Posts Tagged ‘Veterinary Marketing’
Wednesday, May 1st, 2013
The headlines and phone calls continue to focus on the pharmaceutical component of the veterinary world. Whether it is the re-directing of Super-Products (Flea/Tick, Heartworm, Pain) or the online pharmacy world of PetMedExpress and their American and Canadian brethren or the brick and mortar challengers of Costco, Walmart, CVS, Walgreen, the small animal veterinary pharmacy will NEVER be the same.
For as long as I can remember, the pricing of veterinary pharmaceuticals never had ANY science associated with it. For that matter, I’m not sure the pricing of veterinary office calls had any science behind it. I remember opening my practice in 1989 and the suggested cost for an office call was 100 times the price for a postage stamp ($0.25). So my initial office call was ….ta da $27.00. I didn’t want to be ‘average’. (more…)
Tags: Beyond Indigo Pets, Marketing, Online Pharmacy, Peter Weinstein, Veterinary Marketing
Posted in Marketing, Peter Weinstein, Veterinary Marketing | Comments Off
Wednesday, April 24th, 2013
The idea of allowing veterinary students to pick an area to focus on while in veterinary school is not a new one. When I was in vet school at Cornell in the early ‘90’s, we didn’t track but other schools, like Colorado State, did.
At the time, it was easy to see both sides of the argument. Those in favor of tracking believe that, for example, the city girl from Denver who has no interest in becoming an equine veterinarian would be better served by spending as much time in small animal medicine as possible. While she would need to learn some very basic information about non-focus species (like the fact that cows are ruminants but not necessarily what an LDA was), her future lay elsewhere. (more…)
Tags: Beyond Indigo Pets, Mark Olcott, Tracking, Veterinary Marketing, Veterinary School, Veterinary Students
Posted in Mark Olcott, Veterinary Marketing, Veterinary Student | Comments Off
Wednesday, April 17th, 2013
It’s 2013. It seems like only yesterday, television had 3 channels; FM radio was the new thing; a web was spun by a spider; and electric cars were something out of futuristic TV show like the “Jetsons”. In 1973, I started to volunteer as a veterinary hospital in Port Washington, NY. How cool was that?
People would come in with their pets to see the doctor; get their pets their exam and vaccinations, get their rabies certificates, get their pet’s fixed, etc., etc. And people were happy. Pets were happy. And the doctors seemed to be doing pretty well financially.
Fast forward to 2013–to almost any small animal hospital in the country. People come in with their pets to see the doctor; get their pets their exam and vaccinations; get their rabies certificates; get their pet’s fixed, etc., etc. And people seem happy. Pets seem happy. And the doctors seem to be in suspended animation. Doing it the same way in 2013 as they did in 1973.
The world has changed. Why not veterinary medicine? Because, to quote George Bernard Shaw, “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” (more…)
Tags: Beyond Indigo Pets, Peter Weinstein, Successful Veterinary Practice, Veterinary Marketing
Posted in Content, Peter Weinstein, Veterinary Marketing | Comments Off
Wednesday, April 10th, 2013
I’m sure most of you have read the recent article in the NY Times that had to do with the increasing difficulties facing new veterinary graduates. (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/business/high-debt-and-falling-demand-trap-new-veterinarians.html?ref=veterinarymedicine&_r=0). I, like many of you, dreamed of being a veterin
arian from a very early age, but between vanishing job prospects and student loan burdens, it’s clear that new graduates are facing a very different profession than the one I entered in 1995. I came away from this thought-provoking article with two main thoughts that I’d like to discuss here.
First, I believe the saddest part of this high debt/flat income story is that it reinforces that the financial awareness of the average American is very low. While many veterinary schools are trying to better educate their students to the economic realities of veterinary medicine, much remains to be done. Every high school and college student, no matter what their career aspirations, must decide for themselves if spending 8 or more years of college and incurring mid-six figures in student debt will enable them to find the kind of job necessary to pay off those loans and have enough left over for a decent life. (more…)
Tags: Beyond Indigo Pets, Mark Olcott, New York Times Article, School Debt, Veterinary Marketing, Veterinary Response, Veterinary Students
Posted in Mark Olcott | Comments Off
Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013
For our final discussion of Marketing, we turn to probably the most important one of all, namely, people. Although you could define this in many ways, I’m going to define it narrowly as the people you have on your hospital team.
Mark Opperman is right when he says, “It’s what’s up front that counts”. This means that your outward facing team needs to be completely client focused at all times: the little things count. I don’t mean just your front desk staff either, as that is far too narrow a definition in today’s highly connected world. Ask yourself how many people on your team NEVER interact with clients? I’d bet the answer is almost always “None”. Even the kennel assistants at our hospital are responsible for interacting with clients when they pick up/drop off patients to be boarded. (more…)
Tags: 5 P's to Veterinary Marketing, Beyond Indigo Pets, Mark Olcott, People, Staff, Veterinary Marketing
Posted in Mark Olcott, Marketing, Veterinary Marketing | Comments Off
Wednesday, March 27th, 2013
As we continue our discussion of the marketing mix that today’s successful practice owners should be implementing, it’s time we turn to the concept of “place”. For our use, place is synonymous with distribution: how do your clients receive products and services from you? The obvious answer is “at the clinic”, and that might have been the end of the discussion when I graduated from vet school in 1995. In 2013, however, the complete answer is far more complex than that. Where else are you providing service to your clients? The Internet has completely revolutionized the idea of “place” with respect to the traditional definition of marketing mix. Truth be told, this is the one “P” that has changed the most in the digital revolution.
While the concept of “place” might be irrelevant to Dropbox (www.dropbox.com), it’s still relevant for veterinary practices. In order to understand a bit more about the marketing mix for today’s modern veterinary hospitals, we have to get beyond just the “bricks and mortar” definition of a medical facility. For example, where do your clients want to find you on the Internet? What are they looking for when they do find you? Can your clients request prescription refills online? Schedule appointments? I presume you have a website, which is a good start, but remember that having a lame website is almost as bad as having no website at all. (more…)
Tags: 5 P's of Veterinary Marketing, Beyond Indigo Pets, Mark Olcott, Place, Veterinary Marketing
Posted in Mark Olcott, Product Marketing | Comments Off
Wednesday, March 13th, 2013
As we continue our discussion of the “5 P’s of Marketing”, this week we are focused on Promotion. It wasn’t that long ago that differentiation for a veterinary practice meant how your Yellow Pages ad looked compared to those of the other veterinary hospitals in town. Today, our society has become so connected through sites like Angie’s List, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, that traditional means of promoting your practice, like print advertising, aren’t as effective as they once were. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that having anything more than a 1-2 line ad in your local yellow pages is a waste of money. “Creative destruction” has largely relegated these bulky tomes to the ashbin of history, right next to buggy whips and Walkmans. Instead, your money would be far better spent on a social media campaign, as detailed below.
Digital strategist Chris Horton claims there are four broad reasons why social media-as-promotion is effective for businesses: (more…)
Tags: 5 P's of Veterinary Marketing, Beyond Indigo Pets, Mark Olcott, Promotion, Veterinary Marketing
Posted in Digital Marketing, Mark Olcott, Marketing, Veterinary Marketing | Comments Off
Wednesday, February 27th, 2013
Trust is the first word that comes to mind when describing a meaningful and lasting relationship. Next may be the word respect. When consumers trust and respect their veterinary hospital employees, a true relationship has formed. Unlike transactions based on price and convenience, relationships based on trust and respect last for long periods of time. Clients will give a high rating to clinic relationships that display empathy, compassion, and competence.
When clinic owners make hiring and evaluation decisions, they should look at each candidate or employee through the eyes of their most critical clients. Every position in the clinic plays a critical roll in garnering the trust and respect of each client. Clinic owners and leaders are reselling the services of his or her staff in the veterinary clinic. To create a lasting relationship, employees have to provide sound reasons for each client to highly value his or her experience and desire to return in the future.
Pet owners who have a relationship with their pet care provider not only bring their pets in for wellness visits and sick care visits, but also they refer their friends and acquaintances to the clinic as well. They do this because they want others to have the same benefits they receive when interacting with clinic staff. They understand that supporting their favorite clinic is just as important as the clinic providing excellent health care for their pets. (more…)
Tags: Beyond Indigo Pets, Client Relationship, G. Lynn Davis, Marketing to the Relationship, Veterinary Marketing
Posted in Content, G. Lynn Davis, Marketing, Online Reputation Management, Online Reviews | Comments Off
Wednesday, February 20th, 2013
Last time we talked about Price and the role it plays in marketing your veterinary practice. Today I’m going to discuss another of the “5 P’s” of marketing, namely, Product. In veterinary practices, we sell both tangible products (i.e. prescription food) and intangible services (i.e. sick pet visits), though every practice has a different mix of products and services. As few veterinary practices actually produce products, acting more as “resellers” of prepackaged items they purchased elsewhere, the service component of our businesses is by far the most important “product” we offer.
Practice owners need to be constantly growing their business because there is no “treading water”: you’re either growing or dying. And I believe that one highly effective way to grow your practice is to focus on the little things that have an outsized effect on the way your clients and employees view you. That’s right….the way your internal clients (i.e. employees) view you will play a big role in how they act in front of clients. Especially in a service business where clients have a choice of where to go, little things matter. If they see you cutting corners, they’re going to cut corners. If something is not important to you, it won’t be important to them. If you don’t return client calls enthusiastically, it will send a message that client communication isn’t that important.
So what are some other examples of the “little things” that matter? (more…)
Tags: 5 P's of Veterinary Marketing, Mark Olcott, Product, Veterinary Marketing
Posted in Mark Olcott, Marketing, Product Marketing, Veterinary Marketing | Comments Off
Wednesday, January 16th, 2013
When a person goes on a Journey we think of a trip that has multiple stops and extends over a period of time. Other times we use the word “Journey” to mean a process that is an every changing that allows us to grow and develop. It is time to think of your marketing program as a “Journey”. A process that involves more than one “stop” and is every changing and every growing. Why? Because frame of mind is everything to embracing a process. If you are still in the mentality that you check the box once a year on your marketing and then go back to medicine, then your business has a higher chance of not maintaining and gaining new relationships. Lack of maintaining relationships could mean less customers and that would be suboptimal.
For your marketing Journey there are a few essentials to sneak into your travel back pack that will be your roadmap and guide along the way. Every aspect of your marketing should fall into these guidelines.
(more…)
Tags: Beyond Indigo Pets Marketing, Beyond Indigo Veterinary Marketing, Facebook, Search Engine Optimization, social media marketing, traffic, Veterinary Marketing
Posted in Content, Digital Marketing, Facebook, Google, Marketing, Social media, Veterinary Marketing | Comments Off
Email Newsletter
Close
The headlines and phone calls continue to focus on the pharmaceutical component of the veterinary world. Whether it is the re-directing of Super-Products (Flea/Tick, Heartworm, Pain) or the online pharmacy world of PetMedExpress and their American and Canadian brethren or the brick and mortar challengers of Costco, Walmart, CVS, Walgreen, the small animal veterinary pharmacy will NEVER be the same.
