The Veterinary Marketing Podcast

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!

Where do I start? That is the biggest most complicated question I get from people who listen to my podcast, and the answer is...it depends. Sorry there is not a blanket answer because everyone is in a different spot when it comes to their practice's marketing. In this week's episode though, I try to give you a framework to work through what you should focus on.  I think there are a few main areas that you need to work on:  Retention Systems Your Core Offers and Message Your Content  Building Awareness For your Practice For rentention systems, these are pieces of content, assets and things that you actually own. For example you email collection systems, your email marketing platform and lists that you have built up are something that you own. People who have never heard of you can't give you their phone number or email address, so this is a group of people who are aware of you and are either considering coming into your practice or have come into your practice. For help with retention systems be sure to check out these other posts: Your core offers and message are what you will be hoping to achieve through your marketing efforts. If you are on social media but you never actually ask people to come into your practice then what is the point? Pet owners need your services, so make it easy on them to come and get them. Being on social media but not developing and pushing out relevant and valuable offers is like being stuck in the "friendzone in a relationship". You can't only be the person who is posting engaging, entertaining and useful content, take it to the next level and give them a reason to come in to the practice.  Your content is the next piece of the puzzle that is built around what you'll be offering. Let's say you're a small animal practice, as much as dental health of elephants might be interesting, it isn't really relevant, so don't create content around that. Be relevant to the offers that you have so that you can use your content to segment your clients and potential clients and serve them better.  Lastly you should be building awareness. Add some fun in there and ALWAYS be building your audience. Figure out where you want to reach your clients and grow your influence. Find out what works well and do more of it. When you can connect better with your clients and potential clients, when you have offers and events to promote they will be more successful.  As always if you need help with anything marketing related send me an email to: Brandon@veterinarymarketingpodcast.com or hit me up on facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/veterinarymarketingpodcast

In today's episode we have a guest, Adam Greenbaum from Whiskercloud.com. He was on just recently on episode 108, but since that episode he's been hard at work compiling tons of data, and the results he found were staggering. One thing that Adam has the ability to do is to take all of the data that comes in and look at large sample sizes to make some pretty reliable conclusions. One thing that surprised him was that over 70% of the traffic to clients' site was mobile! The crazy thing about this is that a vast majority of veterinary practice websites aren't optimized for mobile traffic. This finding means 2 things for you, either you have a huge opportunity or you are going to be left behind in the dust.  We take a deep dive into what Adam's case study told him and he gives some really great examples of things you should be focusing on based on this data. We also go over when you need to consider getting a new website for your veterinary practice. So many times, I get people asking me where should I start? I think if you have a solid website in place, that is one thing that can really help to create consistent and scalable growth for your veterinary practice. For anyone reading, having a non mobile responsive website is one factor that I think makes it necessary  for getting a new practice website. If you text Veterinary to 44222 I'll send you the mobile responsive test from Google where you can see if your site passes. We also discuss bounce rates, traffic sources and how people interact with your site.  As I mention in this episode, you can get a live demo to see how Whisker Cloud works by going to http://www.whiskercloud.com/Brandon . This is an affiliate link by the way, so if you use this link, thank you for supporting the podcast.  As always if you have any questions, comments or need help with anything, please don't hesitate to email brandon@veterinarymarketingpodcast.com 

Have you ever felt stuck in your practice's marketing? Maybe you're not quite sure what approach you should take with a post, or an ad or maybe you have no clue what you should be doing as a post. In today's episode I cover how to approach marketing so that you don't ever wonder what you should do with your marketing.  Today we break down anything you can do in marketing, whether it is creating content, driving traffic to a landing page, boosting a post, creating and sending an email, and show you how to approach it in a simple way. In any marketing or content creation that you are going to do you can really break it into 4 steps. First we need to figure out who you'll be marketing to, then we'll choose what the content that would be appropriate would be. From there, we'll choose the appropriate medium and the correct call to action.  Any time you make a piece of content or an ad you are just trying to move a person in a specific direction. When you send an email for example, if you break it down into the most simple elements, it isn't difficult to figure out how to write compelling content that gets people into your practice. In this episode, I also cover what I've been up to in my short break I've taken from the podcast. I really hope to bring you the most value possible with the podcast, and I'll be resuming weekly publishing. I was incredibly busy and I didn't want the podcast to be pushed out just for the sake of publishing. If there is ever anything you need help with, or some topics you would like for me to cover just let me know. Send me a message on my Facebook page or to brandon@veterinarymarketingpodcast.com I really appreciate everyone who listens, and I love hearing from listeners, so don't be a stranger!

I'm so excited to have Dr. Cody Creelman back on the podcast in this week's episode. Cody has been on the podcast 3 other times which has some great topics that we've covered, but today's episode is one of m favorites for sure! Since the last time Cody has been on, Cody has started an (almost) daily vlog nearly a year ago and has been able to grow it in huge ways. For those of you who don't know Dr. Cody Creelman, he is a beef cattle veterinarian and practice owner of  Veterinary Agri-Health Services in Alberta, Canada. His veterinary interests include bovine pathology, large animal surgery, cow/calf and feedlot production medicine. Cody is also very passionate about veterinary mobile technology. This includes consulting on veterinary application design projects, as well as digital marketing and social media platforms. Check him out on his website, Twitter(you can see him post his live streams here), Instagram, Snapchat (creelmancody), or YouTube…… he is active on them all!  Since starting his Vlog, Cody has been able to get millions of views and has absolutely positioned himself as one of the most visible and expert beef cattle vets in the world. When I saw Cody start, I really didn't think that there was going to be too much potential for direct client acquisition, I figured he would see benefits from being able to hire the best people, and developing his own personal brand, but I couldn't have been more wrong. Creating this amazing content on a regular basis gives Cody so many opportunities to get new clients as well as a bunch of other benefits.  Cody shares a bunch of great insight into what is working for him, what kind of equipment he uses and more. This episode is extremely valuable for anyone in veterinary medicine who wants to grow their practice, increase their client base or attract the best staff possible. There is so much opportunity out there for anyone who wants to be visible and document their work.  Thanks again Cody for being on the podcast, it has been amazing to see him develop his brand and create a world class vlog.  Subscribe to Cody's Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/codycreelman Like Cody's Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/CodyCreelmanCowVet/

Veterinary practices have so much work to do, and often times marketing falls to the back of the list. What most people who teach marketing say to do is to be everywhere and that you need to be doing all kinds of marketing activities to keep up with the times so that you can stay in front of clients. While I totally agree that the more places that you can be the better but I think it is so important to remember why you are doing marketing in the first place, to help reach clients and provide better care. That is what today's episode is all about. Ultimately the marketing that I think you should be doing is the minimum amount to provide the proper amount of context, trust and engagement that allows you to help your clients.  I hear all the time from people who work in practices, "I feel terrible I'm not keeping up with my Facebook page" or "I should be doing X, Y and Z" and in today's episode I cover how to approach your practice's marketing so that you can figure out how to have the highest impact with the least amount of work. Many times, you can create high quality marketing pieces without too much effort if you plan it correctly.  I dive into the quickest way to turn attention from digital marketing into actual paying clients in your practice. We also go through some of the best ways to create content on the fly while you are doing work in the practice.  When you create content it should be done so to funnel your prospective clients into segmented targeted lists so that you can show the appropriate offers and deliver relevant  info. I also cover tools and tricks that I've picked up when creating content so that you can do so quickly and easily. 

Today's interview is a great one! Whether you own a practice or run the marketing for your veterinary hospital there is a lot of very practical info for you. This week we are luck enough to have DVM and Practice owner Dr. Rachel Kuhn-Siegel on to talk about her experience with Google Adwords.  Here is a little background on our guest, Dr. Rachael is the owner and practicing veterinarian at Prairie Animal Hospital. She graduated with her bachelors in Science from Iowa State University, and earned a Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine at Iowa State University's Veterinary College in 2005. After graduation Dr. Rachael practiced veterinary medicine throughout the United States as a Navy wife. In 2011, Dr. Rachael and her family returned home to just outside Peoria, IL to be closer to family. I was able to connect with Rachel through Danielle Lambert's Snout School Social Media group(which you should totally join if you haven't already!). Rachel had been using Google Adwords for her practice and as often happens, Google changed things up. The change came when Adwords stopped serving ads in the right hand column in May of 2016. If you were running ads at all,  you likely saw a big drop in traffic unless you were always bidding for the number 1 position.  We discuss what Rachel was able to do to turn her campaigns around and start driving traffic in to her practice. One of the best things about this interview I think is that Rachel is a practice owner of a relatively new practice, that is surrounded by tons of competition, so the advice that she shares with us is really valuable. We also cover what her bidding strategy was, how she came up with the specific keyword targets she did and how she managed to track her ROI when it came to her campaigns.  This interview is really great and filled with tons of useful, actionable info, so I hope you enjoy! Be sure to say thanks to Rachel for sharing her insights!