Marketing goals should not be set in stone. Sometimes goals change, and that’s okay! How can you tell when it is necessary to adjust your focus, and more importantly, implement these changes? We have some great tips to help you navigate when and how to shift your veterinary marketing goals:

Seasonal Shifts & Promotional Periods

Different seasons bring different opportunities for veterinary marketing strategies. January is a great time to encourage clients (or prospective clients!) to book for their annual wellness visits, for example. Campaigns focused around a New Year and new goals can help you catch the attention of your audience. Here are a few examples of how you can incorporate the change of seasons into your veterinary marketing:

• Seasonal safety: If you live in a place with extreme weather conditions, you can use your seasonal campaigns to share safety tips and encourage veterinary visits. Create campaigns around weather safety, allergies and monthly preventives to remind clients the importance of preparing for certain seasons.
• Holiday marketing: Take advantage of upcoming holidays with creative marketing campaigns. A Halloween pet photo contest is always a great way to get engagement, for example.
• Specialty months: Each month has some kind of animal-focused holiday, which you can use to enhance your veterinary marketing. Plan ahead before next year’s dental month by creating targeted ad campaigns offering promotions for people who sign up for pet dental cleanings during a certain period. 

Historically Slow Periods

February and September are typically slow months in the veterinary industry, but some clinics might experience dips during different parts of the year. If you know that a certain time of year is slower in your clinic, take advantage of your veterinary marketing capabilities and ramp up your efforts before it happens. Try to temporarily increase your ad budget to try to offset these decreases in visits. Increasing budget for ads that display for general veterinary terms via Google ads, or increasing budget for general wellness via Facebook may help to offset slower months.

New Client Overload

Sometimes you have to change your marketing strategy because it’s working too well and you have too many clients. Whether you’ve lost some integral support staff or you just have appointments booked out for months, the last thing you want is more clients in those moments.

Instead of stopping marketing completely, shift your goals. By changing focus from new client acquisition to engagement, you are building awareness that can be converted to new clients at a later time without losing your ranking. A good way to do this is to lower your budget on a google ads campaign that drives new client interest and allocate it to an engagement/branding campaign. You can then communicate with those new followers at a later time through organic (unpaid) Facebook posts.

Specific Service Decline

As you go through your practice management software, try to pay attention to any services that seem to be declining in popularity. If you notice your boarding numbers are looking bleak, or fewer people are signing up for monthly preventives, it might be time for a marketing shift. You might want to move budget away from awareness and branding campaigns to conversion-focused campaigns, for example, to bring in new clients. If you start to see a yearly pattern with this decline, you can plan ahead to make these marketing changes annually. Not sure how to find that information in your PIMs? Check out our practice performance dashboard! 

New Competition 

If a new practice opens nearby, they might start making waves in your current marketing space with their own paid ads. This can be especially damaging if they’re going after the same demographic you have in your clinic. Sometimes competitors will go as far as to create ad campaigns that use your practice name. If this happens, it is very important to create ad campaigns with your brand name. You might also want to start mentioning differentiators in your ads. This helps potential clients see how you can bring them value. Send out client review requests to ensure your Google star rating is as high as possible. This will help to prevent any competing animal hospitals from potentially persuading new clients to go with them instead of you.

Additional Strategy Shifts

If you are planning to change up your veterinary marketing campaigns, here are a few simple ways to get some new traction for your efforts.

• Re-allocate your ad spend to seasonally-relevant service ads on Social Media Or Google Ads 
• Reach out to current or lapsing clients through a newsletter or veterinary app
• Shift your veterinary social media marketing posts and blog topics from service-based promotions to educational pieces
• Create and schedule new ads, or ad variations, for services that are seeing a decline
• Target areas (within a reasonable distance) that have competing practices 

At Beyond Indigo Pets, we know that keeping up with shifts in veterinary marketing needs feels like a full-time job. We are here to serve as your trusted partner to market your business the way it needs to be marketed. As a Google-certified company with decades of experience, we know what it takes to make your business stand out amongst the crowd. To learn more, please call (877) 244-9322 or fill out our contact form.