Digital Marketing, News,
How can I improve the online interaction of pet owners with my vet practice
With so many practices and companies vying to be noticed by the same audiences in the digital space, capturing attention from the right people is reliant on your ability to interact with your audience in effective ways.
The great news is that there are many ways to enhance the way in which both your existing and potential clients engage with your practice. This is important because engagement will keep your practice connected to both the wider marketplace and your specific community, and will help you to build client confidence and trust in you and your brand. This, in turn, will enhance your visibility and lead to additional clients over time.
Let’s look at a few ways you can boost your engagement in an ultra-competitive contemporary digital landscape.
Email newsletters
From engaging long-time clients to connecting with new pet owners, email is an effective channel through which to communicate and even converse directly with the right people.
Not only can you create specific communications for every stage of the marketing cycle, but you can also deliver personalised, informative and valuable content directly to your subscribers’ inbox. From interesting practice updates to annual vaccination reminders, personalised emails will make the recipient feel more valued by you which, in turn, will transform them into an increasingly loyal client. Remember, for most practices, 80% of your income comes from your loyal bonded clients. So every casual client you can move into that zone of trust is a massive business boost, as well as a reputational one.
As with any communication channel, it is important to monitor your inbox and respond to emails from your clients in an engaging and timely manner.
Blogging and search engine optimisation (SEO)
Creating and publishing fresh, optimised content to your blog frequently will allow you to establish your vet practice as a leader within your niche. Page views can provide some insight into how well your content is performing, but this figure alone will never tell the complete story.
Investigate your bounce rate and see if there are steps you can take to hold your clients’ attention for longer. Incorporating a clear call-to-action at the end of each post and linking to other relevant pages on your site will both reduce your bounce rate and see other engagement metrics soar.
Social media
Most successful businesses have a clear social media strategy that enables them to create a community of loyal followers. It’s important to note that social media users don’t want to be constantly sold to. In fact, pet owners are more likely to want to follow your vet practice on social media if you consistently share a variety of relevant, engaging and informative content.
Keeping an eye on your engagement metrics across your chosen social platforms is key to understanding the types of content your audience enjoy seeing and want to interact with. It can be easy to be distracted by vanity metrics, such as the number of social media followers you have accrued.
Instead, it is imperative to focus on the quality of the engagement you are receiving when you post something to your feed. In addition to likes and shares, it will be worth deep diving into who is interacting with you, and whether there are any important industry conversations taking place that you could join in with.
