In this modern day and age it is hard for veterinary practices to grow in a smart and predictable way. If you want your business to grow we will need to change the way we target new clients.  The path new clients take is different than a few years ago which means we need to be where they are looking.

What are the specific obstacles that stand between your practice and its growth goals?

What is your biggest obstacle?

The most obvious one for most veterinarians is stagnant growth.

Today, we’re going to demystify that concept. We are going to take the journey new clients make and call it  – Your client’s journey. It will help you create a much smarter and more effective plan to accelerate your practice’s growth.

Your Client’s journey

Your Client’s journey is the path that a prospective client takes to find their new veterinarian. It is a crucial journey to understand because this is what gets your new clients to your front door and into your waiting room!

Many years ago, the client’s journey looked like this:

1. Discuss veterinarians in the dog park and ask a friend for a referral
2. Look up business information in the yellow pages
3. Make an appointment

Of course, this doesn’t represent the only possible new client’s journey (Lots of vets rely on drive bye’s, see your sign ), but it was a very common one, and you would pay ( a fortune ) for your yellow pages ad and people would find you.

However today, the digital age has completely revolutionized this journey, and made the old one obsolete. Practices who struggle with growth are simply stuck in the past – they have no idea how to optimize their sales funnel for a modern client’s journey.

So what does the journey look like today?  There are obviously some fundamental changes. It essentially puts your new client in charge of the process.

Your new client has a wealth of information at their fingertips, and research shows that’s exactly what they’ll use to determine whether or not to see you.

Today, Your new client’s journey looks like this:

1. Google search for veterinarians in the area
2. Check out your website
3. Compare your website with other local practices
4. Examine your reviews (Facebook, Google or Yelp)
5. Call for an appointment

Sometimes the buyer skips ahead a step or two, and sometimes a step is left out. But these are the most common steps that a prospective new client takes in order to find their new veterinarian.

What does this mean for you?

If you are really smart about optimizing each step for your practice, you will make it much more likely that your new client’s journey leads to you. That means big things for your growth, because this is the path that prospects are taking now.

Your marketing strategy needs to be totally focused on the modern clients’s journey. This is the path that the vast majority of prospects take, so it’s by far the most cost-effective plan to invest resources in. There are three principles steps that you need to take, and we’ll discuss each now.

1. Brand Awareness
2. Conversion focused website
3. Reviews

Brand Awareness

It has been proven that when your new client starts searching for a new vet in the area they will only look at the top few names and will hardly ever scroll down. So your ranking in google is in direct correlation with the amount of people that can find your site. In fact, each spot you go down gets about half the traffic as the spot above it. The lesson is simple: your search ranking matters. A lot. Your brand needs to be as visible as possible to the buyer during this beginning stage.

How do we do that? Through SEO ( Search Engine Optimisation). In simple terms what does your website tell google about where you are and what you do?

Lucky for us vets it isn’t that complicated. If you follow these 4 very simple steps.

• Your website needs to be mobile friendly and focused on a great user experience
• Put new content on your website regularly. About your practice or common pet health issues
• An active social media presence that engages with its followers. Tying back to your website if possible
• Quality back-links from trusted directories and relevant businesses (such as your local humane society)

Your Website focused on conversions

Your website is where your clients will largely determine their interest in taking the relationship further. When your potential new client gets to your website, they’re almost always trying to answer two questions.

The first is conscious and logical: who you are, what you do, where you do it.

The second is usually unconscious: Can I trust you with my pet?

Your success is directly related to how well you answer these two questions.

Taking charge of your reviews

Online reviews have totally disrupted the old client’s journey. They are now more trusted by potential new clients as an objective measurement of trust.

Veterinarians are frightened of negative reviews, and that’s totally fine! If you see a lot of clients, you’re going to get a few negative reviews, no matter how great of a veterinarian you are. These are usually due to break downs in communication rather than the overall quality of care.

Somebody in your clinic should be keeping an eye on these reviews. Google and Facebook are the 2 main ones. Make sure you respond to the positive once to acknowledge the comment and it will encourage other people to submit more positive reviews.

Make sure you respond to the negative once. Acknowledge that they are upset and that you are sorry for that then take the conversation of social media and resolve the issue privately.

I hope that got a lightbulb going and you will go and tweak your website and get some of your really good clients to put some reviews on google + and Facebook.