For my veterinary practice, April has traditionally brought the biggest sales numbers for heartworm, flea & tick preventative products. Not only that, but April is National Heartworm Awareness Month.

With these facts in mind, we can set some specific social media goals:

1) Increase client education and awareness surrounding heartworm, flea & tick prevention.

2) Boost sales by getting more compliance on recommendations surrounding heartworm, flea & tick prevention.

These specific goals will work with our constant social media goal: Entertain, retain & obtain clients through communication, education & connection.

But it’s not all just about social media… Social media is just part of the equation when it comes to succeeding with these goals. To get the most benefit to your veterinary business, I highly suggest doing a few things in your practice at the start of April.

1) Have a staff meeting.

The owners, veterinarians, managers and staff need to be on the same page about which heartworm, flea and tick preventatives your practice recommends. So many new products have come on the market recently – Seresto, Sentinel Spectrum, Nexgard – and you want to make sure your message is clear. At my practice, we have a hierarchy of recommended products – from our favorite combinations to the ones we suggest to cash-strapped clients. We don’t carry every option, so we have an online pharmacy for pet owners looking for a product we don’t have in the office.

You want to make sure the whole staff both understands the products and the overall recommendations the practice believes in. There is nothing worse than a staff member feeling lost or uneducated in front of a client, so help them prepare! I know that “selling” isn’t really something many veterinary professionals like to do, but what you’re selling is protection.

I highly recommend watching this short video on selling and persuasion tips with your team:

Use the staff meeting to identify the team members who are going to help create the 2 blogs I suggest for April. Ideally, find someone who knows the product well – perhaps a front desk team member – and then someone who would be dealing directly with cases – maybe a vet tech.

Based on the numbers your practice is used to getting, you can also use this time to set goals for your heartworm, flea & tick product sales throughout April. If you really want this to succeed, I highly recommend doing a staff rewards program. Each member of the staff plays a role in ensuring pet owners leave the practice with the products they need to keep their pet healthy. If you meet your goals for April, reward everyone with a $20 gift card. (Double check with your CPA, but $20 is generally a safe, non-taxable amount to “gift.”)

2) Make pricing easy.

There are so many different rebates that go along with flea, tick and heartworm products. I suggest making charts that will display the savings to customers. Use the spreadsheets in Google Drive to do this. That way, if changes occur or rebates end, you’ll be able to change everything easily and keep the team on the same page.

This is important to do because, with certain products, your pricing can even be competitive with big box stores. A 6 pack of K9 Advantix II at my practice costs exactly what it does on Petco.com. That’s something I want to clearly communicate to staff and clients!

3) Stock up on swag.

When you tell your sales reps from Bayer, Merial, Elanco, etc that you’re focusing on using social media to boost your product sales, their ears should perk up. My reps consistently give me free product for giveaways on Facebook.

In a time where Facebook is really trying to get us businesses to spend more money on ads, you can “boost” your posts with giveaways. In a lot of cases, it can work almost as well as paying Facebook. Even better? It’s actually directly connected to your veterinary business. A good chunk of the posts I suggest your practice makes this month involve giving away product in return for comments and interaction. Get those freebies ready!

4) Promote outside of social.

Use posters in your practice to communicate that you’ll be doing product giveaways on social media this month. Additionally, you could send out an email to your list to let them know. No matter what you do, make sure the whole staff know what you’re up to with giveaways. That way, they’ll be able to chat up your social media too! I get asked a lot about tips to communicate with clients about social media. Trust me – “we’re giving away free stuff there” is a pretty good conversation starter.

With the basic structures in place, we can now talk about how this plays into your social media strategy for the month.

Blogs

I strongly believe that blogs provide substance behind social. They are a critical part of any social media strategy, as they are going to drive traffic to your website. This helps to establish you as a resource within your local community, plus can boost business. After all – I REALLY HOPE clients can book appointments & request refills on your hospital’s website.

I highly recommend watching the webinar Basics of Blogging before you get started.

I know that coming up with blog topics can be tricky, so I have two suggestions for the month. Remember: you want to focus on what a CLIENT would find useful/interesting. This isn’t a veterinary journal!

Facebook

Your social media calendar details several specific posts to make on Facebook throughout the month. In between these posts, I suggest peppering in 1-2 patient welcome posts per day. So although the calendar might not look like it, you are posting at least once a day on Facebook.

POST 1 – The Reminder: For the majority of practices – mine included – Facebook is your social media home page. Start the month of April off with a bang by reminding pet owners to give their pet’s month pet preventatives.

Suggested post time: See Calendar

Suggested photo: Image of you giving your dog their heartworm preventative or a staff member apply a flea/tick preventative to a patient.

Suggested interaction booster: Get comments on this post by saying something like, “Comment below to tell us how you give your dog their heartworm preventative for a chance to win a 6 pack of (Whatever Heartworm Preventative You Have Samples Of)! We’ll pick a winner at random from whoever posts by (Insert Time A Few Hours Away Here.)”

Tip: Use this website to enter the names of all those who commented by the time you specified. It will choose your random winner(s): http://www.randomresult.com/pick.php

POST 2 – Testing!: Get a little behind the scenes with this one. Increase awareness about the importance of testing for heartworm/tick-borne diseases by posting a pic of a patient who was tested today. Make this post really work for you by linking to your website, where clients can book an appointment to have their pet checked.

Suggested post time: See Calendar

Suggested interaction booster: Get likes on this post by saying something like, “Like this post to congratulate (Patient’s Name) on being brave and getting tested for heartworm, Lyme disease & other tick borne diseases today.”

POST 3 – Blog #1: If you don’t know exactly how I suggest posting your blogs to Facebook (hint: big photo, link in caption), check out my webinar, Post Like a Pro.

Suggested post time: See Calendar

Suggested interaction booster: Get comments on this post by saying something like, “Which products do YOU (or should you) be using to keep your pet safe from parasites? Comment below by (set a time a few hours away) for a chance to win (Whatever Related Product You Have Samples Of)!”

Tip: Use this website to enter the names of all those who commented by the time you specified. It will choose your random winner(s): http://www.randomresult.com/pick.php

POST 5 – Stats: You likely test pets for heartworm and tick-borne diseases on a daily basis. Use this post to celebrate the great work you’ve done for your community by testing (x) pets. In addition to this little celebration moment, use this post to educate pet owners about how many pets were POSITIVE for heartworm, Lyme Disease, etc.

Suggested post time: See Calendar

POST 5 – Blog #2: If you don’t know exactly how I suggest posting your blogs to Facebook (hint: big photo, link in caption), check out my webinar, Post Like a Pro.

Suggested post time: See Calendar

Suggested interaction booster #1: Get likes on this post by saying something like, “Like to wish (Pet’s Name) a speedy recovery!”

Suggested interaction booster #2: Get comments by asking your clients to answer a question, based on information in the blog post. For example, “Which medication is used to treat Lyme Disease? Answer correctly below by (insert time a few hours away) for a chance to win (whatever related product you have samples of.)”

Tip: Use this website to enter the names of all those who commented by the time you specified. It will choose your random winner(s): http://www.randomresult.com/pick.php

Twitter

Twitter can be an important part of your social media strategy, especially if you are in an urban or suburban area. On the calendar, there are some suggested posts. There are not posts for every day, and that is because I want to allow you time to go INTERACT on Twitter daily. Twitter is a 2-way street, and you need to use it to chat with clients and other local businesses. You can also pepper in posts like daily patient status updates about the pets you have in your hospital. (Picture updates are awesome!)

I highly recommend using BufferApp.com to schedule your core posts. You can set the same schedule every day – you’ll see the times I recommend on your calendar. There’s a tutorial about using Buffer App in the Post Like a Pro webinar.

POST 1 – The Reminder: Twitter is a great communication tool to use with your clients, if they spend their time on it. Use Twitter on the 1st of each month to remind your clients to give their pet’s their monthly flea/tick/heartworm preventatives.

Suggested post times: See Calendar

Suggested hashtags: Tag your local area, ie: #Boston, #SanDiego. Also tag a few keywords like #heartworm or #dogs.

Example tweet: It’s April 1! Don’t forget to give your #dogs their #heartworm preventative today, #Boston pet owners. Need refills? Visit (www.YourWebsite.com).

POST 2 – Facts:  Twitter notoriously loves facts. The ultimate goal is for you to share facts that come from your blog posts most of the time. However, when you’re getting started, find a few useful tips about fleas, ticks & heartworm that you can share from a reputable source. Be sure to include a link!

For great parasite facts & links, I suggest following the Companion Animal Parasite Council on Twitter (@CAPCvet) or using their client-ed website, PetsAndParasites.org. You can also check out their Parasite Prevalence Maps for local data for your area.

Tweets have a short “life.” This means that you can pick 5-6 facts and rotate them throughout the days where you’re posting facts. You don’t have to have 50 different facts to post!

Suggested post times: See Calendar

Suggested hashtags: Tag your local area, ie: #Boston, #SanDiego. Also tag relevant keywords, like #LymeDisease or #Heartworm.

Example tweet: DYK a #heartworm can grow up to 16 inches in length inside your pet? Find out more to keep #Boston dogs safe: http://www.petsandparasites.org/dog-owners/heartworms/

POST 3 – Blog #1: Twitter is a great way to get your blogs out there and drive website traffic. Apply a lot of the ideas from Twitter Post 2, but instead pull out facts from your first blog post & link to it.

POST 4 – Stats!: Twitter works as a wonderful local news feed. Get information out on Twitter about how many pets you’ve tested for heartworm/tick-borne disease, how many were positive etc. You can even tweet these at local newspapers and news outlets to hopefully catch their attention.

Example tweet: We’ve tested 257 #Connecticut dogs for #LymeDisease so far this month, with 39 testing positive. Get your dog tested: YourWebsite.com #CTnews

POST 5 – Blog #2: Follow the instructions for Post 3, but now share links to this month’s second blog post.

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