From Woof to Wow! The Power of Digital Marketing to enhance your PR Efforts

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From Woof to Wow! The Power of Digital Marketing to enhance your PR Efforts

Posted On - 24/02/2023

As a veterinary or pet business owner, you know that building a positive reputation is crucial for success. Public relations (PR) can help you establish trust with your clients and showcase your expertise and services. While traditional PR methods, like print ads and community events, have been effective in the past, digital marketing has opened up new opportunities to enhance and complement these efforts in the online space.

With digital marketing working seamlessly alongside PR, you can increase the reach and impact of your campaigns. By using various digital channels such as social media, email marketing, and search engine optimisation (SEO), you can extend the reach of your PR campaigns and target specific audiences and a subset of pet owners. This article will explain how social media, websites, email marketing, and reviews can enhance and complement your traditional PR efforts.

Social Media

Social media is an essential tool for businesses of all sizes, including veterinary practices. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn can all help build a community for you to interact with clients and local pet owners, showcase your services and share exciting announcements such as press releases. We’re even seeing some successful veterinary TikTok channels! By using social media, you can build trust and strengthen relationships with clients, which can be helpful when it comes to mitigating the impact of any negative PR or negative reviews.

By regularly engaging with your clients on social media, you can build a positive reputation and create a community of loyal pet owners. To make the most of social media, you should have a clear strategy that outlines your goals, target audience, and content plan. Share regular educational content, information about your services, patients, team members, and any updates or changes to your business. Remember, what works for your clients might not be what works for everyone else – so feel free to experiment!

Website and SEO

A well-designed website can serve as the foundation for all other digital marketing efforts and provide potential clients with important information about your practice, services offered, pet owner education, staff bios, contact information and even a means to communicate via chat services. A user-friendly website that is easy to navigate and optimised for mobile devices can enhance the user experience and encourage potential clients to explore your practice further.

Optimising your website for search engines can increase your PR efforts’ visibility and reach a wider audience. This is especially important for veterinary practices, as potential clients increasingly turn to search engines to find information about pet health concerns and research local businesses. By focusing specifically on local SEO, you can ensure that your practice appears at the top of search results for relevant keywords, which can drive more traffic to your website and increase your visibility in the community. Additionally, good SEO practices, such as publishing regular blog content, can help establish your practice as a trusted authority in the field, further enhancing your reputation and credibility.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a powerful and often underrated tool to help you stay in touch with your clients, promote your services and add value to the client and practice relationship. You can send targeted and personalised messages about services, promotions, and other relevant information by building an email list of your current clients. This can help to keep clients informed and engaged with your practice, building loyalty in the process.
To make the most of email marketing, ensure your emails are personalised, engaging, and relevant. Segment your email list into smaller lists, such as species and life stages, to create targeted messages that speak to their individual needs.

Online Reviews

Reviews and client testimonials are an essential part of your online presence. Positive reviews can help you to attract new clients, while negative reviews can harm your reputation and discourage potential clients from using your services. For this reason, it is important for you to monitor your online reviews and respond to any negative feedback promptly and professionally. Remember, a few negatives among lots of positives is actually a good thing – it looks more believable and thus trustworthy!

To encourage positive reviews, actively ask your clients for feedback when they visit and provide easy-to-use platforms to leave reviews, such as Google or Facebook, and industry-specific platforms like VetHelpDirect.com. Incorporating positive reviews in your social media content plan and highlighting this on your website can help to build trust and credibility with potential new pet owners looking for a new vet.
By leveraging various digital marketing techniques to complement your traditional PR efforts, you can position yourself as a leader in your field and strengthen your relationships with local pet owners.

Claire Simper, Director of Services: VetsDigital

Claire entered the wonderful world of veterinary by accident in 2009 as Evening Receptionist at a single vet, indy practice and quickly progressed her career to Practice Manager. Through nearly every role in the practice (apart from the Vet!), she gained experience in patient and client care, staff management, marketing and business operations. Now running Europe’s largest digital marketing agency, she uses her experience to help veterinary practices and businesses connect with pet owners using digital marketing, specifically social media and content strategy.

VetsDigital is Europe’s leading digital marketing agency for the veterinary sector. Their mission is to help veterinary businesses educate, gain and retain ideal clients using cutting-edge digital marketing techniques. The team made up of Vets, RVNs and industry colleagues, are driven by a passion for animal welfare in addition to delivering effective and measurable online marketing communications.

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SEEING IS BELIEVING

‘We have worked with Cerub PR since the beginning of 2017 concentrating on community interest projects and general CSR. Ceri and Anastasia have been very proactive and productive they are easy to contact and have significantly raised our profile in the local and regional media.’

Mike Lowe - Operations Director - Summerleaze Limited

'The team at Buckinghamshire Business First has had the pleasure of working with Ceri at Cerub PR for over a decade as our preferred PR sponsor of the Buckinghamshire Business Awards. Cerub has also provided invaluable PR support for our business-to-business workshops and events and has been a reliable source of ad hoc PR support and advice often with very tight timescales. Throughout this time, Ceri has consistently demonstrated professionalism and reliability, proving to be a safe pair of hands in all situations. Ceri is not afraid to challenge when needed, ensuring that our communications are always of the highest standard. We highly recommend Cerub PR.'

Lynsey Dunn - Buckinghamshire Business First - Head of Marketing, Communications and Events

'We entered two awards, one of which we were shortlisted for. It was our first time doing this and the business is still fairly young, so this was a great outcome and gained us more visibility locally. The nomination was featured in the local press online, which generated backlinks. 

'Our CEO & Founder was featured in some key publications, including Business Matters and the Financial Services Forum, which are highly relevant publications for our target audience. The feature in the FS Forum has subsequently led to our CEO securing a speaker slot at one of their upcoming events, which further positions her as an expert in our field.

'We were impressed with the connections and contacts they had, which enabled us to quickly get a PR function up and running, despite having never done activity like this before. The opportunities we got were really interesting and have had a lasting impact beyond the initial project.'

Catherine Story - Founder and Managing Director - Freshbat Marketing

'Shout out to the amazing Cerub PR! We recently wrapped up a dental health month campaign and their energy, creativity and understanding of our brand and audience made a real impact. Cerub delivered real results for us, securing over 40 pieces of high- quality coverage across trade, consumer and broadcast media.

'We achieved loads of awareness for the campaign with both veterinary professionals and pet owners. Ceri-Jane Hackling's  strategic thinking, proactivity and ability to spot strong storytelling opportunities made a big difference. They genuinely are an extension to our team and I wouldn’t be without them!'

Will Peel - Marketing Manager - Animalcare

'We took part in a 1:1 PR strategy planning afternoon with Cerub PR. It was such a helpful exercise with Ceri and Anastasia leading us through our business plans and objectives from a PR and Communications perspective. The output of the session was a detailed report/strategic document with plenty of actionable information, ideas and observations that will allow me to create a PR strand to our overall marketing strategy and put the suggestions and advice into action myself. This was a very helpful exercise to support my planning. We look forward to working with Cerub PR in the future as our business grows.'

Hannah Whalley - Marketing Manager - Controlled Events

'Our programme does some fantastic work to help both businesses and the environment. Being fantastic isn’t always enough though; it’s also about getting the message out there to the market. This is where Ceri, Anastasia and the team at Cerub PR thrived. They helped us to reach new marketing outlets, which proved invaluable in the post-pandemic landscape. We would absolutely recommend Cerub and would be happy to work with them in the future.'

Daniel Cope - Programme Manager - Low Carbon Workspaces

‘It has been an absolute pleasure working with Cerub PR. Right from the start, we knew we were in safe and professional hands. They can cover everything you may need, and for someone with zero experience in this area, their no nonsense approach was fresh and welcoming. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.’

Cheryl Tissot - Rays of Sunshine Children's Charity

PR Agency Buckinghamshire, London
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