Veterinary Hospital Marketing: How To Measure and Maximize It

Over the last few years, the veterinary industry saw record growth without spending much on marketing to new clients. Now, with the downturn of the economy, invoice counts are declining nationwide, presenting a new challenge for veterinary hospitals. If you are experiencing this trend in your hospital, it may be time to review and update your new client marketing strategy. Whether you reinvest in existing strategies or develop a new marketing partnership, it is important to track your investment and understand its return.

Just like any investment, you should have a budget for how much you plan to spend on new client marketing. (Typically, a veterinary hospital’s marketing budget is 1% of revenue.) You should also have a goal for the number of new clients you would like to gain. Having these two numbers predetermined will provide a basic metric for you to use to evaluate the return on your investment – dollars spent per new client.

You can then track new client growth throughout your marketing campaign and compare it against your anticipated return on investment metric. This allows you to measure the campaign’s success rate and better understand the true cost of acquiring every new client. Here are some questions to ask as you evaluate your marketing efforts:

• Is your hospital gaining the number of new clients anticipated?
• How much is being spent to obtain a new client?
• Does your marketing spend per new client match the expectations set by your marketing team?

By taking time to evaluate the return on your marketing investment, you can ensure its effectiveness, tweak the approach as needed, and make sure you are getting the most bang for your buck.

For more tips on how to effectively manage your veterinary practice, download the Veterinarian’s Guide to Best Practices, Vol. 7 or contact our veterinary consulting team.