Bringing the Human—Animal Bond to the Web

Are you capitalizing on all the tools available today to build the best relationships with pet owners? 

“If the rate of change outside your organization is greater than the rate of change inside your organization, the end is in sight.”—Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric Corp

Companion animal veterinarians have made great progress in the areas of marketing and client outreach, but many practices hesitate when it comes to integrating web-based communication and advertising into their overall marketing strategy.

While there is no doubt it can be challenging to keep pace with these evolving platforms, let alone master them, it is important to understand that nonparticipation can affect your ability to remain competitive in a saturated marketplace. The tools available today offer an unprecedented ability to build powerful and sustainable relationships with pet owners.

The 2011 Bayer Veterinary Care Usage Study (summary available here) found that pet owners use the Internet to research pet health before and after a veterinary visit, and this form of information-gathering is contributing to the overall decline in veterinary visits. In fact, 39% of survey respondents somewhat or completely agreed that they go online before going to the veterinarian if their pet is sick or injured, and another 15% admitted they rely on information from the Internet rather than seek veterinary care (see Figure 1).

Clearly this is more than just a problem of lost revenue; our inability to control the quality of information owners receive online, combined with a choice to delay or not seek veterinary care, affects the well-being of pets. While some may recover without treatment, veterinarians have found that they are “seeing pets 3 days sicker” due to delayed treatment. Ultimately, the results can be devastating, and in worst-case scenarios, can force an owner to choose between extensive treatment or economic euthanasia.

A large upscale practice in an affluent suburb of Dallas has experienced this delayed treatment phenomenon for at least 2 years, and as it has become progressively more apparent it has taken an emotional toll on the team. Although there are dogs that have suffered the consequences of poor Internet information, in this practice the feline population has been most affected. There are some days where the majority of cats that come through the door are in an advanced state of distress—and it is the first time they have been to a veterinarian since they were kittens. Often, clients are shocked to learn just how sick their cats are, and had no idea they would be faced with making the difficult decision between extensive critical care or euthanasia.

Keep in mind that these are not cruel pet owners who set out to harm their cats. A large part of the problem is that owners tend to rely on anecdotal information and inaccurate symptom-matching from the Internet. For example, a cat is losing weight and the owner reads online that this is a normal part of the aging process. When this self-diagnosis goes on too long, extreme measures are the only option.

One veterinarian in particular expressed his frustration: “Every time I look at my schedule and see a cat that we’ve never seen, or haven’t seen in ages, I cringe. If she is over 10 years old and the appointment notes indicate that the cat isn’t ‘feeling well,’ I dread that appointment for the rest of the day, because I have a good idea where the whole thing will end up. Sometimes I think the only reason we get the chance to see a cat is either it can no longer stand up or it is urinating outside the litter box—yeah, that’s a good one…even the Internet hasn’t figured out a cure for that!”

Make the Internet Work for You

Although it is understandable to feel defeated by the Internet’s effect on both our livelihoods and our patients, there are things to do to make the web work for us rather than against us. This means learning to become “players” in a constantly changing arena. A key point that veterinary teams must recognize is that the Internet is not simply about marketing in the traditional sense. A practice’s overall web and electronic media approach needs to be equally focused on relationship-building, education, and communication.

Offering veterinary-approved links and pet health libraries, as well as communicating with current clients via email, are ways to combat the trend of pet owners seeking information outside of direct veterinary channels.

To start, your website must include a trusted client education component. Fortunately, there are now numerous pet health libraries on the market from which to choose and that can be made available directly through your site.

Just as the key to increasing visits is to educate clients your practice is more than just the place to take their pet for vaccines, so too must they be educated that your website is more than just a place to go to find your address or phone number. Just as they have trusted sites to go to for information in other areas, your site should be on the “tips of their fingertips” regarding pet health care.

What is available on your website should be mentioned every time a client comes in—from the reception desk to the examination room. Ask clients if they’ve been to your site lately and let them know what is available—pet health library, current articles, opportunities to post photos of their pets— whatever you’ve got, tell them about it! If there are computers in the exam rooms, the doctors and technicians should pull up the website and show clients exactly where to find what they need. Offer to print or email an article, show them how and where you found it, and explain that they can conduct their own searches at any time.

Include your web address, your URL, on every piece of material that leaves the clinic, from business cards and brochures to receipts. Put a sticker on brochures from suppliers with the practice’s contact information, including website and email address. Even a bag of pet food should have this label ; not only is it a visual reminder of where it was purchased, but if the website address is prominent, it will remind clients of all of the great tools your staff told them about. The next time they are surfing the web, or maybe the time after that, they’ll remember to check you out. If you have gained clients’ trust through personal interactions with their pets, there will be no reason for them to look elsewhere for information.

See Veterinary Website Do’s and Don’ts here.

Beyond Websites

Consider the benefits of individual veterinary–client email communication. Email can save a tremendous amount of time that may have been spent with clients on the phone; your instructions or suggestions cannot be misinterpreted when in writing. Email is also efficient when working with owners of diabetic pets, or pets with other conditions that require frequent updates. Clients who are monitoring glucose levels or performing glucose curves at home can email test results for review.

And what about when we tell clients to “Keep me up-to-date” or “Let me know if there are any changes”—and then are unavailable to take their calls? They become upset or angry. Email actually provides a “grace period” for responding, since a 12- to 24-hour reply window is generally accepted. Another benefit is there is also no question that an email has been received, where there is a general assumption that perhaps a phone message was not, often leading to repeated calls and messages. Another advantage is permanence of email means messages can be reaccessed to jog the memory and can be a time-saver when copying and pasting a conversation thread into a patient’s electronic medical record.

Social Media

Regarding other online platforms, pet owners are not only surfing the web, they are spending a great deal of time socializing and communicating via the Internet as well. The Veterinarian New Media Usage Study published by Nicholson Kovac, Inc. in 2009 reported on Internet use by pet owners and found that they are far more active than their non–pet-owning counterparts.

The advent of social media, which appear to be a pet owner’s paradise, provides a whole other type of communication opportunity for veterinary practices. The Veterinarian New Media Usage Study reports that dog owners are 17% more likely and cat owners 31% more likely to use social media sites than the average adult. These percentages are no small matter if you consider that there are over 500 million Facebook users worldwide. This is great news, because it tells us that by harnessing these existing behaviors and using them to create a digital word-of-mouth network around our veterinary practices, we will undoubtedly and successfully reach our target audience.

So what’s the best approach? According to the Social Marketing Playbook, “Successful social marketing programs have the same elemental truth in common: they understand their target audiences’ passion points and have developed an interactive experience that enables consumers to express themselves.” In that case we have a very real advantage over other businesses, since we all know what most pet owners love to talk about—pets! This makes it easy to build a fan base, create online chatter or buzz about your practice, and encourage peer-to-peer recommendations and “likes,” which are the gold standard for increasing awareness and visibility.

Using all of the new media and communication platforms to develop an owner-centered marketing strategy is critical to reverse declining visits and associated negative trends. Communicating with clients and potential clients via their preferred formats means always being on full-alert regarding their needs and changing preferences, and then incorporating these into your overall strategy. As overwhelming as it can seem, the Internet tools we have available to “touch” our target audience provide the means to attract and sustain a loyal fan base of devoted clients.

Outsourcing

For those of you who conclude from all this that it is time to outsource the creation and management of your practice’s web platforms, you are absolutely correct—it is far too impactful, not to mention time-consuming, to delegate to an amateur or handle in-house. Fortunately there are companies whose sole purpose is to manage and monitor a business’ entire web presence and image, and investing in these services will ensure that your practice is getting the exposure it needs. Competition among practices has become a major reality, and this trend is only expected to continue. Business experts also predict that early adopters, those small business owners who understand the importance of an integrated multimedia presence, will be the ones that continue to thrive. Ultimately, “keeping up with the Joneses,” or preferably, staying one step ahead of them, is a necessity for the health of your practice and the well-being of your patients.