could prove to have higher conversion and lower cost.

Email is so important for your veterinary practice because it is a list that you actually own, and in this episode we'll be going over 3 major email marketing service providers and then some tips and tricks as to how you can build your email list faster. This is becoming increasingly important because social media, organic traffic and other sources of traffic and ways to connect with your clients can be changed based on the platform that you are using . When things like algorithm changes the ways clients can find and interact with your practice that could mean trouble! I know practices who have become increasingly frustrated with their inability to reach their clients on Facebook because their organic reach has dropped a ton in the past year. I think Facebook provides some pretty big insight into what the new normal will look like for social media platforms. When social media platforms begin to acquire users on a mass scale, in most cases that is what they are most interested in, building as many users as possible. Once these platforms mature however, they also begin to develop their ad platforms as well, and when this happens I think it will be inevitable for organic reach to drop pretty severely pretty quickly. Why is this all really important to a practice and their email list though? Well, when you own your list, and can communicate whenever you would like, then you have the ability to be in control. Not only will building a solid email list give you better control, but it also allows you to build marketing lists for sites like Linkedin and Facebook. This means that email could be a really consistent source of business for your veterinary practice and one of the first steps to building a healthy email list is figuring out how to build the list and which email service provider to use.

In this episode we talk all about Google Analytics for your veterinary practice. Everything from how to install it to what data you should be looking at, how often and how to look at it. Measuring your marketing is one of the most important things you can do and I would go so far as to say that if you can't measure your marketing you're just guessing and that it probably. Without proper measurement, your marketing is just guessing, and not even educated guessing. The truth is, that most marketing results in failure (leasons) and because of this, when you end up with a winner, you'll want to know it! I'll also be showing you how to automate this as much as possible so that you don't have to think about it. One of the things Google Analytics does really well is it shows you if there are any serious problems or opportunities that you wouldn't have know about otherwise. You'll also be able to see if certain types of traffic are doing better than others, like mobile vs tablet vs desk top or if social media traffic converts better than SEO Traffic. I also talk about how automate Analytics report by email so that you don't have to spend time constantly logging in to check.

In this episode I interview Dr. Braden Collins, from Bunbury Veterinary Clinic in Western Australia about his social media and content marketing. I initially met Dr. Collins from the podcast, when I mentioned I was doing a Facebook case study to get new clients. Dr. Collins was kind enough to let me try some new client acquisition strategies and we've been keeping in touch ever since. Since I was able to run tests in his market I discovered a few things, first his target market on Facebook was around 30,000 people, which isn't that large of an area, and he is consistently reaching a large number of those people and has around 1,500 likes on his page. That is impressive, 5% of his market likes his page! Each post he gets out reaches between 5-10% of his market consistently with a small marketing budget as we discuss on this episode. We talk about everything from content creation, to contests at holidays to reaching out and get his stories covered by local news. Dr. Collins shares a bunch of really great and practical insights that will absolutely help you market your veterinary practice. Be sure to listen to this entire episode!

One of the most important questions you can ask yourself for your veterinary practice is, "What does my ideal client look like?". Finding common elements between your best clients can really help you to grow and build your practice. Most businesses don't have a way to track this, but almost every veterinary practice is building a database that is a goldmine inside their practice software. Don't overlook how important and powerful this can be for you. The data that you already have could translate into better demographic targeting on your facebook advertising to knowing where to send direct mail campaigns.

Your domain name is like the real estate that your website sits on and it is extremely important for both search engine traffic as well as type in traffic. In this episode I show you how to potentially find new domain names that you can use to forward passive traffic and generate steady streams of new potential clients. Not only that I go over if you should ever buy a domain name, what I think about extensions other than .com like .net .org .info .blog and on. Some people think that the .com isn't that imporant but I know that it absolutely is! You're missing out on traffic if you aren't using a .com. One thing I will say is that I can't comment on extensions in other countries like the .com.au. I haven't had enough first hand experience to comment. I have been getting questions about what do do if you are rebranding a practice, like in instances of practices being sold and then the name changed, so I go over that.

You've probably heard about Snapchat, and unless you're under 25 chances are you aren't using it, not yet anyways. As is with most mobile apps or social networks younger demographics tend to flock to places before they become mainstream. What I think sets Snapchat apart from other apps and social media platforms is that large sized companies like CNN, Discovery Channel, VICE, ESPN and others are all creating native content and paying lots of money to show up in the discover section. Dr. Cody Creelman is a beef cattle veterinarian and practice owner of Veterinary Agri-Health Services in Alberta, Canada. His veterinary interests include bovine pathology, large animal surgery, cow/calf and feedlot production medicine. Cody is also very passionate about veterinary mobile technology. This includes consulting on veterinary application design projects, as well as digital marketing and social media platforms. Check him out on his website, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat (creelmancody), Vine, or YouTube…… he is active on them all! We go over Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter's new native video platform.

Want to make email easier, less annoying and a tool to help you grow your veterinary practice? In this episode I go over 3 email marketing tools that help you do just that. This episode we talk about ways to better engage and communicate with clients while taking less time to do it. Want to know how to schedule emails so that you can set it and forget it with personalized emails, or how about see what your clients are up to on their social media accounts without having to go into a new tab and search. I discuss all this and more so be sure to listen!

Amazon is a monster. You're probably frustrated if you've ever tried to sell anything to compete with Amazon, but they don't have to be competition. In this episode I go over three ways to use Amazon to help attract, engage and retain your clients. I'll show you how to self publish a book using Createspace.com, Amazon's self publishing platform, as well as Amazon Giveaways and lastly fulfillment by Amazon or their FBA program.

Search engine optimization is definitely an important way to generate traffic to your website, but it can seem like a mystery. In today's episode we talk SEO and copywriting with Pam Foster. The biggest bang for your buck with your veterinary practice will be local seo, where you try and target people in your local area who are using search terms that are relevant to your practice. Pam Foster is Managing Editor, Community Content & Media for the NAVC and is the Marketing Faculty Advisor on the CE website VetFolio.com . Pam is a Certified SEO Copywriter and the co-author of Wildly Profitable Marketing for the PetIndustry. She's also a regular columnist for Veterinary Advantage magazine. She specializes in helping veterinary practices and other industry organizations thrive through strategic marketing content, online and offline -- and can be reached at PetCopywriter.com.

Almost all large sized companies have apps, but if you don't have a huge marketing budget or don't know how to code a mobile app creating a mobile app for your veterinary practice has probably been out of your reach. Several listeners suggested that I interview Mary Shields at In Touch Mobile CEO and Founder of The Vet App. In this episode I go over many of the features that The Vet App offers and talk about cool ways to market your practice by creating a mobile app for your veterinary practice. The Vet App does tons of cool things, from interacting with your clients on social media to allowing you to do push notifications to drive clients who have downloaded your app. To find out more about the vet app visit www.PetVetApp.com This week's episode is sponsored by Danielle Lambert at SnoutSchool.com visit www.SnoutSchool.com/Brandon to get a free social media training course.

Facebook is probably the single best way to grow your practice right now. That is a bold statement but I really believe it is true. You can get in depth demographics to choose from and can start with as little as $1. Danielle Lambert from Snoutschool.com shares her secrets to Facebook ads and marketing. We talk about the 3 different types of ads that you can run and when you should run each type. We talk about everything from boosting posts to creating dark posts.

Making mistakes in marketing is inevitable. It is actually the whole point of marketing. You need to find out what works and more importantly what doesn't work because if something isn't working and you keep spending or relying on that you'll likely go broke or out of business. I've made lots of mistakes when marketing and in this week's episode I talk about the four biggest ones I've made when creating this business. Here's what we'll be going over in today's episode so that you don't have to make the same mistakes in your veterinary practice's marketing! Not using the resources you already have Not creating compelling content and staying in front of my audience Not using leadmagnets and creating content around my offers I was doing social media wrong, and what I did about it. I am certain that I will continue to make mistakes but as long as I learn and grow from them I'll just become a better marketer, so do the same.

Chances are you are already on Linkedin, but I bet you're not using it to its fullest. Have you ever though of trying to attract new clients using Linkedin? I haven't seen anyone trying to use Linkedin to get new clients, but every day, well paid professionals are there being completely untapped. On This episode I'll show you how: Making your personal profile look better, and perform better by doing a few simple tweaks. Not doing the number one thing that I see most veterinary professionals do that make them plain and boring To quickly add tons of new contacts To connect with potential referral sources To create targeted niche groups and what they can do for your practice To use what you're likely already doing on Facebook to publish content for your company page.