Online Marketing Tips for Veterinarians

Rabid blogger, chicken owner and veterinarian Dr. Patty Khuly's July 23 blog post "How to Get More Veterinarians to Blog . . ." explains that "sometimes I feel like I'm a lone voice in the wilderness, seeing as so few of my fellow veterinary professionals have glommed onto blogging."

She's right. There aren't many veterinarians who blog. Perhaps because they don't see the benefits. Here are some benefits the veterinarians and pet owners who commented on that very blog post have found.

. . . according to me.

I often like the wording in Drs Foster & Smith email newsletters and other pieces.

The one I got today was just slightly bland (and easily fixable.)

There in my email queue is: "Pet Tails: Stories from Our Clinic."

A Non-Website Designer’s Perspective on Choosing a Website Design Company
 

Just a year ago, there were two or three companies dedicated to designing websites just for veterinarians.

Today, entering the search terms, “website design” and “veterinarians” brings up at least a dozen.

Blog 10/20/09:

Because so few experts comment on marketing (let alone blogging) for veterinary practices, I sometimes turn to pundits in human medicine for insight.

Blog World Expo 2009, now only in it’s third year, created an entire category just for “medbloggers,” or bloggers serving the medical industry.  I was fortunate to attend several sessions that focused the use of blogging in hospitals and health care.

1. Keep your veterinary video short and sweet – one to two minutes.
2. Quickly outline what you will talk about in the first ten seconds.
3. Get a lapel microphone at Best Buy or any electronics store and hook it into your video camera.
4. Keep a fast pace (in short-attention-span America)
5. Ignore it if you misspeak.
6. Use an outline rather than a static script.
7. Don’t shoot the video in front of a window.
8. Don’t shoot a veterinary video in a room with tile floors and no curtains.
   

If you’re still nervous about putting your approach to pet care techniques on video, check out these below. Just click on the link to see what your colleagues are saying. If the link doesn’t work, try holding down your control key while clicking.

Determining whether a dog has bloat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ffm5WCtl94

Giving a cat a pill:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWQ86e3Lhvg

What to do if your dog is choking:

People like video on your site.

Search engines like video on your site.

And the biggest surprise: getting a video on your site is not that difficult. In fact, big companies now try to make their videos look more raw and homemade so that their posts appear “authentic and genuine.”

As you can see, I’m an iGoogle fan. (No: I’m not getting any kickbacks. Google doesn’t know who I am from Adam, and besides, recently the FTC ruled that bloggers getting money for endorsing products and services had to come clean and confess about whose payroll they were on.)

The next time you see this symbol, jump on it. The term “RSS Feed” should not make anyone who passed O-Chem (YOU) shudder. Standing for Really Simple Syndication, an RSS feed is just an easy way for someone’s column to come straight to you.

Traditionally, syndicated columnists like Paul Harvey, Erma Bombeck or Ann Landers had to rely on newspapers to get their words read. For the column’s success, newspapers and columnists themselves depended on the whim of the consumer to pick up the paper that day or not.

These websites do more than provide information about their hospital. They provide viewers with resources and/or opportunities for a sense of belonging. When they’re designing their sites, they’re thinking, “How can I offer a treasure trove of fun and interesting tools and resources?” Through their websites, they make themselves indispensible!