Branding Part 2: Building Your Veterinary Clinic Brand
How often have we reversed our perspective and sat in someone else’s shoes? How often do you see things from your clients’ point of view? How you answer these questions has a lot to do with your veterinary clinic brand.
When a new pet owner comes into a clinic, we do a significant information drain on everything to do with their pet from birth to now. We review vaccine and preventative history as well as any major illnesses. But do we ever really ask our clients how they would like to receive information from us? Not really. When it comes to the clinic’s social media content, how do we know how our pet owners and clients would like to receive information from us if we don’t ask the question? Email is the old standby, and it works, but how do we measure that?
As the pet owner population becomes younger, our social media strategy also has to change. BUT, we must first start the dialogue in the clinic on the first visit!
Communication is critical when it comes to appointment reminders, overdue preventative care, and prescription refill reminders. How and when we share helpful information to pet owners is critical, too. For example, the holiday season is a busy and stressful time for many clients. Understandably, making sure pets get the regular veterinary care they need may not be top of mind. So consider suggesting a pre-holiday visit to the clinic for a check-up and a chance to make sure medications are refilled and ready for the trips to grandmother’s house.
What’s the best way to do it? Clients should be reminded in their preferred communication medium-text, email, postcard, even a phone call. Engaging pet owners with the right messages at the right time and with the right medium is a part of a well-rounded veterinary clinic brand, one that supports pet health and reinforces the vet-client relationship.
