The Veterinary Marketing Podcast

Youtube is a beast of a platform. It is the second largest search engine and nearly 5 billion videos get viewed... EVERY DAY.  Why is youtube so hard for veterinary practices to use tactfully then? If you've tried out youtube for your veterinary practice, you've probably felt some frustration, and in today's episode, we talk Youtube as it relates to generating new clients for your veterinary practice or to develop your personal brand.  The way I see it, there are really 2 different approaches when it comes to Youtube. First, there is the keyword target strategy. In this strategy, you try to reach people who are searching on Youtube with relevant search terms and video content. This is like the SEO version of reaching potential clients. This is beneficial for practice because you can try to reach people who are searching for info relevant to pet owners-your target demo. The difficulty here is that Youtube is an international platform and it is tough to rank your videos when you're a small channel. We'll talk more about that in just a minute.  The second approach you can use on Youtube is to reach people who are frequently using the platform as a medium to engage with and consume content. Here established brands and content creators produce content regularly and their audiences consume it here. With this strategy, our goal is to reach people by showing up in suggest videos and try to piggyback off of established channels' audiences. If you're looking to produce content regularly, create a more personal brand or give more context to your audience by creating something like a vlog then this is definitely a good approach.  In today's episode, I cover some of the best practices you should set up for your Youtube channel and we go over how to approach your targeting strategy.  I really love Youtube as a medium and I think there is so much opportunity for veterinary practices here. Let me know what you think, and if you are a veterinary practice, be sure to comment with your channel URL below. 

Adwords are a no-brainer for nearly every veterinary practice. Your clients and potential clients are out there searching right now for veterinary services all you have to do is get your ads out there in front of the right target market. In fact, if you are slow or having trouble getting people in the door, I think AdWords are one of the easiest ways to get people in the door quickly.  In today's episode, we're going to be covering five really simple and implementable things you should do to help increase ROI and effectiveness of AdWords in your veterinary practice. Best of all, these tips are really simple to use.  First, one common mistake I see often is that practices aren't dayparting their ads. Dayparting is when you run campaigns and ad sets for specific timeframes throughout the day. Let's say for example you're only open from 7am to 5pm, if you and the staff aren't there to perform services and take calls the ads that you're running at that time probably won't be effective. Make sure that your ads correspond with when you're open, especially if you're running on a limited budget. You want to have the highest chance of getting someone who will bring their pet to your practice.  The next concept I cover is using Adwords express VS standard Adwords. Although it sounds appealing to use AdWords express I feel that having additional control is more important. Fight the urge to let Google tell you what to be advertising on, especially if you have a limited budget. It is easy to go down a rabbit hole of broad match words that aren't the right fit when you can target more transactional phrases that will convert to actual clients.  In this episode, I also cover AdWords callout extensions and explain how they can help you convert more impressions into clicks. You get to have your ad take up more space, and you allow the potential client to pick what they are interested in. An important aspect of callout extensions is to make sure that the specific services you advertise point to a page that is related to that callout.  One common mistake I see with many veterinary practices AdWords accounts is that they create one campaign, one ad set and then they stuff every possible keyword or too many keywords for that matter into the ad set. This ends up diluting the ad set and decreases click-through rates and relevance for the ad. I suggest making smaller ad sets so that you can more closely track keyword performance and optimize ads so that you improve ROI. The last item that I talk about is making sure your Analytics and AdWords are connected so that you can get greater insight into what the traffic is doing once they click through. If you're going to be paying for traffic, it is important to know what is happening when they get there.  If you have any questions or need help with your digital marketing, please don't hesitate to reach out.  Also remember to join my Facebook Group: Veterinary Marketing Nerds.

In today's episode I cover custom audiences, one of the most important ad tools that you can use to grow your veterinary practice's marketing work even better.  In marketing you have really only 2 parts to put together, you have the offer/product/content and you have the audience. The audience is very important because it makes up half the equation, and if you get the audience wrong, the offer or the content won't work.  In previous episodes, we've talked a lot about targeting options, and targeting is a tool that I love to use with my ads, however, custom audiences (which is what today's episode is all about) allows you to reach people with a lot more engagement, intent or interest within Facebook and Instagram. So how do you use build and use custom audiences? That is what today's episode is all about.  First, to get to the place where you can build a custom audience, you need to get into Facebook and go to ads manager. From ads manager you can click the drop down and get into Audiences. The types of audiences that I cover in the episode today are:  Customer files: your current client lists. You can do additional segmentation here. I love working with this list. Website Traffic: here you can create lists of people who spend time on specific pages of your site or based on how much time users spend on your site Offline activity: This is where people are actually coming into your practice. You can use practice management software or pixels, and in the episode I talk about a strategy that I think is AMAZING Engagement: This is segments of people who interact with content or business pages specifically within Facebook and Instagram. This is how you keep your engagement up and running even after the Facebook Algorithm Change. If you are considering running ads to distribute your content or pay for ads, then today's episode is going to be really helpful.  Let me know what you think! Send me a message and don't forget to subscribe in iTunes or Google Play!

Mobile marketing is becoming more important than ever because of changes that are happening to social media platforms, search engine algorithms and increasing ad prices. Today we have Dr. Stacee Santi from Vet2Pet on the podcast to discuss how she has designed an app to help increase client compliance in practice. It is a great interview and it is well timed because Dr. Santi has just released her 2017 Loyalty report.  For those of you who don't know Dr. Santi, Dr. Stacee Santi graduated CSU in 1996 and began her veterinary career in Portland Oregon at a 13-doctor ER hospital. In 2002, she accepted a position at Riverview Animal Hospital in Durango, Colorado and began managing the hospital in 2007. Being a veterinarian herself, she knows the challenges the industry faces to stay connected to clients. In 2013, Dr. Santi founded Vet2Pet and began working on new contemporary strategies to connect with clients… the first being the custom veterinary app.  Apps for small businesses definitely came into fashion around 2014, but back when they first came out, they were primarily built as re-skinned mobile versions of websites that didn't have much functionality. In today's episode, I ask Dr. Santi what she thinks makes an app work inside a practice and some of the key features she has included in her app based on the data that she has collected.  A few of the features we really dive into are the selfies that clients can send, which I think is a brilliant marketing idea, reminders, push notifications and loyalty aspects the app can deliver.  I love push notifications because it is getting increasingly more difficult to reach clients. When you can send out a notification that is going to actually get read by your client, that is a very strong marketing medium. I think it is also great that you can fill prescriptions and book appointments directly from the app.  If you have any questions you should definitely check out Dr. Santi's Facebook page here

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.