How to Develop a Marketing Plan for Your Veterinary Practice – dvm360

Marketing is about finding out what pet owners want and devising and executing a plan to meet that need. Marketing tactics can be external (with the goal of attracting new clients to your practice) or internal (in which the goal is to introduce current clients to existing or new products or services). External marketing tends to cost more than internal marketing because it often involves some type of paid advertising.

Essential elements of a marketing plan

Ideally, every marketing plan should include the following in written form. Putting your plan in writing helps you focus on your goals, makes it easier to understand and evaluate the plan, helps ensure implementation, and involves all staff.

For the purposes of this discussion, let’s assume your goal is to do more dental cleanings. This is an in-house marketing plan as all aspects are completed by your team. But no matter what you want to accomplish for your hospital, the elements of the marketing plan outlined here will serve you well.

Objective

Your marketing objective should be specific and measurable. Simply “doing more dental cleanings” is not a measurable goal. In this example, performing 1 more cleaning per day is a measurable and achievable goal.

Target audience

The target audience for your marketing messages is usually existing customers or new customers, depending on your objective. In this case, targeting existing customers whose pets have periodontal disease makes the most sense. Targeting potential customers involves a separate external marketing plan.

Competetion

Typically, your competitors are other veterinary practices within a 5-10 mile radius of your clinic. Although it seems that most procedures and services can be “shopped around” by pet owners, and some offices in your area may offer lower dental fees, loyal clients to your office will not probably not the turn.

Budget

Your budget, or the cost of implementing your plan, is a major factor in identifying a marketing strategy. Ideally, you should set aside some money annually for marketing, and that’s where that money is spent. In this example, your budget is $10 to print 100 customer materials. Keep in mind that this figure does not include the costs of staff time spent planning and executing the program.

Strategy, timing and execution

Your strategy is what you will do to achieve your marketing goal. In this example, your practice manager and/or an associate veterinarian will create a one-page document explaining why it is important to treat dental disease in pets. Technicians will give the document to pet owners during wellness visits after examining each pet’s oral health.

Timing is how long it takes to execute your strategy and how long it will last, and execution involves who will oversee the plan and how it will be accomplished. Here, the plan starts 1 week after the start of the distribution of the documents. Clinic technicians will recommend pre-booking dental treatments at the time of the wellness appointment. If no appointment is booked, they will send a follow-up communication (call, text or email) 1 week later, and again 3 weeks after that for those who have not booked an appointment with the Dentiste.

This marketing plan will be executed over 3 months for its effectiveness test. For some plans, the calendar is open. In this example, if the strategy is effective and you meet or exceed your goal, you can choose to continue using the strategy indefinitely.

Measure efficiency and return on investment

The practice manager will keep track of every dental cleaning performed for 3 months and determine if there has been an increase based on this marketing strategy.

Calculate your return on investment (ROI), or how much money you earn from your efforts, based on net profit (money earned minus budgeted amount). ROI can be determined daily, weekly, monthly, or annually, depending on the timeline of your plan and the effort you want to put in. In this case, it makes sense to measure ROI monthly.

Because the goal of this marketing plan is specific, it can be measured easily to determine if it was effective in achieving your goal. If you don’t reach your goal, review it to see if it was really achievable. If it’s a worthy goal, you may need to increase your budget or change your strategy, timing, or execution.

In this scenario, if you only book 1 additional dental cleaning in the next 3 months (an obvious miss, based on the stated goal), and your average rate per cleaning is $400, you’ve still earned $390 additional costs ($400 for the 1 additional cleaning less the $10 for printing documents, again not including staff time to implement and execute the plan). Although this is the wrong answer, the practice still generates a net benefit because the plan is inexpensive to implement.

To start

Now here is your homework. Over the next week, develop a plan for marketing a service provided by your practice. It’s important to discuss potential marketing efforts with your staff, as marketing is a team effort that will likely require more effort from them than yours. But when you focus on the needs of your patients and clients and craft a solid plan that incorporates the benefits, you’ll soon begin to improve the quality of care you provide while increasing your bottom line.

Shawn P. Messonnier, DVM, is the owner of Paws & Claws Holistic Animal Hospital in Plano, Texas, and serves on the dvm360 Editorial Advisory Board. He has written several books on marketing as well as holistic veterinary medicine.