By Cheyanne Flerx and Janel Hutton

Veterinary practices have the opportunity to educate clients on several things in September. How does one choose what to focus on? A good place to start is to determine what your clinic’s goals are. Then, align your marketing with those goals. Here are a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing.

For the Clinic Blog:

Here are some ideas of titles for blog posts for your website.

• The Pet Owner’s Guide to Pet Insurance 
• 5 Ways To Tell If Your Pet In Pain
• Beware Of These 6 Fall Pet Toxins 
• Does My Pet Really Need A Rabies Vaccine?

Video:

• Have your staff demonstrate how to make a disaster preparedness kit for pets.
  PRO TIP: Write a blog post and direct people to visit the blog post for a comprehensive list of supplies for pet disaster preparedness gifts. 
• Have a doctor go over each fall toxin and briefly explain the dangers of each. For the video, display some of the top fall toxins local to your area and use them as props to show off to your audience.

Facebook Ideas

• In honor of Ginger Cat Appreciation Day, share a picture of a patient who is a ginger cat, and asks your clients to share pictures or videos of their ginger cats.

• A lot of people love their coffee, am I right?! Engage your fellow coffee-loving clients with a fun, engaging post like this one:

• National Pet Memorial Day is a great time to honor your past patients. Encourage pet owners to share their favorite memories and photos of pets that have lost.

• It’s National Service Dog Month, celebrate any service dogs that are patients of yours! Tell their story and what they do.

Instagram Ideas:

• In honor of National Hug Your Hound Day, share a picture of one of your team members snuggling with a canine patient. In the caption, emphasize how your patient experienced your hospital’s high-quality patient care.

• World Rabies Day is an excellent opportunity to highlight the importance of rabies vaccines. Post a soft reminder to owners to update their pet’s rabies vaccine by showing a picture of a patient in your clinic for a rabies vaccine. Make the post even better by showing off your low-stress handling techniques for vaccines.
• In your story, highlight a blog post that is full of tips. Highlight one or two of the tips mentioned in your blog post in your story. Then, direct people to the blog for more information. Make sure the link in your bio directs people to the blog post. This is a perfect opportunity to write a blog post on pain in pets and share the first two ways owners can detect pain in their pet.
• Have some fun and show off your staff dressed in comic book themed scrubs for National Comic Book Day.

Cheyanne’s Bonus Biscuit of the Month

Labor Day is September 2nd. Will your practice be closed? If yes, be sure to notify your clients with simple reminders on social media, email, push notifications, and Google My Business. In your announcement include links to the contact information for the local emergency clinic and your appointment and refill request pages. Also, this is an excellent opportunity to remind owners to stock up on their pet’s diet or prescription medications before the long holiday weekend.

By including the link to your appointment and refill request pages, your website can do the work for you, by gathering appointments and RX refills, while you enjoy the holiday.

If you have a Google business listing, update the hours on your listing. Potential clients who are Googling for a veterinarian and see that you are closed will know to either wait for you to reply or contact you when are you open. This can easily be achieved by logging into your Google My Business account and clicking on the “Info” tab.

See how in this video:

Janel’s Bonus Biscuit of the Month

September 8th is National Pet Memorial Day, and we can all understand how losing a pet feels like. It’s not a fun subject, but we can connect with our followers and clients by sharing how we can relate. Working at a veterinary clinic is hard on the heart, and we have lost patients dear to our hearts and our very own pets. Sharing this with our followers creates a bond.

Let’s celebrate how pets have touched our lives, and they never far from our hearts. Ask followers to share their pet’s stories. Create a space on your website, a Facebook album, or a special spot inside your clinic to memorialize pets that have crossed the rainbow bridge.

On your website, have a page dedicated to pet memorials. Animal Medical Center of Wyoming has created this space for clients to visit and also to submit their stories. This creates an opportunity for a post on social media to ask followers to visit your website to submit a memorial. You’ll find that people want a space to share their pets’ lives and will love it.

Do you have a corner in your clinic that you can dedicate as a pet memorial? Check out the picture below of the wall where clients can come in, write a little story about their pet, then attached it to this wall. Leave it up all year round, or for a limited time. This creates a space for clients to find closure and remembrance. Also, when someone loses a pet, they can see they are not alone in their grief and shows that you are there for them during this difficult time.

About The Authors