The Veterinary Marketing Podcast

In today's episode, I talk about something that I see happen all the time. A veterinary practice puts out a piece of content and they expect it to everything from getting likes, shares, and comments to also converting new potential clients who walk in the door. I wish I had some type of marketing that did everything from likes, shares and conversions but it typically doesn't happen. So today we cover how to make your marketing more effective and how to stop using treating your marketing like a swiss army knife. If you've ever used a swiss army knife you'll know that it does everything just enough to function. If you wanted to cut some paper, you'ld probably use a regular pair of scissors instead of the dinky ones you can fold out. The same is true with marketing. Your marketing pieces and ads should have a specific purpose. What are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to grow awareness, create evaluation or work toward conversion? One of the easiest ways to set yourself up for failure is to choose a marketing piece or ad that is geared toward the wrong type of outcome. So what are you trying to achieve? We cover the different KPIs you should work toward at each stage of the funnel, what kinds of content work depending on your end goals and more. Another aspect where new marketers typically fall short is the digital asset that they send traffic to. Websites are supposed to be multi-purpose, but if you're sending traffic on specific keywords or campaigns, you should definitely be working on building specific landing pages. If you're advertising for cat services on google adwords but then sending the traffic to the general home page, the client or potential client is going to have to dig around through your site. Conversion rates will go down. Make it easy for people to say yes. Create marketing that has a specific purpose and then you'll be able to say if your marketing is actually working or not. Today's episode is sponsored by UsedVetEquipment.com Be sure to visit them if you are looking to buy or sell any veterinary equipment, and tell Brad the owner of the site you heard about the site on the podcast.

Today's episode comes after Facebook's January 11, 2018, business page algorithm update news. This is some really big news for all businesses who use Facebook to reach their customer base. I cover what I think this algorithm change means for veterinary practices and I cover why I think you shouldn't completely panic. The bad news is that likely you're going to have to start paying to get ANY distribution from your Facebook page after what came down from Facebook's press release. The good news is, this occurrence of rules completely changing isn't anything new. Ever since the advent of modern advertising, marketers have been ruining every medium they've touched. From print ads to radio to TV marketers go out and find ways to be creative and sell, until it gets overdone and then is no longer effective. Facebook is no different from other mediums, and this zero organic engagement has been a long time coming. It is also important to realize this isn't the first time Facebook has changed the rules for marketers. I've been advertising since 2009 on Facebook and if you haven't been marketing since then, you would be amazed at what we used to be allowed to do on business pages. They used to let you message all of your page fans, add them to events, and more back when they called them fans. I say all this to let you know this isn't the end of Facebook. All platforms and mediums go through this, and hopefully the work that Facebook is doing to improve user experience will make the platform a better place. The better user experience that Facebook creates will give you a better shot at reach current and potential clients with paid ads and content. There are a lot of uncertainties, but if you learn to work within the system and rules we get, you'll be able to out work the competition. Remember, every veterinary practice is facing the same set of difficulties that you are, so this kind of volatility gives you the opportunity to stand out and grow your business, the only downside is the gravy train is over from an organic distribution standpoint.

Happy New Year everyone! 2018 is here, and this is going to be a great year for digital marketing, or at least it can be! Today we're going to cover 5 tips that will help you to make this your veterinary practice's best year yet! Since starting the podcast, it is amazing to see all of the changes and trends that have come out especially as it relates to paid ads, social media and content. (When is the last time you even saw a post from Upworthy?) Here are the 5 tips that I cover more in depth in this week's episode: Create Content Pixel Take Note Of Platform Rules Grow Your Owned media Pay for distribution I think that this year, more than ever content is going to really be a make or break for small business on social media, for SEO and as a way to communicate with clients. You've probably heard people beating this into your head, but it is really getting to the point where you have no choice. Create or fall behind. I cover a few example of content vs no content and why this is imperative! So why are pixels important? Well, pixels can dramatically decrease the cost per action of your paid campaigns, help you segment and give you the correct audiences to market to. The election really threw a wrench into Facebook's ad platform and I'm afraid the gravy train might be broken down when it comes to the changes that are being announced. The changes that I see coming down are going to make it far more difficult to gauge what audiences you should be reaching. Those who know the rules will be at a far greater advantage, so be sure to stay up to date on changes, get info from places like this podcast! They will continue to make changes, and if you aren't careful it could really affect your business, which is why I think owned media is so important. Lists you get to own help protect you against platform changes, reduction in organic distribution and any kind of weird problems that could come up. Ad platforms also will always have retargeting built in, so your list is valuable! Build it now, but why now you ask? Ad rates are still at low prices. With millions of new advertisers being added every year to Facebook, Instagram and others it is only getting more crowded. With crowds come increases in prices. Get in on the land grab that's going on so you can be set up for when or if the economy turns. If you like the podcast, please be sure to give me an honest review and be sure to sign up for my training on generating new clients with Facebook! Sign up here: https://xm244-62f249.pages.infusionsoft.net

How do you turn your digital marketing into actual clients that come into your veterinary practice? That is the question that we're going to cover in today's episode with guest Dr. Andy Roark. Andy has done an incredible job of turning his digital community into an actual community of people who attended his conference Uncharted. Today's episode is longer than an average episode but it is filled with some really great insight that will help you and your veterinary practice. Events are a great way to get people who just normally engage with you online to turn into clients who build a relationship with, and today's episode is packed with great tips on how to do just that. For those of you stuck under a rock and who don't know Andy, he has some impressive accomplishments under his belt when it comes to digital marketing. Andy is a practicing veterinarian, international speaker, author, and media personality. Dr. Roark has been voted Practice Management Speaker of the Year at NAVC, one of the world's largest veterinary conferences, two out of the last three years. He also received the Outstanding Young Alumni Award from the University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine. Practices where Dr. Roark works were named as finalists in the American Animal Hospital Association's Practice of the Year Contest in 2013 and 2015. He also has built his website to the point where it gets hundreds of thousands of page views, has grown his Facebook page to over 234,000 likes, and most recently, launch a successful conference and online community. I was able to speak at his conference, UnchartedVet.com and I was blown away at the quality of the attendees, the amount of community he helped to foster and the level of high execution he and his team performed to make everything come together. In today's episode, we talk about how he pulled this all together and what some of his biggest lessons from creating and promoting this conference, which is now open for registration but I'm sure it will sell out quickly! Be sure to visit UnchartedVet.com and if you have the opportunity to go to the conference, do it! Your practice will see a positive change from the information and community that you will benefit from.

I'm sure you already know that reviews are important! Reviews can really help to make or break your online presence and I'm sure you've felt the impact of reviews on your practice. On this week's episode, I talk with Adam Greenbaum, founder, and CEO of whiskercloud.com about reviews. One of the services that Adam offers is reputation management on Yelp, Facebook, and Google. We dive into how to handle not only the negative reviews but also the positive reviews that you get online. I think that sometimes when someone hires a company to do marketing or service to handle reviews that you just expect the reviews to show up, and you expect them to be positive, but that can't always be the case. As a small business, it is inevitable to get some negative reviews, but that doesn't have to be the end of the world. Reviews are necessary to be adequately handled for many reasons, but here are two reasons that really stand out to me. First, it is how people validate their purchase decisions, and, second, it is an indicator of how your current clients are engaging with you. Getting the positive experiences to write reviews is crucial, but how do you get those clients to take action? You've probably experienced good business experiences every day, but do you write positive reviews for all of those businesses? Probably not, like most people, your natural inclination is to want to write negative reviews for bad experiences. So how do you get more positive reviews? The answer is pretty simple, great experiences for your clients and follow up. How do you stop negative reviews? I think a lot of people feel that you can "market" or "manage away" these problems just by hiring a reputation management company, but this is not the case. Adam covers some experiences he has had and some great ideas on how to fix these issues. As always, if you need any marketing help, don't hesitate to reach out, and if you want an amazing website be sure to check out whiskercloud.com/brandon!

Paid ads are key to creating a scalable and sustainable way to drive new clients to your veterinary practice. In today's episode, we cover whether you should be paying to distribute your content and offers (spoiler alert you absolutely should.) One of the first things I think you should consider about the digital marketing landscape is that we're still in one of the best times in history to be doing digital marketing as a small business. Never before has there been a level of access to the same marketing tools and platforms that are available to all of the large billion dollar companies. It amazes me that there really isn't more competition on these platforms than there is, it is an incredible opportunity to establish your business' brand. Here's the thing, this isn't going to last forever. Established digital ad platforms like Adwords have gone through these growth cycles where there are now many established large-scale ad campaigns from fortune 500 companies. Now, however, there are over 5 million advertisers on Facebook and 1 million advertisers on Instagram, and these numbers are only growing. With more advertisers competing for user's attention only one thing can happen, ad prices go up. I think that veterinary practices have a pretty unique opportunity to build and grow their veterinary practice still and to get in before it gets less cost-effective and ROI on ad spend decreases. Large sized companies will continue to see a decrease in reach on their traditional, expensive ad spends and will have to turn to where their customers are actually spending time. When is the last time you actually watched all of the commercials in between your favorite tv show? In today's episode, I cover why practices should be paying for their content and offers to be distributed, as well as which platforms I think veterinary practices should be advertising on. One of these platforms might be unexpected, so let me know what you think. Thank you for listening and be sure to subscribe on iTunes or Google play. Please leave me an honest review, I would really appreciate it. As an update to the podcast, I just want to say thank you for listening. I've been busy testing and growing my digital marketing agency and will be uploading regularly again. If there are any topics you want to hear about comment below on veterinarymarketingpodcast.com or send me a message on my Facebook page.

In may I had the opportunity to go speak at Dr. Andy Roark's conference called Uncharted in Greenville South Carolina on April 7-9. This conference was amazing and it was also my first experience in speaking. Not only did I have a great time meeting a bunch of people who have been listeners to the podcast I finally got to meet many of the people who I've had on as guests. I haven't been to too many conferences or in person events, but Uncharted really seems like it is something special. The community that Dr. Roark and his team have created around the event was amazing, and he has also created online trainings and resources to help attendees continue to grow and implement new ideas into their practices. Since I had all of these amazing marketing minds here at the event, I figured it would be a great time to interview everyone and get their best take-aways or pieces of advice they had given at the conference. In today's episode, I have Dr. Andy Roark, Danielle Lambert, Dr Cody Creelman and Dr Caitlin DeWilde go over what they thought was worth sharing on the podcast. The schedule was jam packed full of great events, speakers and break out sessions so unfortunately I wasn't able to get Dr. Jessica Vogelsang, Maurice Allin, Summer Holmstrand-Irtimer or Heather Prendergast for an interview, but I did hear them speak and they were sharing some really great info. In today's episode though, I'm able to get some good insights into marketing and how to market your veterinary practice better and I dive into the points that each one makes. The biggest take away I think that I got from the practice is that the most important element for your success in marketing your practice is that you take action. Since the attendees of the conference are set up as a community I've been able to see so many of the attendees progress especially related to their practice's content and story telling. It is amazing to see the difference adding content creation, or an advertising strategy to their practice makes in helping to connect with clients and grow their practice. If you have the time and ability to go to Uncharted next year, I can't recommend it enough, it will have a huge positive impact.

This week I'm very excited to have Dr. Belinda Parsons on the podcast. Dr. Belinda is in the running to become the next Bondi vet, which is a really big deal! In today's episode we talk about how Dr. Belinda uses social media to grow her personal brand. I think there are so many things we can learn from her use social media to tell her story, grow her practice and help both pet owners and veterinary professionals. Dr. Belinda is very good at snapchat, and we talk about her use of snapchat with respect to her personal branding, you should follow her at drbelindathevet on snapchat to see how she documents procedures and life at her practice. Her before and after snaps of dental procedures is something that I think every practice needs to use to show the huge impact dental work can have on a pets wellness. We also talk about her strategy for her personal brand vs her practice's brand, which is a very important distinction to make. A lot of her personal brand posts are pretty graphic, but there is overlap between her audiences, so we talk about knowing your audience and making sure that content is appropriate based on who you're talking to. We also dive into Facebook as well as Instagram in this episode, but I think that everyone can learn from Dr. Belinda, whether you are managing a practice's content and storytelling strategy or if you are trying to build a personal brand. Please go vote for Dr. Belinda. You can do so here: Click Here or text BONDIVET to 44222 and get the Link to your mobile phone.

I think I've found my new favorite tool! This week's episode I dive into how to use Chatbots to engage your Facebook audience like never before. I don't like to sound hypey, but I think this is one of the best things to come to Facebook so far. If you haven't noticed, Facebook has been doing a ton of work in regards to its messenger product. They've updated their daily stories that expire in 24 hours very similar to Snapchat and Instagram stories. They have also introduced masks and geofilters through their messenger. In today's marketing climate, whenever you can be first to a new feature you are typically able to reach users very effectively and for a very low cost. That is why I think that this messenger bot feature is an amazing opportunity for veterinary practices. Your clients are spending time on Facebook, and right now their messenger is only used for personal use. Think about it, how do you use messenger? Probably sending funny, informational or valuable stuff to your friends right? This is why I'm seeing it as so effective, if you can get the permission to get into your clients messenger. So how does Facebook Messenger Bots fit into this? There is a new tool that I've been testing out called Manychat.com. What Manychat.com does is gives you tools to build a messenger subscriber list and engage them either automatically or manually. Think about it like have a sophisticated email marketing system that allows you to deliver automated sequences, broadcasts or rule based messages to your clients. Oh and it is FREE! Free for the basic features, and for the premium features the price starts at 10/month! In today's episode I dive into how to build subscribers, how to use the automation tools and what some possible uses for Facebook Messenger are. Here is a quick overview: You can build subscriber lists through website widgets, comments on posts, messages through Facebook and Messenger Ads! There are logic based bots you can easily build using keywords, for example, if someone says "hours" or "open" in a message to your practice you can have an auto response set up to send when you are open. Responses can have anything from links, to files to even a button that calls a phone number directly. You can tag and created highly segmented lists based on how people interact with your messenger. You can also add tags manually. Creating segmented lists gives you the ability to deliver very relevant offers to your clients, which will drive more clients in. Right now the cost to add subscribers is incredibly low and my open rates are sky high! So be sure to listen all the way through and please let me know if you have any questions!

In case you didn't know, I love email! You should love email too! Email is a great tool to communicate with clients for a bunch of reasons. First, it is media that you actually own, which is so important in the current digital marketing landscape where algorithm updates and platform policy changers can make your distribution dry up literally overnight. Owned media is consistent, it lets you be in control of what you put in front of your clients, and when you get to put it out there. Email has tons of other benefits, from creating lookalike audiences to using it in retargeting and building lists, but this episode isn't about how to create or grow an email marketing list, it is about how to get your emails opened more often. Chances are your veterinary practice has an email list that you've been building, and if you haven't started this, stop what you're doing here and get started building that list! Most practices could keep themselves fully booked simply by adding an email marketing strategy to what they're doing, but it would only work if you can get get that email opened. So how do we increase email open rates? It is actually pretty simple, but first consider a few things. The average adult in the US receives 121 emails a day! That is a ton of noise that you need to cut through to be heard. To help you increase your open rates I go over some of the following topics: What time to send emails Should you personalize? Should the tone be positive or negative 3 factors that will help you to avoid being boring A weird trick with numbers that helps to increase opens should you be brief? The second subject line and why it is just as important as the 1st Symbols and Glyphs Correct branding Everything in this podcast episode today can be easily implemented in your next email, so be sure to listen all the way through. Let me know what you think!