Do These 3 Things To Get Clients In The Doors At Your Veterinary Practice

Shifting focus from growing your veterinary practice is easy to do when appointment books are full. Now, clinics all over are experiencing a noticeable drop in client appointments. So, how do you keep clients coming through the door?

Our very own practice manager extraordinaire, Stephanie Goss, sat down recently with Bill Schroeder, Vice President and owner of InTouch Practice Communications, a full-service digital marketing agency focused on driving business for organizations in the veterinary industry, to discuss key tips for veterinary practices to keep clients coming in.

Pet owners are searching less for veterinary services

Clinics that had been booked a solid six, eight, and twelve weeks out are now full only one week out or once again seeing same-day openings available.?

With nearly 30 years of experience marketing and growing businesses within the veterinary field, Bill has presented at conferences all over the world, including the Uncharted Veterinary Conference sharing useful insights and tools to empower clinics to take control of their digital presence.?

According to Bill, veterinary clinics are once again up against a unique set of circumstances. After adapting to the new demands of COVID, a lot of practices stopped focusing on growing the business, not just in terms of new clients, but existing ones as well. In many cases, clinic marketing engines weren't running as often, or efficiently, or were sometimes even turned off.?

Evaluating client experiences against real-time market data and listening posts, Bill and the team at InTouch have discovered that pet owners are looking less for veterinary services than they have in the past. Search volume trends for key business-driving topics for the veterinary industry are down as much as 40% over last year in some markets. In other words, a pet owner's intent to visit a practice with a need for veterinary services is down.?

As appointments slow and practices are seeing more gaps in their schedule it’s time to lean into marketing your clinic and services. Here are three tools Bill recommends that have worked and are working for veterinary practices that can help your business grow in this landscape.

1. Capitlize on same-day availability and the urgent care trend

According to a recent study released by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), approximately 55% of pet owners define themselves as transient. When combined with price sensitivity in the current market, there is an increased risk of a client moving from your practice to the next.??

Bill’s first tip is to acknowledge that this transient clientele can be a potential opportunity for you to cater to that pet owner’s need for convenience or urgency by leveraging same-day availability.

“Your practice is a business, and at the end of the day, we should be filling up as many of those appointments as possible and marketing to the opportunity that is an open time slot.”

By intentionally capitalizing on same-day appointments and labeling them as urgent care, you can differentiate your practice and market to both new and existing clients. Your same-day availability now helps fill a gap between general practitioners and emergency clinics that again can cater to both convenience and urgency.

Create space in your schedule specific to what is appropriate for your clinic and its market, label it as urgent care, align your team and your marketing, and capture the transient client.

2. Focus on optimizing your digital profiles and reviews

Bill’s second tip is all about optimizing and drawing in organic search traffic. It starts with your clinic’s Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business). At InTouch, “we see the greatest amount of organic traffic come through there.”?

A Google Business Profile is powered by practice location, the number and quality of Google reviews, and Google Maps.?

To optimize a Google Business Profile as a resource for your clinic review the following:

• Are your business hours correct?
• Are there current pictures of your business? Consider including a street view photo of your building, pictures that reflect your culture, pets you’ve treated, etc. Put yourself in the shoes of a pet owner. What would you like to see when evaluating a veterinary practice?
• Are there current reviews posted?

Ensuring your Google profiles are up-to-date will serve your practice well when clients are looking for your services, but it’s not the only digital profile to watch. Other resources such as Apple Maps and Yahoo!, which are driven by Yelp reviews, are important to maintain to draw organic traffic — local pet owners — to your business.

3. Pay to play with Google Ads, and consider outsourcing it

There is a lot of noise out there in the market and while having a strong organic online presence is necessary, it can be a channel clogged with competing businesses. Google Ads is a tool that when used well can help your business to more directly reach pet owners looking for your services.

It’s Bill’s third tip to help drive clients into your clinic, and one he recommends not tackling on your own.

A sentiment that hit home for Stephanie having tried to manage Google Ad campaigns during her time as a practice manager.

“As a manager, it was always confusing to me. It was the thing that I knew that I needed to do. But I didn't know what I was doing… So I threw money at it and tried the thing… I think a lot of us have this experience where we try it. And we're like, I spent $300 on that and I got nothing back. That's a frustrating experience because we don't know what we don't know.”

The tactics and algorithms that make for successful Google Ad campaigns are constantly evolving and require staying up-to-date with keywords, search traffic patterns, copywriting, and other techniques. Leaning on a company, professional, or dedicated team member to advise on a strategy that fits your business in your market can be a great benefit.?

Whether you are outsourcing or managing in-house, here are some tips Bill recommends to be successful:

• Have a deep understanding of what you define as a conversion (taking someone from one state to the next); ie: they haven’t called the practice to book an appointment and then they call to book the appointment.
• If you’re spending less than $500 a month on your ad campaigns, you’re likely not spending enough. Evaluate the opportunity within your market, decide what you’re willing to pay for a conversion, and plan your budget accordingly.
• When running ads, use call tracking so you can (1) track calls specifically coming from your ad, and (2) listen to the calls that are coming in from the ad. This is a great way to validate the traffic and your campaign.

It’s time to re-prioritize and lean into marketing your clinic and services.?

By optimizing your digital profiles for organic search traffic, capitalizing on same-day appointments, and running creative, responsible Google Ad campaigns, you can attract both new and existing clients into your clinic.?

Catch up with more tips from Bill in this Uncharted Podcast episode Top 3 Things Practices MUST Be Doing To Keep Clients Coming In The Doors.