Marketing Ideas for Vet Clinic?

[Deadeye2004]

Can anyone give me good marketing ideas for my vet clinic? Our revenue is way down and we need ideas badly!!! We have tried discounting surgeries, giving away free exams, discounting vaccines on certain days and times, etc, and our revenue is still way down. Please let me know if you have good ideas. Those things have helped somewhat but again, we are still way down.

[Beauvoir]

In today's economy people want more for less, i would try to advertise, if you can afford to do so, on the lines of giving more to people for less money, letting people in your neighborhood know that you are around is a good idea. Make a cheap but good looking flier on your computer and start putting them on peoples cars or near (but not in) there mailboxes. Word of mouth is a big way to get business. Im just giving advice from a restaurateur's standpoint.

[Luis]

Hello,

Here are a couple of things that I see for your business,

1- never cheapen yourself
I would not lower your prices unless you can give people a specific reason why you are doing it, because otherwise is make you look cheaper than what you are worth and people begin to think you are over charging them to begin with. I love my animals and don't want to take them to some second rate discount doctor. So instead on lowering your prices, raise the perceived value you bring to your clients and patients through the education and products you offer them.

2. Do your clients REALLY appreciate your work/services?
Do you have repeat clients/regular clients?
If thats the case you are doing something right. And if you have a good relationship with those people I would ask them why did they come to your vet clinic and more importantly what is it about what your clinic does that keeps them coming back? or why did they stop coming? Once you find out what that is, from all of your clients (current & past) you will begin to see patterns in their answers that will show you what you should be doing or what you should stop doing.

3- Referrals
Pet owners have friends with pet owners, have you made getting referrals a part of doing business with you? Explain to your clients that it is more beneficial for them to have you and your staff improving their medical knowledge and skills instead of spending money and time marketing and advertising. Instead if each month they commit to sending you two of their friends who have pets, you will be able to keep costs down, improve your knowledge and skills and still be in business the next time when their beloved animal needs you most.

4. Not all Parasites are bad.
Im sure you know all about ticks, fleas and worms, but there is another parasite that is beneficial to your business... Other Businesses. Think of all the services and businesses that those pet owners use before during and after visiting you. Find the pet product/service owners in your area that supply those products and become a distributor for their products and services or set up joint ventures with them, where they provide exclusive special deals to your clients.

The product owner saves money because they dont have to advertise, you can get paid a % for each product/service sold, they benefit from the relationship and trust you have with your clients, and the clients benefit cause they get money saving deals and the best products and services available to them, because you and your staff have personally tested and back these products and services you are promoting

(if you dont fully test and prove that your name and reputation is on the line for every joint venture you do, your business and wallet will soon suffer even more)

But do this right and you can make a lot of money. because depending on how many clients you have you are a distribution channel for those other products and services.

Psst by the way this tactic also works in reverse.

5. develop friends and educate the market.
Which do you champion for your patients cure or prevention or both? whatever it is you need to educate them and keep communicating with them about vital information, techniques, alerts, special reports etc that they get through direct mail, email, facebook, twitter etc (just dont send the same information to all at the same time)
Send them surveys and questionnaires and learn about them.

be careful to keep your communications as informative and educational as possible, for every 6-9 educational materials you can send 1 sales offer.

Hope this helps you out.
The real trick to all of this is to pick the first thing that jumps out at you that can be the easiest thing to do and test it out let it make you some money, put processes in place to automate it or that it needs to only be maintained with minimal effort so that it keeps working while you try the next easiest thing on the list and repeat the process.

I could probably get a lot more specific if we were talking on the phone or something.

If you have any other questions you can find me at

http://www.lucrativeleverage.com

or email me at

luis (at) lucrativeleverage (dot) com

Hope that helps
Luis