VMP 253.5: Veterinary Marketing Costs On The Rise & How To Keep Growing

Brandon (00:00:00) - Welcome to the Vendor Marketing podcast, where it's all about how to attract, engage and retain clients to your veterinary hospital using digital marketing. My name is Brandon Breshears. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen. In today's episode, I'm going to tell you a possibly troubling truth about marketing that I think everybody needs to be aware of, and it's going to help you with your veterinary hospital. I know for sure it's going to help you in your veterinary hospital and the growth that you create in the future. But I think there's a lot of people who've gotten accustomed to easy traffic, low cost traffic. And we're going to talk about the future of traffic and marketing. It's just an in-between episode, but it's going to be something to think about and something that you absolutely need to do for your veteran hospital to make sure that you're not affected by the market and what happens when it comes to traffic prices and increase in traffic prices. So before we begin, just a couple of things. First, if you haven't done so already, be sure to subscribe in iTunes, Spotify and Google Play wherever you get your podcasts from.

Brandon (00:01:02) - And actually, if you're listening on Spotify right now, if you could do me a huge favor, it would also help more people on Spotify see this podcast. Be sure to give me a review on Spotify. I'm trying to build up reviews there. If you enjoy the podcast, that would be of super benefit. So I appreciate that for all of you who do that. Wanted to also mention this episode is being sponsored by two websites by Brad Haven. We have used vet equipment and new vet equipment for over nine years now. Used vet equipment has been helping vets buy and sell used equipment. You can save money when you buy used veterinary equipment, everything from cages, kennels, pumps, extra equipment, lasers, ultrasounds, dental equipment, surgery equipment, lab equipment from a backside and HESCO tables, tubs and sinks, vet trucks and vet boxes. What do you have to sell? Used vet equipment. They have Bring the buyer and seller together. Also, if you're looking for new veterinary equipment with amazing warranties, check out new vet equipment where they show you the price up front.

Brandon (00:02:00) - Everything from digital X-ray equipment, dental X-ray equipment, ultrasound equipment, led surgery, lighting, surgery, tables, autoclaves. When you go to new vet equipment, you'll clearly see the price for on every item for sale. You'll also be able to check out the warranty so that you can buy without regret. At new vet equipment, we show you the price upfront and give you a great warranty. All right. So let's jump in to today's episode. And I think something that it was a real kind of eye opening moment. One of the marketers that I really enjoyed listening to is Russell Brunson. He owns the website called clickfunnels.com and he was talking about the cycle of attention that is in every single market, whether it's in radio, TV, you know, infomercials, everything. And the cycle is that there's a new emerging medium. Typically it'll get cheap attention. You'll be able to get tons of organic growth and then it'll stabilize and it becomes more expensive, right? Like if you want to run an ad on a radio station, it is tremendously expensive.

Brandon (00:02:58) - If you want to send out, you know, direct mail, it's expensive just because you'll typically get a very low response rate. And I'm just because the nature of direct mail. Right saturated and people don't really respond to those kinds of things and the Internet is just like that. Right? We have been in a market where there has been cheap traffic, whether it's been on Facebook or Google ads. And there's really only one thing that's going to happen. There's not anything that's going to come out where it's going to get cheaper or easier than it is today. It's always going to get more expensive and more difficult to get and stand out. And so what does that mean for your veterinary hospital? That means you need to have a way to make your clients as valuable as possible to you. So, number one, they need to be the right clients. And number two, you need to have actual retention tools in place for getting them in and bringing them in as costs go up on the front end of marketing when it's coming, becoming more expensive to get a click on Google, for example, right? It's not going to get cheaper over time.

Brandon (00:04:03) - It's only going to get more expensive and so if you're able to know that, okay, on the first year, for example, we're going to be able to make $800 per client because they come in at least twice and they get these services done. Having all of that support system on the back end, whether it's follow up, whether it's email communication, text message, communication, all of that in place and active is so valuable and most practices don't do that. Even the large corporates don't do it well. And so if you can set up these systems one time so that you're able to get more out of the current clients that you have coming in where you make more revenue per customer, you're going to be way ahead. And so you want to really focus on maximizing that. And what does that entail? That entails making sure that you're educating about services that you have, you're promoting services that you want to promote. You're attracting clients with offers on the front end that are the right kinds of clients that are going to come in and be compliant like you want.

Brandon (00:05:09) - So all of these different things need to be considered. But just think in the back of your mind, it's never going to be easier to get clients than it is today and it's never going to be cheaper. So we need to always be working to think about how can we give our clients a better result, which is better compliance and what are the systems that we need to build out and then just start creating a list of those things and then checking off items on the list on a regular basis. I know that probably wasn't super like exciting because it's always nerve wracking to think, Oh man, costs are going to go up, what are we going to do? But that's the reality of it. So be sure that you're doing the things on the back end that you know you should be doing. If you want more help with that, head on over to the Veterinary Marketing Nerds Facebook group and post a question in there, see what other people are doing, collaborate, get ideas. But if there's anything that you need help with, please don't hesitate to reach out and we'll see you on the next episode.

Brandon (00:06:05) - Have a great day, everyone.