The Veterinary Marketing Podcast

In this episode we will talk about 6 really important marketing strategies that you absolutely need to be using at your veterinary practice. Things are always changing, and opportunities that are here today won't be here next year. Discover simple ways that you will be able to make incremental improvements in your marketing which will turn into retaining more current clients and attracting new clients.

Getting new clients at an affordable price is an amazing skill set for you to have for your practice and in this episode I show you a strategy on how to do just that! Leadmagnets are what we talk about. I tell you what lead magnets are, 8 general types of lead magnets and then how to deliver your lead magnets. With lead magnets, the goal is to create a piece of content that can provide nearly immediate value to a person who is a highly targeted potential client. The best part of lead magnets are that they don't need to be massive pieces of content that are time consuming to create, in fact the more short and specific they are the better! Don't miss this episode it could help you add bunches of clients to your practice! Items Mentioned in this episode: LeadpagesCanvaEpisode 21 on Dark Posts

In this episode I get to interview Dr. Andy Roark, who is an expert at creating awesome content for the veterinary industry. As Dr. Roark mentions, with social media and the internet almost everyone has a larger voice and a greater ability to reach more people than ever, the only problem is lots of the Veterinary industry isn't using this to their advantage. Dr. Roark shows us how to engage clients better and how to become a better story teller, while helping to educate your clients and build a better relationship. We talk about everything from his new Youtube show, The Cone of Shame, to how he comes up with ideas for his new content. This episode is packed full of awesome stuff, so be sure and listen to the whole interview! If you've been living under a rock, and never heard of Dr. Andy Roark, he is a national award-winning columnist for DVM360, and regular contributor to Vetstreet.com. He also writes frequently for a number of other publications. Dr. Roark has served on the Veterinary Team Brief Advisory Board and the National Veterinary Business Management Association Advisory Board. He owns his own consulting firm, and is a member of the VetPartners consulting group.

Let's be honest though, you have a full time work schedule, so maybe you don't have time to go out and do research, write content or shoot video. Obviously the best possible way to create content would be to do some really great research, write long posts, or shoot amazing video but not everyone can do that. So I'm going to be showing you ways from doing zero work to doing only a little work in a few strategies that will cut down the time that you need because conntent creation is really important for you and your marketing.

Staying in front of current clients and potential clients is what you need to do to provide the best possible care to your clients and the best way(in my opinion) to do this is to use facebook advertising. I've spoken a lot about facebook in other episodes, but in this episode, we go over how to spice it up a little. In this episode I show you why you should be using the power editor, how to execute darkposts and then Facebook's new location based ads for driving local clients into your practice.

It is impossible to make everyone happy. Mistakes happen, and people's expectations aren't met. When this happens you can sometimes get negative reviews at your practice. Assuming that you're trying to do your best to provide the best service possible to your clients, this episode talks about how to limit your negative exposure and how to even build better relationships with clients who have a bad experience. We talk about three case studies where companies didn't handle their negative reviews properly and some where it was handled in a great way so that we can learn the best way to deal with criticism. Nowadays it is not enough to get reviews, but we now live in a society where everyone who owns a cell phone is a photo journalist and is has the potential to spread the word about your practice, whether that is good or bad.

Every practice needs to be on Google Adwords, even if you aren't actively trying to attract clients through direct response advertising. Google adwords is an extremely powerful advertising system that you could build an entire practice on if you wanted. In this episode we just go over the tip of the iceberg and I show you what you should be doing, what you definitely shouldn't be doing and how to hopefully avoid wasting or losing tons of money on Google Adwords. We cover everything from how to choose what kind of a keyword match to use to your ads to best practices when setting up campaigns. If you haven't ever used Adwords this will be a great starting place, and if you have you'll likely find some good tricks to optimize your advertising ROI.

Should you be using video at your practice? In this episode, I talk to Dr. Cody Creelman on why you should be creating epic content and engaging with clients with videos. 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 talk about using Vine, Youtube, Instagram and Twitter at your practice. Not only do we talk about using video to attract and engage clients, but we also talk about really creative ideas like attracting potential employees to your practice as well. Also mentioned in this episode, if you want to be better at social media and make your practice stand out, check out Danielle Lamber and SnoutSchool.com. Podcast listeners can check out a Free on demand course at SnoutSchool.com/brandon

Holidays are a really imporant time to connect with your clients, and in this episode I go over several items that you need to make sure that your practice is doing during every holiday season. Especially since Christmas and Thanksgiving are right around the corner, you have some really great opportunities to engage your clients and build strong relationships. I also go over how to get referrals using holiday giveaways, ways to partner with potential clients as well as a pretty unique way to get donations from your clients to do charity work and make a big impact on clients in your area who might not be able to afford care.

Mobile marketing is becoming increasingly important for you and your practice to keep up. For the first time in history, mobile browsing surpassed desktop browsing in early 2014. A lot of your clients are using their phones to find you, are you ready for when they do? In this episode, I'll show you easy ways to optimize your google adwords using callouts specific for mobile, your landing pages, your website and your emails so that if someone is using their phone they be happy with the experience that they get. Right now is a great opportunity to optimize for mobile and put yourself ahead of the competition.

In this episode, I talk about a strategy that helps you get in front of more highly targeted potential clients that can help lead to a steady stream of referrals. What I discuss also helps you to create great content for your website, expand your social media presence and help to build great brand image for your practice.

On this episode we have Danielle Lambert, social media coach and expert who was on Episode 3 and talked about pinterest. Twitter is a huge force and chances are that a large portion of your clients are spending time on Twitter. Are you doing a good job engaging, and attracting clients through your Twitter account? In this episode we talk about whether or not you should even be worried about twitter, what the best way to use twitter is and tons of other great twitter info.

Marketing is all about measurement. The only way to tell if a marketing piece or campaign is actually working is to measure its results. So often veterinary practice owners just through all their marketing into the pot and don't really know where the majority of their traffic is coming from. In today's episode we talk about 4 specific tools that help you to measure what is working and what isn't. Most marketing fails, especially if you aren't a pro at it. The key is to find out what is working so that you can increase that and stop the ineffective or expensive marketing.

Reviews are incredibly important for you and your practice because they provide social proof for potential clients that your practice is the place to go. In this episode, I talk about how to engage your current clients so that you can rack up positive reviews and drive new clients by providing the feedback they need to choose your practice. I also talk about some pretty cool tricks on how to encourage reviews by using retargeting and google adwords placements. I will show you how to deal with negative reviews as well.

Even the best, most optimized websites don't convert all traffic and in today's episode I talk about something most practices aren't doing but should be: retargeting. Retargeting is the practice of advertising to people who visit your websites. It is a way to build a list without having an opt in. If you have an ecommerce site or if you send traffic your website through advertising retargeting helps you target missed opportunites. In this episode I talk about retargeting on Facebook, google's ad networks, Yahoo and Bing's ad networks and Amazon.

In this episode I show you how to stay a step ahead of your competition by knowing what they are up to. Let's face it, the veterinary industry is competitive, and with more veterinary students graduating and getting into the work force it is only going to get more competitive. Luckily, there are tools that can help you find what your competition is up to so that you can see what is likely working, as well as areas that provide opportunities for Search Engine Optimization, direct ad buys for search engine marketing and social media for your veterinary practice.

In this episode I interview Jared Cullop and Brian Macrae on how to create a website that helps your practice grow. Your website really is the backbone of your marketing and can help you drive clients through the door, but it has to be done right. Jared is the owner of JCI Marketing and not only is his company a web development company but they also do beautiful web design, SEO, branding, and social media management. Jared is not only veterinary specific but also handles a large variety of other small business web sites, and I think this is important because most of the time people in the veterinary industry only hear from veterinary specific companies. Jared shares some great insight into what it takes to make your site the very best so that it can beat the competition and really work to grow revenue at your practice. Brian Macrae from Rethink Veterinary Solutions also offers some great insight because he has seen hundreds of veterinary websites and branding and sees areas in the industry that need to be addressed.

Dr Google is often accredited by veterinary professionals as being a reason for a decrease in compliance, frequency of visits and clients coming in at all! In this episode I show you how to beat Dr. Google while at the same time benefiting by getting more reviews, creating great content and getting more search engine traffic.

Wellness plans are a huge marketing topic right now, aiming to increase compliance and keep customers at your clinic, but is there a better way? In this episode of the veterinary marketing podcast, I interview Brian Macrae, founder of RethinkVetSolutions.com a company helping practices all over attract engage and retain clients by creating an easy to implement wellness rewards program. We discuss how practices are increasing compliance, reducing the need for discounting and turning their clients into paying members binding them to the practice.

Paying clients who visit your practice, the people who you're trying to find by doing different marketing spends, are walking in your practice every day, why not build an email list and market to them? A bird in the hand, right? So in this episode, I go over how to approach your email marketing and talk about many tricks that will help you grow your list, increase open rates and drive clients to your practice. I also talk about a super awesome way to increase open rates and permission, don't miss this episode!

Facebook may be the best way to find and engage with your current clients and potential ones. You can almost instantly create ads that drive your current and new clients to offers and content and immediately track results. Best of all even on a shoestring budget, you can generate new potential clients and in this episode I'll go over the best ways for veterinary practices to use facebook to engage current clients, find new clients and then sell on facebook so that you can turn facebook fans into actual paying clients at your practice.

Social media is a huge and often confusing topic. In this session of the Veterinay Marketing Podcast I show you how to approach social media and how to avoid being as terrible at social media as everyone else is! Social media is such a powerful tool and when used correctly it can help grow your practice to huge success, find out how on this session!

Pinterest can help you grow your practice and Danielle Lambert shows us how on this episode of the veterinary marketing podcast. Pinterest is a great tool and it is a great way to reach new clients, and engage with the ones you currently have. In this episode I interview Danielle Lambert who is a practice manager and a social media expert who teaches veterinary professionals how to leverage social media in their practice to get success. It is very likely that a high percentage of your clients are on Pinterest frequently, so check out this episod and find out how to tap into this awesome resource, because Pinterest in one Social Media outlet that has a very long lifespan to the work you put in .

So many veterinary practices have terrible websites, they are really out dated or even sometimes non existent. In this episode we cover: if you should create your own website or if you should have someone create it for you, the best method of creating a website, best practices for your website and web presence and some of my favorite tools for tracking and getting found online.

In the first session of the Veterinary Marketing Podcast I give an introduction to the podcast and myself your host. We go over show formalities and what the main purpose of the podcast will be.