In his book “Blackwell's five-minute veterinary practice management consult”, J. Blackwell describes the best ways to promote or publicise a veterinary practice. We selected some ideas for you.
1. Professional look and feel
The first step is to expose your practice in the professional field by creating a professional logo, brand and slogan. Theses should be used in all communications and promotion. A useful website is 99designs.com, which is a quality resource for a customized logo at an affordable price.
2. User friendly website
Make a website with the most relevant information for (potential) clients. Of course, contact information is very important, but you can also think of other options:
- Information about diseases and management
- A forum where clients can interact
- A blog
- Home made videos
It’s very important to register a good URL. If you don’t have your own URL yet, it is advised to register it very quickly. You can register and/or check the availability of your URL here.
3. Give aways and promotion items
Promotional items are very successful. People simply like giveaways because they’re free! Refrigerator magnets, pens, caps, coffee cups displaying your web address and phone number will be 24/7 promoters of your veterinary practice. Set a yearly budget for them, buy them, give them away and have fun!
4. Organize seminars and visit events
Organise and visit events and seminars where you will meet your target audience. Come up with some hot issues that your clients deal with and invite them to join. This will help to claim knowledge leadership in a certain topic. Besides that, it’s a great opportunity to have one-to-one communication with your clients.
5. Write useful articles
Write ‘Tip Sheets’ and give them away or place them on your website. Tip sheets are easy, informative, to-the-point, single sheets that contain 5-12 facts about how to do something. The media will love it and they are good content for your website.
It’s a very effective way to educate your clients, claim knowledge leadership and generate free publicity. People will send your papers to their peers, therefore further promotion.
6. Start an e-newsletter
Begin an e-mail newsletter. Click here to learn more about the e-newsletter.
7. Open house
Organise an ‘open house’ on a yearly basis and give your clients the opportunity to take a look in your domain.
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