Developing Promotional Strategies

In the past a veterinary practice advertised its services by simply putting up a brass plate outside its premises and the pet owning clients were happy just to visit ‘the vet’ when their pet had a problem. the modern practice must take a more proactive approach to inform pet owners about the many services and products that it has to offer to both cure and prevent disease. it also has to communicate clearly why pet own- ers should visit their specific practice, highlighting its unique differences and how their pet will be in better health after a visit to the practice. the purpose of the marketing communications or promotional strategies can be broadly separated into two overall objectives, firstly to retain existing customers, encouraging responsible pet care which will grow their visit and purchase frequency and secondly to attract new customers. these two objectives, customer retention and customer attraction require different pro- motional strategies and a different approach to the use of public relations, advertising, loyalty rewards and website content. the presentation uses examples to highlight the typical strategies that are deployed by veterinary practices and how to gain the most impact from the resources put into these approaches.

The Bayer study identified that veterinary practices which adopted the right mindset about marketing and promoting their practice could increase pet-owning customer vis- its, expenditure and satisfaction. the key approaches and views that were common to these successful practices were that the veterinarian believed that wellness examina- tions were the practice’s most valuable service, the veterinarian believed that marketing and advertising were critical to the practice’s success and that the practice was an active user of social media. in contrast to these successful beliefs and actions the study also identified the factors which were common to the practices which had experienced a decline in client visits, which was that the practice owner believed that advertising undermines his or her credibility as a veterinarian and a lack of referral arrangements with other pet service providers such as pet shops, groomers and dog walkers. from this study therefore it clearly demonstrates the importance of developing promotional strategies and then actively advertising and marketing to pet owners.