VMP 259: Sarah Rumple How To Create Copy That Converts For Your Veterinary Practice

Brandon (00:00:03) - Welcome to the Veterinary 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 today. In today's episode, we have a special guest. We have Sarah Rumple from Rumpus writing. We talk about copywriting and all things copywriting, and this is incredibly important to the success of your practice. If you want to stand out and attract the right kinds of clients, which I'm assuming you do, otherwise you wouldn't be listening. So before we begin today, we have just two sponsors and here they are. This episode is being sponsored by the International Veterinary Dentistry Institute and Veterinary Dentistry Dot net. If you're a veterinarian or you have veterinary that you work with, you struggle with dentistry. Or who'd like to be more confident when it comes to dental procedures, then you definitely should go to IVDI. Org Forward slash VMP. That is ivdi.org/vmp to sign up for a free upcoming live training that's going to go far beyond your average dentistry seminar.

Brandon (00:01:13) - This is the gateway to the Veterinary Dental Practitioner Program, an intensive masterclass program that is a comprehensive initiative designed to enrich veterinary associate skills while empowering practice managers, practice owners to take their practice to new heights. This live training is going to be conducted by board certified veterinary dentist Dr. Brett Beckman. He's been on the podcast twice and is incredibly talented teacher and educator. He's going to dive deep into actual cases. He's going to dissect all the vital components of effective dentistry case management, and this is going to give you some really direct insight and a clear blueprint to improve your prowess in veterinary dentistry. So if you're ready to elevate your practice and your professional skills, simply go to ivdi.org forward slash VMP. This is going to be the golden opportunity that helps you to make a significant impact in your practice. It's going to help to give your patients and your clients better care, and it's also going to improve the personal professional development that you have in your career. Go to ivdi.org forward slash VMP. This episode is being sponsored by two websites by Brad Haven.

Brandon (00:02:27) - We have used vet equipment and new vet equipment for over nine years now. Used vet equipment has been helping vets to buy and sell used equipment. You can save money when you buy used everything from cages, kennels, pumps, X-ray equipment, lasers, ultrasounds, dental equipment, surgery equipment, lab equipment from a backseats and tables, tubs and sinks, vet trucks and vet boxes. What do you have to sell at used vet equipment? They bring the buyer and seller together. Also, if you're looking for a new vet equipment with amazing warranties, check out new vet equipment where they show you the price up front. They have digital x ray equipment, dental X-ray equipment, ultrasound equipment, surgery, lighting, surgery, tables, autoclaves. When you go to new vet equipment, you'll clearly see the price on every single item for sale. And you'll also know what the warranty is so that you can buy without regret. All right. So I mentioned we have Sarah Rumple, who's the owner and chief creative officer over at Rumpus, writing.

Brandon (00:03:24) - Now, I've been following them for a long time, so I was really excited that Sarah agreed to come on the podcast and talk about copywriting. We dive into all kinds of, I think, very important topics around copywriting, creating a brand voice, brand identity and things like that when it comes to writing, because most veterinarians are technically pretty good writers, the problem comes that they have a hard time of communicating their brand effectively. And not only that, but how do they sell and not feel salesy? And there's just a bunch of things when it comes to creating copy that's going to convert or achieve what you want it to achieve. So this is a really good episode for everybody. Be sure to listen all the way through and head on over to Rumpus writing.com so that you can reach out to Sarah and have her and her team help out with your content, because I think it would be an incredibly beneficial investment. So if you have any questions, comments need help with anything, don't hesitate to reach out.

Brandon (00:04:20) - But without further ado, here is my interview with Sarah. Thank you so much, Sarah, for coming on my podcast. I'm so excited to finally have you on. I've been wanting to connect with you and have you on for a long time. I've been seeing your content for you and your team and so I'm excited to have you. I thank you so much.

Sarah (00:04:38) - Yeah, thanks for having me.

Brandon (00:04:39) - Brandon So tell me, how did you get into the veterinary industry and how did you start with writing and copywriting?

Sarah (00:04:48) - Yeah, it was kind of by accident. I my first grown up job was as a respiratory therapist in human medicine. And I got into sales that way and got married and was pregnant with my son and wanted to split my sales territory in half so that I could work part time. And my company wasn't really down with that. So I decided, well, I'm just going to go back to school when my son is born. So I went back to school, got another degree in communication, and while I was in school, one of my professors asked if I had ever thought about being a writer because I was.

Sarah (00:05:20) - Apparently she thought I was really good writer and I had never really thought of it being a viable career option before. You know, I always thought of writers as this like, romantic thing, you know, like they write novels or they work for The New York Times. And I hadn't really thought of all the other possibilities in writing, but her comment made me apply for a an internship at a magazine here in Denver. And I got the internship and I was published for the first time. And I just knew that that's what I was meant to be doing. And then after my internship ended, I needed to find a real job that paid money. So the American Animal Hospital Association was hiring a marketing copywriter, and I applied for it and I got it. And so that was in 2011. I had never worked in veterinary practice before. I had never I'm not a veterinarian or technician or any of that. So it was my introduction to vet Med really, other than just my own experiences with my pets.

Sarah (00:06:14) - But I was bitten by the vet med bug at that point and I've never been able to leave the profession since.

Brandon (00:06:20) - That's that's really cool. There's a lot of things that I think is cool about that. First, I like that you have a sales background because I think that that is such an undervalued skill, especially when it comes to copywriting. And so that's, that's really cool. I want to talk to you about that in a little bit. But what do you think the main difference is between copywriting and just writing? And like when you think about copywriting, maybe people don't know what that means and so what do you feel like that is?

Sarah (00:06:47) - Yeah. So I mean, copywriting, I think in simple terms it's really just writing for marketing, marketing copy or promotional materials is typically what a copywriter does, you know? And so that's obviously different than writing editorial or a novel or something of that sort. My company does copywriting in addition to editorials and book writing and all of that, so we kind of do both.

Sarah (00:07:11) - But copywriting is definitely the bulk of our business and what keeps us busy.

Brandon (00:07:16) - Definitely, That's really cool. So when when you are hired by a client, I guess, what do you think? Are the the main things that you try to achieve for them. And then how do you think that differs from their approach that they take? I'd be interested to see what you think about that, because I have a lot of opinions. People don't ask me to do copywriting for them because I'm not I'm not good at the copywriting, I would say, but I would love to get your take on that.

Sarah (00:07:43) - Yeah, I mean, it really depends on the client's objectives, right? I mean, if they some clients will hire us to write website copy and some will hire us to write blog posts or social media copy or, you know, print materials like brochures, emails, advertisements, video scripts. So it really depends on what they're looking for. But I think it's important that when someone hires a copywriter, well, first of all, I think it's important that they hire a copywriter if they aren't one.

Sarah (00:08:12) - A lot of people, you know, we work with some of the smartest people in the world and, you know, these people are brilliant, but just because you're brilliant, that doesn't mean that you are a good writer or a good copywriter. So that's number one, I guess. But then, yeah, I guess we just we sit down with them and we figure out what are they trying to achieve? Are they trying to get more people on their email list or are they trying to get more social followers or are they trying to get more appointments in their books, reach more people in the industry? You know, we have a lot of industry clients that want to promote their pharmaceutical or their, you know, diagnostics or something like that. So we determine what they're looking for and what their tone and voice is and then go from there.

Brandon (00:09:01) - Definitely. So I think that I think most veterinarians are probably like generally excellent writers when it comes to like writing papers, right? Because they've been through so much schooling.

Brandon (00:09:12) - So they have a lot of practice at that. But I think when it comes to producing content that's trying to connect with either content or promotional materials, I think there's just such a big gap between like communicating well and just like saying something. And yeah, like one of the things is everybody, I mean, most hospitals could probably just interchange each other's copy and you would like not really have any way of knowing who wrote what, generally speaking. So I think actually every hospital needs a copywriter just because if you want to be unique and stand out, I think it's it's incredibly important for sure.

Sarah (00:09:54) - When you were talking with Seth Godin, I listen to your Seth Godin podcast and he talked he said something about how he would if you were a veterinarian, he would only have one page of a website and it would just have his contact information and his, you know, phone number and say, Call me, I'll answer the phone. And I love death, but I disagree with that. I think especially in today's market, you know, when millennials are the largest pet owning population, they want more tech savvy businesses to work with.

Sarah (00:10:21) - They want they want to take their pet to a veterinarian that has a great website and a veterinarian that understands how to text them appointment reminders and things like that. So I think that a good website is kind of your first window, you know, the first interaction that you have with some of these potential clients and they are going to be. They should be impressed when they go there. And you're right, so many veterinary practices, you go to their homepage and it's you know, we treat pets like family. I mean, that's.

Brandon (00:10:50) - Vet care reimagined and like, you know, these typical taglines that are really just interchangeable and they don't convey any value or values at all. And I do agree with you when Seth was talking about that, I think he's just been like working and producing for so long that now he's in a place for so long that he just is in demand constantly. So I think you can't imagine a world where, like, you open the door and nobody shows up type of a thing.

Brandon (00:11:17) - And I'm sure he knows that's like. But I think I agree. Having a single page website with not much content wouldn't would not be, I think, a good way to attract the right clients.

Sarah (00:11:28) - At least not to start out your business for sure.

Brandon (00:11:30) - Agreed to start out until you can build your reputation. And I get what he was saying for sure. Yeah. And definitely same same thing that when it comes to advertising, right? Like he doesn't need to advertise. So he doesn't he doesn't do it with what are like along those lines. What are some of the things that you think are just things that you continually see that kind of drives you a little bit crazy? That that you think veterans could be doing better when it comes to copywriting or do you think that they should hire copywriters to kind of get an understanding of like a better strategy? Right, Because you don't necessarily know what you don't know. So what do you what do you think about that?

Sarah (00:12:13) - Well, so just to go back one just for one second about the Seth comment, um.

Sarah (00:12:21) - If your website is terrible, not only is it not attracting the right clients necessarily, but think about the the staffing problem that Vet Med has. And if you're a new veterinarian just graduating from vet school and you're looking for a job and you see a job ad from a veterinary practice and you go to that website and it's awful, what does that tell you about their practice? Are they going to have outdated old equipment to are they going to not be embracing the latest trends and communicating with clients? Or. So I think that's another thing is not just we shouldn't just be talking about reaching clients in Vet Med. We should also be talking about reaching potential team members and veterinarians as well. And I think it's important to have good content to show that you're credible and that you're a good place to work as well. So that being.

Brandon (00:13:11) - Said, a really, really good point. I think that's actually incredibly valuable. So very good point. I always forget that because I don't work in practice and so totally agreed.

Sarah (00:13:20) - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would say some of the biggest mistakes I'm seeing practices doing and not just practices, but also industry companies. They can, they all sound, they can all start sounding the same like we already talked about. They don't really embrace an authentic voice, you know, like I think it's I think a lot of them are trying to be a sound professional, which is.

Brandon (00:13:44) - Okay even in like.

Sarah (00:13:46) - Yeah, but and that's okay depending on who you're targeting. But usually you're targeting, you know, a pet owner who's probably, you know, not that professional and not, not thinking, not wanting to read that dry material. And so I guess I would tell practices, usually when you're trying to think about like, what is our voice? How should we be writing our copy if they're writing their own copy? I would typically probably tell them like, how do you want clients and patients to feel when they come into your practice? You want them to feel at ease.

Sarah (00:14:17) - Do you want them to feel happy? Do you want them to feel like you guys are fun and young? And on top of the latest trends? And if those are the ways that you want them to feel when they go into your practice, then you should write your content with that in mind and with that kind of a tone and voice. So that's something that I would definitely tell practices. Some other often common mistakes I see is. Too wordy. Everything. A lot of people, especially non-professional writers, they just they think more is better. In school, we were taught, okay, you have to write, you know, a two page essay or a 500 word, this or that, and you just use all the filler words because you're trying to meet that that requirement. And in the professional world now, typically, especially when it comes to marketing copy, you just have to be as succinct as possible. If you can take words out and still say the same thing, do it every single time.

Sarah (00:15:20) - So I would say every writer, whether you're a professional writer or not, needs an editor. So even if you're not willing to hire a professional copywriter to help you, I would encourage you to hire a copy editor at a minimum and write your own copy and at least have someone having that second set of eyes on it. I also see a lot of really terrible email subject line. So yeah, so I would say email subject lines often are just kind of boring and dry and email is still a really, really powerful method of communication for companies to use. But I think you have to do it the right way because our email inboxes are certainly inundated every day with all kinds of promotional emails. And so you have to have a subject line that's really going to grab attention, you know, make someone curious, um, personalize a lot of practices if you're sending out something promoting some sort of a new dog product or something, maybe a new medication for heartworm, that's dog specific or something, you know, make sure that you're segmenting your audience and you're not sending that to your clients who only have cats.

Sarah (00:16:29) - Don't send them things that aren't relevant to them. So I think that's something that's important to and just read, proofread your stuff, edit your stuff before you send it out. Once you write it, read it, read it again, read it some more, and just make sure you're not sending anything that's got errors or typos or things like that.

Brandon (00:16:49) - Definitely. I yeah, I need proofreading in my life. I make mistakes all the time and usually if I create an ad or something and it has a typo, especially if you're targeting veterans, they're generally pretty good at finding things. So anyways, if you ever need to edit and proofread, you can just create an ad and then you'll get all the comments about it. Yeah, when you're running it for sure. But I really liked what you said about email because email is, I think, hands down the most profitable traffic source that you can have, right? You own it, you can send it out. But almost I haven't seen any veterans hospitals use it.

Brandon (00:17:24) - Well, I don't think I've seen any veterans hospitals use it well. And it's such a need. And it's I'm every time I can I get on an email list of clients and things and it's just like five tips for a Safe Thanksgiving. And it's like the most boring things ever. And I know the intent is good, but it just doesn't deliver any value. And I think I think that's a really important thing. So when you when you work with clients, do you focus or do you try to focus on or help the clients to get kind of focused on maybe revenue activities like starting at the bottom of the funnel so it's going to drive more return? Or do you suggest that they start kind of with the total brand message and then try to get their branding and messaging consistent throughout everything, including text messages and and things like that? Or what's kind of your approach when you start with somebody?

Sarah (00:18:20) - Yeah. So I would say usually starting kind of from scratch with, okay, what is your tone and voice and your messaging that you want to get across? I think that's the most important thing to start with for sure.

Sarah (00:18:30) - But again, going back to kind of just depends on what the client's objective is. Um, you know, if you're wanting, you know, there's different kinds of marketing copy, right? You know, you have promotional materials that are when you're promoting a new product or service or a special or something like that. It's mental health month. We're offering 20% off this month on dental cleanings. You know, that's an example of like a promotional email or something. Um, I guess it's just really what, what are they looking for? Do they want to engage deeper with their clients than that? You know, do they? If that's the case, then then it's good to create some more relational copy, something that's going to be of value to the client. So, you know, educational, informational, not just about this promotion we're offering, but hey. This is information that would be relevant to you and your pet, and it's free. Just look at our blog or check out our e-newsletter or something like that.

Brandon (00:19:31) - So I know that's a big, I guess, wide sweeping question for sure. But yeah.

Sarah (00:19:36) - I guess everything really just depends on what the client's looking for. We have larger companies that really want to they have a specific goal in mind and they want us to help them achieve that. And so we'll work with them accordingly. And then we have little mom and pop practice that wants they just want to show up higher on search and they want regular content added to their blog. Maybe they want to engage more on social and we'll help them do those things. I don't usually from like we don't usually have clients come to us and say, okay, we want a marketing plan. We're really just strictly copywriting and we definitely will brainstorm and have content planning sessions, but it's usually specific to content. And I always recommend if you're wanting a very comprehensive marketing plan, there needs to be another player at the table, someone who's a marketing, digital marketing, typically expert. Cool.

Brandon (00:20:31) - Yeah, that makes sense. And that's people always ask if I do social content and I don't do social content, I think, yeah, I like doing ads and so I sick to add.

Brandon (00:20:42) - I think there's like a lot of wisdom in picking what you're good at and not trying to do everything because then you'd be a lot more effective. But I guess one, one thing that I was wondering is when it comes to content types that you see people producing, like whether it's blog posts or just email content or anything like that, do you think there's an underutilized like medium of content? Like do you think advertorials or advertorial style content is underused? Or when you're creating content, do you think we should focus more on this one type? What do you kind of see going on right now and what do you like to do that you think really helps to drive a lot of value for your clients?

Sarah (00:21:26) - So my company, we write, we're writing right now over 200 pet owner facing blog posts every month for veterinary practices across the country. Well, really in in other countries as well. So I think I think a lot of practices are understanding the value of having a blog and contributing it to contributing to it regularly.

Sarah (00:21:49) - So I think that before people were always like, why do you need a blog? Yes. You know, And so we've always kind of tried to talk about the educational, you know, you can push clients there when a cat's cats diagnosed with diabetes or something and you want to send them some information, you can send them to your own blog post rather than, you know, some other article on the on the Internet or some printout that you've made. So and then obviously the SEO content, just the having having that regular contribution to your website and new content being produced is going to help you to move up in search rankings. So but I do think that the industry is starting to understand the value of regular content production. I do. I personally a lot of the the industry clients the bigger not just not practices really but a lot of the bigger industry clients that we work with are going toward advertorials nowadays. And I think that's fun. I really like that because it's, you know, yes, it's paid content, but you know, it appears in a publication that's, you know, got a lot of readers and and it's never it's hardly it's typically not promotional in any way.

Sarah (00:23:01) - You know it's an educational informational article that, you know, at the end might have you know it'll say sponsored by and at the end might have a easy little call to action or some sort. But I do think that there's a lot of value in that when as long as you are working with a publication that is targeting the audience that you want to reach.

Brandon (00:23:21) - So I think I think that veterinary practice is really want to produce educational content because they value and believe that education is very important, right? But I think that that's probably not necessarily a good approach to have, generally speaking. Do you think that educational content is a good strategy? I mean, I think producing information for the sake of like educating, there's like somebody could go read a textbook, right? So when somebody says, like, I want to create educational content, do you direct them to do something different? Or what's your approach on that? I'm just interested to see what you think about that.

Sarah (00:24:00) - I do think there's value in that just because, you know, if you're a veterinarian, would you rather your your client just go Google or find a book or whatever on the topic that they're asking you about or would you rather have do you want to be kind of the source of that information? And so I do think there's value.

Sarah (00:24:20) - I mean, obviously, there's low hanging fruit stuff like, oh, holiday safety, like, okay, everyone's everyone publishes about that kind of stuff at certain times of year or firework aversion or, you know, like all those things. But I do think, you know, if you have. It helps to kind of cement you as a credible, credible and gives you kind of that authority if you have that content on your own site and you've written it, whether you've actually written it yourself or you've had a copywriter write it, I do think that it's there is value there. And like I said before, I think there's also value there. So the more good, credible information that we have online, I mean, obviously content's being produced at record rate right now and it has been for a while and it will continue to be that way, especially now with things like ChatGPT. And but I think the more credible good information written by veterinarians and veterinary professionals out there, the better. That way we have that kind of hopefully drowning out, the less credible sources.

Sarah (00:25:25) - So I think there's value in that. And if someone wants to make science, I think it makes sense.

Brandon (00:25:30) - That that definitely makes sense, I guess. I think the way that most of the time that I see people talk about blogging is that they've written something and so then they publish it and then nobody reacts to it. And my typical thing is that it's it is informational, but it's not useful because it's number one, so boring. And then it's also super clinical and it just doesn't convey anything beyond just the information, which is like, what, a Google search or now a chat GPT search could produce, which is.

Sarah (00:26:00) - Why you should stand out by not making it boring and clinical.

Brandon (00:26:03) - And have that voice and everything that you talked about.

Sarah (00:26:06) - Yeah, absolutely. And even maybe like, you know, if going back to the Diabetes and Cats exam, you know, if we're if you have a blog about cats you're so your cat was diagnosed with diabetes now what you know you could even embed a video of one of your team members showing how to administer insulin or something.

Sarah (00:26:24) - You know, like there are a number of things you can add to it that makes it even more valuable than just words on a page.

Brandon (00:26:32) - Yeah, I definitely I think that if you can show people to at the same time as telling them and conveying that information, if everything's consistent to it'll make the content piece so much more effective. So I think that's a really good, some really good ideas there. And since you brought up ChatGPT or rather, what do you see? Because I, I think I can spot AI headlines now all the time and I don't know how you feel about that, but I feel like it's really started to just kind of make content super bland in general. Right? And Seth talked about this to you. All the mediocre content can be replaced. So I think actually it might do a better job than most veterinarians when it comes to like direct response copywriting, but it's still not very good. So what's what's your take on AI and things like that?

Sarah (00:27:22) - Yeah. Yeah. I mean, gosh, it's evolving so quickly, right? I think it was probably just about a year ago when I first heard about ChatGPT and I was like, Oh my gosh, am I going to the, you know, the robots going to replace me? I don't know.

Sarah (00:27:35) - But since then, I've had a lot of time to play around with it. And when Seth was on your on your podcast and I've actually heard him say a couple of different times something similar to that, the fact that is not going to replace humans, but humans who use AI effectively are going to replace humans who don't use AI. And I think that makes sense. And so on. My team, we've talked about AI a lot. We've practiced using ChatGPT. We never take something ChatGPT writes for us and give that to a client as our own work ever. In fact, sometimes I wonder if ChatGPT would cause me more work than if I just didn't use it. Sometimes it requires a lot of editing for sure. At this stage that could change. But I do think, you know, we've talked about the importance of being authentic with your voice and your tone and, um, and having copy that represents you as a brand and your company and your practice. GPT isn't you and it's not your brand and it's not your practice.

Sarah (00:28:38) - And so it's it doesn't know how to convey that. And it can give you certainly give you a decent starting point if you know how to put in the proper prompts. But it's going to require a lot of work on your end to make it your own and make it authentic and come from you. So I would just say if you're a practice and you want to play around with it, maybe start with something like job ads or, you know, a handbook or maybe a simple email copy or even a simple blog post. But you're going to have to spend spend time really customizing it to make it look like it's coming from you and not a not an alien.

Brandon (00:29:22) - Yeah, absolutely. I think if you can just copy and paste it in there, it doesn't do the client any benefit because they should just go to ChatGPT and they can ask follow up questions. And so if you're not. Can provide value, just don't add to the pile of junk on the internet. I think so. But yeah, in general, I think that's that's a good, a good kind of philosophy around that.

Brandon (00:29:46) - And do you think that. It is like a well, I guess in what instances would you rely more on that than not?

Sarah (00:29:59) - I would say it's good for brainstorming. You know, one thing that my team tried was what are ten different? Blog post approaches for a blog on heartworm in dogs or something like that. And it came up with ten different approaches that you could take. You know, maybe it's ways to prevent heartworm or, you know, like maybe it's a list or maybe it's a I don't remember all the different things that I came up with. But if you're having writer's block and you know you want to produce a blog post on this topic today, but you're just not sure how to, you want to do something that's unique, so you're not sounding like everyone else in the industry. I think it's a good way to kind of brainstorm and it it is smart, like it can it will. You can have a conversation with it, you know, like if it comes back with different ideas for you and you don't like any of them, you can ask it to regenerate.

Sarah (00:30:49) - You can even say like, um. Change this so that it includes cats as well or something like that and it will appropriately respond. So that's pretty, pretty interesting way to use it. If you have, you know, I'm actually going to try this later and this might not apply really to veterinary practices, but I'm working on an editorial piece right now for today's veterinary business. And I have interviews that I've conducted in the transcripts, and I'm going to actually copy and paste transcript interview into ChatGPT and ask it to pull out the important quotes and pieces of information. And just because I'm curious to see what it's like a 15 page PDF, I'm curious to see how long it takes it and what it comes up with. Is it going to miss important things that I would have highlighted on my own? So I'm curious about something like that. Like can you take a large piece of information and have it pull out the important parts for you? Um, I think that's an interesting idea that might be able to save me time in the future.

Sarah (00:31:50) - Um, and even a veterinarian if like a new study comes out and they want to, you know, obviously there's an abstract or something, but like, if there's something they're looking for in a, in a larger piece of information that might be useful for them.

Brandon (00:32:04) - Absolutely. That's really cool. Yeah. There's a lot of tools that I use now. Like there's one called Opus Clip which just automatically chunks down your videos into landscapes that you don't have to do any video editing. So that's really cool. And then one is called Pod Squeeze, which I upload my podcast, it transcribes it and give me all the equal chunks out of it, timestamps and everything. So this is a pretty cool and I'm excited for those kinds of tools. But I do think that you're kind of right on with using it for brainstorming and things, and I have been seeing that if I it really depends on the prompts that you give it right where if you you can have it write stuff in the style of certain famous marketers or in direct response style or clickbait style.

Brandon (00:32:46) - And just adding those kinds of qualifiers really helps to get different results. Yeah, if you.

Sarah (00:32:51) - Already have something written like let's say you have a, you know, one of the doctors on your team wrote an email for clients and you think it's too dry or something. You know, you could copy and paste that copy into ChatGPT and say, craft an email for dog owners. Um, you know, based on this copy, but make it sound more friendly and approachable and definitely does a decent job of doing that. I mean, you're still going to have to edit, edit it for your own voice and tone and, and accuracy sometimes. But I think that it's a good starting point.

Brandon (00:33:23) - I definitely agree. And yeah, it's it's pretty creative. It's interesting. I was using it yesterday and it seems like something changed on it because I told it that it was going to be helping me as a marketing assistant. And it's like I told them what the idea was and then it said, Wow, this is a great idea, this is going to help you.

Brandon (00:33:41) - And so I think it's fantastic or something like that. And it was just really bizarre because it doesn't usually say that kind of thing. And so that kind of caught me off guard. So it's pretty that was pretty weird. But, um, one thing that I have that question for, when you think about like clients that you work with and veteran hospitals in general, when do you think that they should consider hiring a copywriter like yourself and your team versus when it's not necessarily time for them?

Sarah (00:34:09) - I mean, I think if you know what you want to say, but you don't have the time or the ability to say it yourself, I think that's a good time to consider hiring a copywriter. If you do want to put out regular content, you know whether that's okay. We want to email our clients a newsletter once a month, and we want to have blog posts that feed into that newsletter and we want to have 2 or 3 blog posts a month that feed into that. And we want to have social posts, you know, five times a week or whatever their goals are.

Sarah (00:34:39) - You know, if they know that and they know that, okay, we don't really have the bandwidth on our team to do that or we don't have someone who is a skilled writer, then it's time to consider that for sure. Like I said before, some of the smartest people in the world are my clients and they're so smart and they know so much more than I do about everything except for writing. And so that's why we work with them. Um, and like I said earlier before as well, I would say at a minimum, consider hiring a copy editor if you're not really ready to hire a copywriter. I just think having someone polished what you write and making sure that it is consistent and with, you know, the tone and voice of your brand think is really important as well.

Brandon (00:35:17) - Absolutely. Editors make you look like you're a good writer. So when I had an editor one time for a piece that I did, I can't remember which magazine was for, and they made it look so good.

Brandon (00:35:27) - And it was amazing. I was like, I didn't write this fantastic. But that's, that's really cool. And, um, I think that probably, as the are you seeing with all of your clients that people are seeing slowdowns because I work with people with ads, right? And so pretty much the only people I'm talking to are people who are seeing slowdowns. And so it's basically everybody that I'm talking to. So I feel like I might be biased on it, but I think that there is a real slowdown in the. Me versus the past three years. And so especially with writing and content, I think that there is so much more. It takes like a little bit more time to get traction, to find your voice, to get response and things like that, because with ads you can just turn them on measure immediately, right? But with content and emails, I think if you just start showing up with emails, you're kind of just like the the neighbor who's asking to borrow your truck or, you know, like asking for stuff.

Brandon (00:36:21) - So when it comes to content and things, I think that people should start before they're going to need it because it's something that takes time. What are your thoughts on that? And like, I think people should get started with their strategy. And like Seth Godin said, he said, that is part of running your business. You can't not write emails. That is it. So do you think I guess it's hard to make broad, sweeping generalizations for every practice. But I think actually email is something that every single practice should be doing and almost nobody is. I think that actually once a month is not often enough. And I'd like to hear your thoughts about that and what you think about as far as time frames to get response and to get traction and things like that.

Sarah (00:37:09) - Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think definitely you should start before you need it. I don't know if there's a slowdown or if there's just more of a shift. You know, I feel like some some of the people I work with are experiencing growth.

Sarah (00:37:22) - Some have kind of are kind of steady. I don't really know of anyone who's declining that much, but I do think that there's there are changes that are happening all the time and people are deciding where to spend their money. In some I think lately that's been starting to change. I'm not an economist, but that's the impression I'm getting from the perspective of my business. And like you said, it's, you know, you if you're a veterinary practice owner, how much time you've probably heard smart business people talk about working for your business versus working in your business or working in your business versus working on your business. And you have to spend a certain amount of time working on your business. Otherwise your business could could fail. So it's important, you know, sending building up a good email list and sending reaching out to your clients via, whether it's via text, email, social media, any of those other medium mediums that we've talked about I think is really important that's spent time spent working on your business and developing those relationships, building that rapport, you know, reminding clients, pet owners who you are and why you're there and that you're there to help them with anything that their pet needs, you know? And so I think that I think it is important.

Sarah (00:38:44) - You should definitely start before, you know, if your business is starting to go downhill. Um. You know, there might be other other things you should be thinking about first before like, oh, we should have a content strategy. Now, I think content strategy is something you should probably be thinking about while your business is healthy anyway, and just using that to help maintain a healthy, a healthy business. So I don't know. You know, I really think frequency of email depends on your what you're wanting to talk about. I would say don't send, don't say, okay, we're going to send emails five days a week or five times a month or once a week or whatever it is. I don't know that. I don't know that it's so important to have a set frequency as it's important to have. I mean, I think you should probably have a minimum frequency that you say, okay, we're going to reach out at least this often, but if you don't have anything to say, why, why email? You know.

Brandon (00:39:42) - I agree. That would be my my thought is right that you actually want to provide enough value that you're not going to feel like you're bugging people. I think that's the thing that people worry about with emails. Like I don't want to bug them, but if you're creating content and have a content strategy that's in place, that's going to provide enough value to show up and they'll be excited to see your email, I think that's where you should probably try to go, but I don't. I don't know. And yeah.

Sarah (00:40:07) - And I think it's important to think about what's happening in your geographic location or with your target audience right now. You know, our. Are is is there a bunch of blue green algae happening and pets are getting sick? And if so, why not inform your clients about that? Um, if there's, you know, if you're in the hurricane area and, you know, this hurricane is heading right towards you, why not reach out to your clients about what to do prior to that happening? Um, so I do think, you know, being specific.

Brandon (00:40:38) - And our season, for example, like if a fire comes, you're not gonna have time to email them. So like fire season. Yeah. Provide value.

Sarah (00:40:44) - For example, of like.

Sarah (00:40:46) - Educating, you know, the value of educating your clients. You know, there's, it's more, it's about more than just holiday safety or, you know, there are other a lot of other timely things that you should be thinking about based on your geographic location.

Brandon (00:41:00) - Yeah, absolutely. Well, I guess kind of last last thing that I would want to ask you if you could do one thing that you see practices doing and like have them either stop or start something, what would that be? And and why would that be when it comes to, um, content in general?

Sarah (00:41:20) - Oh, good question. Um.

Sarah (00:41:24) - You think about.

Sarah (00:41:25) - This for a second? So for me as a writer, when I'm like, my this isn't really necessarily just about content marketing. It's more about just from a writer's perspective. Like my pet peeve is when I see mistakes, grammar errors or typos in writing or even just improper, like when writing is wrong, you know, like there's so many people in this industry and really probably everywhere but who think that, you know, like veterinary medicine is, is a proper noun and it should be capitalized.

Sarah (00:42:01) - And that's not the case. So that's another reason why I think it's valuable to have a copywriter because you're going to come your content is going to be error free and it's going to be properly written. It drives me crazy when I see things like that. And also inconsistency, you know, like some practices say preventive medicine, some practices say preventative medicine, some practices use health care as one word. Some practices use health care as two words. I would say none of those things are wrong, but it is wrong if you're going back and forth between the two different ways of doing things. So pick a style and be consistent with that voice and style.

Brandon (00:42:40) - That makes that makes a lot of sense. And yeah, that that's really cool. I think I like, I really like watching your Instagram reels where you each go through like the pet peeve that you have because it's like, Oh, I need to focus on that. So I really love your content too, and I suggest everybody go check out your Instagram at Rumpus writing.

Brandon (00:43:00) - And then where can people get in touch with you? I think I honestly think every practice that is is doing well should hire you because it's important to really define your brand voice and get your content all aligned and like there's just so much value in that. So where can people go and, and find you at? What's the best way to get in touch with you?

Sarah (00:43:23) - Go to our website, which is rumpus writing. And I will say, you know, all of our clients have all different kinds of objectives and things that they're trying to accomplish and whether it's just, Oh, we want a job ad written or we want, you know, an ongoing relationship where you're doing X, Y, Z every month, we we can do any of those things and we can be pretty flexible. So whether you think what you're looking for is too small or too big, we've got a team of writers that and editors that can handle it. So we have six full time writers on our team, and then we have 7 or 8 freelancers that we use with use every month as well, depending on how many projects we have going on at the time.

Sarah (00:44:11) - So very cool. And everyone on the full time team is either except for me, is either a veterinarian or a veterinary technician. So we also have that medical knowledge, which I think is really important. A lot of people can go find, you know, veterinary content or find copywriters elsewhere, but it's not necessarily written by someone who knows the profession and the medical side of things as well. So we have that on our side.

Brandon (00:44:34) - That's that's really cool. I didn't realize that. And that is actually a massive, massive, massive benefit because obviously you want to make sure you're putting out good info. So that's, that's awesome. Well, thank you so much, Sarah. I really appreciate it.

Sarah (00:44:48) - Thank you. Brandon. It's been fun.