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VetMatrix is proud to present the continuation of our 6-part Webinar series titled "Taking Charge of Your Client Experience," hosted by author and doctor Steve Kornfeld, DVM and Dr. Jas Mattu, both of New Dimension Veterinary Practice. We anticipate each webinar to last about 1 hour with plenty of time for questions after the presentation. Parts 2 through 6 will be held on the below dates. (Click the session names to sign up)

1. Taking Charge of Your Client Experience - August 10, 2011
2. Improving Client Experience on the Phone - September 7, 2011
3. Elevating Client Experience when in the Lobby - September 21, 2011
4. Leveraging the Doctor in the Exam Room - October 12, 2011
5. Providing Excellent Experience Between Visits - October 26, 2011
6. Building a Strong Team - November 9, 2011

All Webinars will be held at 11 AM Pacific Time (2 PM EST).

Each webinar will include a recap of previsous sessions, so please do not hesitate to sign up for future meetings even if you have missed prevous sessions. A recorded version of each session will be available by call 800-IMATRIX and asking for Ryan Peterson.

We are very excited for this opportunity to bring our clients together to discuss advancing your practice in ways that are meaningful to your clients and your staff.

Click the links above to register for each webinar.

Topics in this webinar will include:

• The paradigm shift in client experience
• Everything in the practice matters
• The status quo is no longer enough
• It takes the whole team to improve the client experience
• The complete "client experience circle"

Please join the VetMatrix Team and Drs. Steve Kornfeld and Jas Mattu for the first installment of our webinar series in which we will examine the Total Client Experience.

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Below you will find a short biography of both Drs.

Dr. Steve Kornfeld

Dr. Steve Kornfeld is a veterinarian, a certified professional and business coach, and a veterinary entrepreneur. He is the author of the first veterinary coaching book titled, "Leading the Way to your Dream Practice" and is co-author of "Secrets to Chaos Control in Practice," the first book on veterinary systems.

In 2007 Dr. Kornfeld co-founded, Veterinary Success Services, Inc., a company that provides convenient, effective and readily accessible source of information on success and fulfillment in veterinary medicine.

In 2010 Dr. Kornfeld co-founded New Dimension Veterinary Practice; a company which creates custom-made, comprehensive practice systems to assist veterinary practices achieve predictable and consistent results in their daily operations to maximize client experience, client satisfaction, compliance, and profits.

Dr. Jas Mattu

Dr. Mattu has been practicing Veterinary Medicine since 1983. He has always had an entrepreneurial mind.

Dr. Mattu opened his first practice in Stockton, California. Within a few years, the entrepreneurial quest took over and Dr. Mattu expanded his ownership to three practices. This quest continued and Dr. Mattu became a partner in an emergency clinic in which he served as president for several years.

During this time, Dr. Mattu felt the urgent call to revolutionize the "Business" of Veterinary Practice. Dr. Mattu began brainstorming with various leaders in management and during this quest met a like minded entrepreneurial Vet in Dr. Kornfeld. Both doctors began working together to find solutions to the issues facing many practice owners and one day realized that the answer to most of these issues was the "system" itself.

After spending several years and countless hours, they developed a system that can provide outstanding client "experience".

Dr Mattu, still practices clinical medicine but spends most of his time helping other clinics to implement this "system", which is now a passionate endeavor. For Dr. Mattu there is no greater contentment and happiness than seeing people happy when they start marching towards their dreams.

With the rise of social media and online review sites, word of mouth is becoming more important to veterinary business owners than ever. It used to be that an angry client could say bad things about your veterinary practice to their friends and family, but that was the extent of the damage an angry client could cause. Now, an angry client can publicly blast their complaints across the internet, potentially scaring off future clients from ever giving your practice a chance.

Bad reviews happen to every business, but as the owner of a veterinary clinic or animal hospital, you can actually harness the power of these bad reviews to turn angry clients into your biggest advocates. There are two main ideas behind the following technique. You want to make things right for the person who felt wronged, but you also want to publicly show others that your veterinary clinic or animal hospital takes the satisfaction of pets and their owners seriously. Remember, even if you are providing the best veterinary care possible, there is still a chance that someone will leave a bad review about your practice. Fortunately, the following steps will walk you through what you need to do to turn this negative situation into a positive one for your business.

The following steps will explain how to turn a bad review into positive marketing for your veterinary clinic or animal hospital:

1. Address bad reviews and comments as soon as possible. This means that you should be monitoring your online reputation so that you can quickly respond to any negative feedback. When you respond quickly to problems experienced by clients, you are demonstrating that you listen to your clients and care about making things right for them. Some helpful services for monitoring what people are saying about you online include: SocialMention, Google Alerts, and Trakur.
   
   
2. Reply to the negative comment or review by offering to right the wrong. In order for this step to work, it is important that you are willing to take responsibility for the bad experience, even if it wasn't your fault. Introduce yourself as the veterinarian and let the reviewer know that you value their opinion and are sorry to hear that they had a bad experience. Most importantly, offer to do something to right the supposed wrong, whether that means providing some sort of refund or giving them something for free. The gesture should demonstrate that you will do what it takes to make things better. Look at this as an investment. Your quick response and willingness to make things right will show other potential clients that your veterinary clinic or animal hospital is a step above the competition.
   
   
3. After you have responded to the bad comment or review, wait a few weeks then publicly follow up with the client to make sure that you have adequately addressed their needs. This step is crucial because it will really lock in the fact that you care about client satisfaction, to both the original reviewer and potential future clients.

This three prong approach will turn an angry client from a complainer into your clinic's biggest advocate. Instead of publicly putting your practice under fire, they will be bragging to all their friends and family about what a great veterinarian you are. Even better, anyone who sees your quick response to the negative review online will feel like they can trust you to provide the veterinary care they need.

Ok, now that you have responded to any bad reviews, the next step is to start getting new, positive reviews and comments about your clinic. The best way to accomplish this is to make it easy for your clients to leave online reviews; send them a follow-up email after each veterinary visit with direct links to your business profile at online social services such as Yelp or Facebook. Request that they leave a review while your services are fresh in their mind. Following up with clients after each visit also makes it more likely that they will contact you directly about a bad experience, instead of publicly leaving a bad review on the internet.

Would you like to start generating more positive online reviews but are overwhelmed with all the different review websites and social services? Want help linking your website up with different review websites? At VetMatrix, our Premium and Elite marketing packages are specifically designed to help veterinarians market their business effectively and our online marketing experts will do all the work for you, including helping you get set up on multiple online review websites. We will even create a "Share Your Experience" page on your website for you, making it easier than ever for patients to leave online reviews about your veterinary clinic or animal hospital. Interested? Contact VetMatrix today!

You may remember when marketing your veterinary office or animal hospital was a one-way conversation. As a business owner, after creating your marketing campaign you were pretty much done. Either your marketing efforts worked or they didn't, and success was easy to measure. Whether or not patients responded to your ads or promotions would immediately let you know if your marketing efforts were successful.

Now, with the rise of social media and online interactions, the playing field for veterinary marketing has completely changed. With the creation of services like Facebook and Yelp, your marketing efforts are much more likely to involve interacting with your patients instead of talking "at" them. This online interaction has both its upsides and its downsides. In the "old days" a huge veterinary office or animal hospital with a sizable marketing budget may have been able to crush their smaller competitors with their marketing efforts alone. Today, smaller veterinary clinics can aggressively compete against larger competitors simply by offering a great experience and above average customer service. A small veterinary office with a dedicated staff can leverage their superior service and gain a distinct marketing advantage over big marketing budgets. This helps small businesses compete because even a huge marketing budget can no longer protect big businesses from getting hit hard from a negative social media backlash if they offer sub-par service.

But how do you use social media to show off your great service and market your business? The answer lies in getting patients to talk about your business online. Social media services like Facebook provide veterinarians with a free way to converse with their patients online and get constructive feedback on how to improve their overall customer experience. Interacting with patients on services like Facebook or Yelp also gives you the ability to turn angry or unhappy customers into the number one advocate for your business.

Have you gotten negative reviews or had negative comments made about your veterinary office or animal hospital? You don't need to suffer in silence, it's possible to actually use these reviews to grow your business. You can turn a negative review around by contacting the reviewers publicly and making things right for them. This also demonstrates to future patients that you care about keeping your patients happy. Want to learn more? Check back for our next blog post which will teach you how to turn a negative reviewer into your veterinary clinic's number one advocate!

If you would like more advice on what you need to do to market your business effectively online, don't wait another day! Download this free Veterinary SEO Guide by VetMatrix and learn how to market your veterinary clinic or animal hospital online effectively and get new patients. This exclusive SEO Guide was written specifically for veterinarians by our marketing experts and will walk you through several free and cheap ways to spread the word about your business online. VetMatrix also offers "Starter" marketing packages to get veterinarians off the ground with a new website. If you are too busy to worry about SEO and web marketing, you can opt for our "Premium" or "Elite" marketing packages where we will do all the legwork for you so you can focus on handling all the patients coming through your door. Contact VetMatrix for a free web marketing consultation today!

VetMatrix is proud to present our 6-part Webinar series titled 'Taking Charge of Your Client Experience,' hosted by author and doctor Steve Kornfeld, DVM and Dr. Jas Mattu, both of New Dimension Veterinary Practice. The first installment of this webinar series will be held on August 10th, 2011 at 11 AM Pacific time (2 PM Eastern). We anticipate the webinar to last about 1 hour with plenty of time for questions after the presentation. Parts 2 through 6 will be on dates to be named later.

We are very excited for this opportunity to bring our clients together to discuss advancing your practice in ways that are meaningful to your clients and your staff.

Click here to register for this free webinar.

Topics in this webinar will include:

• The paradigm shift in client experience
• Everything in the practice matters
• The status quo is no longer enough
• It takes the whole team to improve the client experience
• The complete "client experience circle"

Please join the VetMatrix Team and Drs. Steve Kornfeld and Jas Mattu for the first installment of our webinar series in which we will examine the Total Client Experience.

---

Below you will find a short biography of both Drs.

Dr. Steve Kornfeld

Dr. Steve Kornfeld is a veterinarian, a certified professional and business coach, and a veterinary entrepreneur. He is the author of the first veterinary coaching book titled, "Leading the Way to your Dream Practice" and is co-author of "Secrets to Chaos Control in Practice," the first book on veterinary systems.

In 2007 Dr. Kornfeld co-founded, Veterinary Success Services, Inc., a company that provides convenient, effective and readily accessible source of information on success and fulfillment in veterinary medicine.

In 2010 Dr. Kornfeld co-founded New Dimension Veterinary Practice; a company which creates custom-made, comprehensive practice systems to assist veterinary practices achieve predictable and consistent results in their daily operations to maximize client experience, client satisfaction, compliance, and profits.

Dr. Jas Mattu

Dr. Mattu has been practicing Veterinary Medicine since 1983. He has always had an entrepreneurial mind.

Dr. Mattu opened his first practice in Stockton, California. Within a few years, the entrepreneurial quest took over and Dr. Mattu expanded his ownership to three practices. This quest continued and Dr. Mattu became a partner in an emergency clinic in which he served as president for several years.

During this time, Dr. Mattu felt the urgent call to revolutionize the "Business" of Veterinary Practice. Dr. Mattu began brainstorming with various leaders in management and during this quest met a like minded entrepreneurial Vet in Dr. Kornfeld. Both doctors began working together to find solutions to the issues facing many practice owners and one day realized that the answer to most of these issues was the "system" itself.

After spending several years and countless hours, they developed a system that can provide outstanding client "experience".

Dr Mattu, still practices clinical medicine but spends most of his time helping other clinics to implement this "system", which is now a passionate endeavor. For Dr. Mattu there is no greater contentment and happiness than seeing people happy when they start marching towards their dreams.

You may have heard that Bing partnered with Facebook in May 2011 to improve Bing's search results based on the websites that users are interacting with on Facebook. After the Facebook social search feature was rolled out, websites that were "Liked" on Facebook appear to climb the ranks in Bing's search results, without making any other changes. This has huge implications for veterinary business owners who want to maximize their results and minimize their time spent focusing on web marketing. If creating a buzz on Facebook can help your website show up higher in the Bing search engine rankings, then Facebook seems like a great place to invest time with your online marketing strategy. However, trying to interact with patients and attract new business on Facebook has been hit or miss for many veterinarians, where some experience huge successes on Facebook while others feel only frustration. Even though interacting on Facebook may help your website show up on Bing, it is important to note that Bing is still much smaller than Google. While Bing has been gaining ground on Google since its inception, Google still took about 64% of the search volume compared to Bing's 32% of the searches in May 2011 (Credit: Compete). That means that Google gets about twice as many searches as Bing. So what can a veterinarian do to improve their search results and optimize their websites for Google?

Google has recently released its own version of the Facebook "Like" which is known as the Google "+1." It can get a bit awkward to talk about multiple Google +1's, so let's get the terminology out in the open. If a website gets two or three Google +1's, they will now have +2 or +3.

After the release of the +1, SEO professionals have been trying to figure out what the purpose of this new tool will be for search engine marketing. Then Google changed the playing field. Less than two weeks ago, Google surprised the world by releasing Google+ (pronounced "Google Plus"). Google+ is a new take on social interaction on the internet and in many ways is like other social networks such as Facebook. However, there are some major differences, such as using Google +1's instead of Facebook Likes.

Even though the +1 feature has only been around a short while, preliminary tests already indicate that websites which have received +1's tend to show up higher in Google's search results. This is just like how Facebook Likes seem to help websites show up higher in Bing. The fact that +1's can help a veterinary website show up higher in Google search results is a big deal for web marketing, since this is a brand new way to improve a website's Google search rankings. Some SEO experts even feel that veterinarians may get more bang for their buck focusing on getting Google +1's over Facebook Likes.

So what does this mean to you, the busy veterinarian? Should you be worrying about Google+ and +1's? Chances are, you may have to wait to decide because Google+ is currently in a limited field trial, which means that registration was opened to the public for a short while, and then closed again while Google continues to test and refine the Google+ interface. However, +1's are available to everyone and because the +1 helps websites do better in the Google search results, there are some strong incentives for veterinary website owners to try to get +1's for their website now, and then try to get a Google+ account when it's officially released.

The most important take away from this article is that social media hubs such as Facebook and Google+ are making a huge impact on the web marketing landscape. Right now, Facebook has a much higher adoption rate while Google+ is still in a closed trial, but Google +1's may possibly be more effective at improving search engine results than Facebook Likes. Chances are, the best results will be achieved by taking a web marketing strategy that utilizes both Facebook Likes and Google +1's. If you would like help creating or marketing your veterinary website, don't hesitate to contact VetMatrix today!

If you are a time-crunched owner of a veterinary clinic or animal hospital, you probably want to concentrate on only the most impactful online marketing tools for your veterinary website. In order to effectively market your business online, you will need to know how new patients are finding veterinarians on the internet. One of the most common ways that patients are locating new veterinarians is through internet searches on search engines like Google.com, Bing.com, and Yahoo.com. But what must a veterinarian do to market themselves online and to be easily found by new patients? Google, Bing, and Yahoo are the most widely-used search engines, but what steps need to be taken to get your information to show up in the search engines and which search engine should you be focusing your web marketing strategy on to get new patients?

For a veterinarian, the first step to generating new patients from the internet is to obtain a search engine friendly and user optimized veterinary website. For veterinarians without a lot of competition in their area, just putting up an optimized website with business information may be all that is needed to climb to the top of the search results. For veterinary clinics that are located in competitive markets, however, the first step should be a veterinary-optimized search engine marketing strategy. If you are a veterinarian who needs help getting started with your own search engine marketing strategy, don't hesitate to refer to our free veterinarian SEO Guide which has been specifically created to help veterinarians market themselves online effectively without breaking their budget.

Because search engine optimization is so important to what we do at VetMatrix, we stay on top of new developments regarding successful web marketing and SEO strategies for veterinarians. That is why we've been keeping a close ear to the ground when it comes to the latest developments between competitors Google.com and Bing.com, two of the most popularly used search engines. These search engine giants have recently teamed up with social media hubs to improve their search results, and the resulting partnerships seem like they will have a huge impact on web marketing strategies. By staying ahead of the curve in regards to what will make a veterinary website successful in the search engines, we help our VetMatrix website owners outrank their competition and turn their website into a new patient magnet.

Want to learn more about veterinary marketing? Come back tomorrow to learn about how Facebook and the brand new Google+ can be used to generate new veterinary patients for your business.

Maybe you'd rather have someone else do all the legwork for you so you can focus on running your animal hospital or veterinary clinic. VetMatrix is a leader in veterinary marketing and can help you create a world-class website as well as provide you with a fully managed marketing plan where we take care of everything needed to market your website and business. If you would rather leave your online marketing work to the SEO experts, while you focus on the stream of new patients coming into your business, don't hesitate to contact VetMatrix and get started today!

Today we wanted to give you a quick "thank you" for your ongoing support and wish you a happy 4th of July weekend.

It is amazing to live in a country where we are free to do business as we please.  As veterinarians and web marketers, we are able to write our own paychecks and pursue our dreams.

We hope you and your families have a spectacular and safe Independence Day.

--VetMatrix Team

A recurring theme in books and audio sets on success mindset is the concept of your circle of associates being an enormous factor in how much money you make

Some even have a "formula," where if you average the income of the five people you spend the most time with, you'll have the amount you'll make five years from now.

Even if that equation seems unpersuasive, it's very important to surround yourself with people achieving the goals you want for yourself.

Ask yourself how many veterinarians you associate with that are making significantly more money than you.  If you're the "success" of the group, chances are you need to reach upwards to expand what you're capable of.

Here's a quick update for veterinarians who are considering using Facebook Ads for their web marketing.

Two new happenings with Facebook Ads have occurred:

1)    Facebook is giving $50 in free advertising for first time advertisers.  This may come to you in an email or in postal mail.
2)    Facebook is having account reps directly contact new advertisers to assist them.  A client of ours recently had a rep contact him despite not having spent a cent on real advertising yet (just the $50 coupon).

It looks like this is a growth period for Facebook ads, so see how you can get involved for your clinic.

I was lucky enough to experience a great mini-metaphor about wealth at the VetMatrix office today.

Our vending machine tends to hold back change when someone buys a snack or drink, so you sometimes have to shake it a bit to get your change back.  After buying a soda, I rocked the machine a little bit, and a penny came off the top of the machine and fell to the floor.

After picking it up, I said to the Customer Support Coach nearby, "See? When you take action for money, it comes from unexpected places."

This thought applies to your veterinary clinic and website marketing.  The times you take action to bring in prosperity will often indirectly bring you to your goals in ways you hadn't imagined.  A client you send a follow-up card might not have a pet anymore, but may refer you to another lucrative client.  You may put a poster up in a college are to get new clients, and instead get sought out by a journalist for a major publication.  Continuous action is the way to go.

The webinar has become a lot more commonly used in marketing for many businesses.  This type of presentation is similar to a teleconference, but instead you show a visual display on their screen while you talk.  This can apply to veterinary businesses, as well as anything instructional.

One odd commonality I've noticed in this is that the webinar speakers can show a surprisingly lack of responsibility with this marketing tool.  In a webinar this morning, I heard a speaker say, "I keep hearing an echo.  Could you please mute yourself if you have stuff going on in your background?"  In a teleconference some months ago, the speaker actually cut off the teleconference midway through because there was music playing in the background and the inconsiderate caller wouldn't press the mute button.

One thing that veterinarians and other business owners often fail to understand is that you have to take 100% responsibility for your client's experience.  This means that you don't leave them at the mercy of any joker who can forget he's on speaker phone.  You do have to trust people at times, but there's never a reason to gamble a sales presentation on someone you've never met or talked to.  Instead, you need an ongoing contingency plan to deal with things like this and/or make sure your provider has solutions built in for rude interruptions.  When something comes up you can't resolve right away, you make a note and fix it next time.  However, even when this happens, your clients must see you as taking responsibility for the situation.

If you're a hiker or climber through the wilderness, you'll find things that don't match what you're looking for.  The drinking water might be out of your normal pathway, the rocks might be slippery, and there might not be enough shade. 

When this happens, you are fully capable of complaining about how unfair it is that the rocks aren't dry for you, and that this isn't an easy stroll.  However, chances are you won't because you recognize there is no benefit to this attitude.

You don't judge the terrain.

It's the same with everything in your veterinary web marketing and business.  Whether it's client behavior, Google trends, or economic situations, complaining or judging will not help the matter. This doesn't mean you don't do what is necessary to make life easier.  You still want to have excellent SEO, and talk to people who are troubling you, but you have to recognize that feeling angry about the situation or claiming it to be "unfair" wont' help at all.  The best and most successful veterinarians do the best with what's available and don't question if it's the way things should be. 

Recently, there was a post on Dan Kennedy's blog, with a very eye-opening quote on management.  

"It is SO rare these days that anyone who reveals himself, within an organization or to a clientele or market, as being solidly competent.  He quickly attracts far, far, far more work or customers and clients or opportunity than can be handled.

It is, in fact, how we all kill The Competent Employee: you have five but one is The Competent One. All work and responsibility gravitates to her until she is so overwhelmed she becomes incompetent."  (Original post: http://dankennedy.com/blog/small-business-marketing-tips/are-you-competent/)

You may have a clinic that has all hard-working employees, but take a moment to consider this.  Do you have a main go-to person who ends up taking up most of the responsibility?  Something to ponder.

There are many good things that come from monitoring your stats and making goals to constantly improve your veterinary web marketing.  You may be looking at your daily traffic, what percentage of new visitors become appointments, and even what percentage of new patients become regular appointments.

There is a danger of this focus, at times.  We can fall into the trap of wanting to preserve these impressive ratios, even at the cost of our profits.  For example, suppose you know that 1 out of every 4 people who join your newsletter end up becoming clients.  This is an awesome percentage and you'll want to brag to your colleagues about it.  However, if you get a few thousand more subscribers, your rate will likely shrink tremendously.

You'll still gain more business, but the loss of your conversion rate might be enough to discourage you from this type of expanded outreach, even if only subconsciously.  Strive for improving percentages, but never let yourself limit your outreach.

Many veterinarians would find this tip to be obvious, but so many professionals miss this in their marketing.

Whenever you get a referral from a veterinary client, always be sure to thank the person for the referral.  Do this very quickly, after the new referred client comes in.

People are very motivated by praise and appreciation and resent not being acknowledged for their helpful favors.  If you show you fully recognize the effort and good gesture from the referral, your client will generally want to keep sending you referrals.

Sometimes no matter how great you run your veterinary clinic online, you will get a couple clients who write nasty things about you and your clinic on review sites.  Sometimes the person might not understand how an animal hospital works and other times, the person might just be mean.

If this happens, the worst thing you could do is get into a shouting match with the person on the review site.  This will just make you look bad.  Don't argue.

Instead, if the site lets you respond to reviews, publicly invite the client to come in and talk or to call your clinic to resolve the situation.  Share that you're committed to your client's experience and that you will do everything within your power to correct whatever issue there is.  You don't have to admit fault, but if you are professional and courteous, this will make you look very good to other viewers, and may even result in the review being removed. 

It's fascinating how counter-intuitive some of the best marketing strategies are for veterinary web marketing.  Longer web copy tends to work better, and simple graphics often do better than fancy imagery.  Here's a new tip for you:

If you send emails to your veterinary prospects more often, your unsubscribe rate and spam complaint rate both go down considerably.  Some people think this is because people are more used to receiving your emails so it doesn't bug them as much.  No matter what the reason, take a look at the statistics for proof on this.

Last week, some of the VetMatrix team had an interesting experience at the local pizza place on a lunch break.  When we got to the pizzeria, there was a sign saying "Due to events beyond our control, we must close until tomorrow."

This bothered all of us in the group.  Beyond us not getting our pizza, the "beyond our control" statement felt like a wimpy excuse.

There was actually a legitimate reason for them to be closed, which was a nearby gas leak.  However, if the pizzeria had said even "Closed – Our Apologies for the Short Notice," we would have respected the place more for taking responsibility.

In your veterinary practice, know that you don't win any points by shifting the responsibility off yourself, even when you've done all you can.  Taking 100% responsibility for your client's experience will always earn you respect, no matter what happens.

As we talked about on Tuesday, this is a special week for VetMatrix.  We've moved to a new building to reflect our growth.  Here are some pictures from the event.

Today we're happy to announce that VetMatrix has moved to a stellar new location in San Diego.  Few have a bigger building, nicer lounge, and slicker offices for everyone.  This is a testament to our growth over the years.  

This morning we had a special ribbon cutting ceremony to commemorate this new milestone for the company.  If you're in the San Diego area, feel free to come visit the new office.  

Here's to new beginnings!

Here's a new tip on how to improve your veterinary marketing.

It can be hard to believe, but the higher number of links you add to your email blasts, the more likely someone is to click on a link and sign up for an appointment. This works best when the links all point to the same page.

Surprisingly, this does not annoy people or increase the number of unsubscribers. The unsubscribe rate actually goes down when there are more links in an email. Think about how you can apply this to your veterinary email campaigns.

When you're sending email newsletters to promote your veterinary website, a great way to increase the amount of subscribers that visit your website is to mention current "happenings" in the first few sentences.

You may feel compelled to start reading newspapers to get things to talk about, but it really is more simple than that.

All you have to do is mention simple things like "It's Wednesday," or "Now that it's the first of the month," and it will do the trick.  It's been found that putting these details in can get your reader more engaged.  

As a business owner with a veterinary website, you'll often hear whispers in the wind about Google's plans, economic shifts, and how you should manage your website marketing.

While some of these rumors can be true, you should keep Ben Franklin's quote in mind: "Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see."

This doesn't mean you assume everyone's a liar until proven otherwise.  On the other hand, it means you should carefully consider all reports thrown your way before deciding they're true.  People often misunderstand the information in front of them and/or miscommunicate that information.

The second part of the quote means that even our own observations can deceive us.  We see things through a filter of past experiences and beliefs.  Because of this, it's always good to stay on guard not to come to fast conclusions when marketing your veterinary website.

If you use Facebook Ads for your veterinarian website, there have been some important changes you should take note of.

Facebook is now letting advertisers choose from multiple choice broad options for your prospects interests and "likes."

A cool feature here is you can select what animals your prospect may have as pets, and then use that information for ad targeting.  Visit http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/04/27/broad-category-family-status-targeting/ for more information.

Recently I was watching an episode of Season 2 of the Sopranos. The show was shot in the year 2000, but you'd think it was from 2008, given the themes being discussed. There was a real characterization of the lack of accountability for oneself that leads to crises.

The episode centers around a man named David who is friendly with some of the mafia members, but not an associate or friend. He has a gambling addiction and wants to play in a poker game that they're hosting. They tell him this is out of his league and that he can't play. Ignoring the advice, he tracks down where the game is being hosted, pleads to get in, borrows $10,000 from them to play, then borrows another $10,000, and manages to be in $45,000 of debt. This is costing him his business, his savings, and he's possibly putting his family in mortal danger. When the mob boss is slapping him around for being late on an interest payment, he pleads, "Cut me a break, will ya? I've been unlucky!"

The nerve of David to say this after his behavior is startling, but it's only an extreme example of what many of do every day. It's important that we take responsibility for where we are in life, whether our clinic is too small, whether an advertisement in the paper didn't go very well, or anything else.

There's no need to beat yourself up over mistakes, but as a veterinarian, you're in charge of your success so it's always important to remember who's in the driver's seat.

A friend recently pointed out a billionaire in the news with an enormous mansion.  She said "Boy, I'd hate to that that much money to get a house like that.  After a certain point, that kind of wealth messes your head up."  She went on to talk about some millionaires and billionaires with some real personality defects.

This is a belief that many share and it acts as a money block to keep you from greater success.  If you're afraid you'll go from kind, gentle veterinarian to zany bipolar veterinarian, then you'll probably semi-intentionally keep your success in check.

Beyond being unhelpful, this belief isn't even true.  For one thing, there are many weird and emotionally unstable people who are at low to mid-income levels.  If you see someone acting neurotically in line at an amusement park, you might think "Oh, this person is used to being waited on hand and foot so this line bothers her."  Or you could think "Oh, this person can only afford to go to a park like this once a year so she has no patience for having time wasted in line.  What a pity."  Or you could assume she's just having a bad day.

It's a widespread habit of humans to assume we can link results with their causes more accurately than we can.  To get the most wealth you can with your veterinary clinic, err on the side of giving rich people the benefit of the doubt.

One of the most difficult concepts for entrepreneurs to accept is that you can't really stay in one place in your business. Your clinic and veterinary website will always either be growing or deteriorating depending on your mindset and actions taken.

This applies also to your health and relationships as well. It's kind of like a bicycle. You can't stand in one place more than a tiny amount of time or you'll fall down. Instead you have to aggressively build your business, even if you'd prefer your SEO be "DONE" for good.

So your choices are clear if you want a thriving clinic. You can either work hard to gain more ground every day in your business or you can hire a qualified professional to do the dirty work for you. There's something to be said for having a devoted hired gun working to get you higher in Google and Bing results every week, so definitely consider that option. 

When you're marketing your veterinary website and clinic, there will be a lot of situations where you are put in fearful situations. You may be afraid of charging clients at higher rates, submitting articles that make your name more famous on the internet, or giving public talks in front of large audiences.

All veterinarians and business owners go through things like this and the ones that succeed the most are the ones that lean into their fears instead of moving away from them. You don't have to dive into horrifying situations to grow, but if you move through the slightly-scary challenges, you will find you're progressively better at handling harder ones.

It also helps to accept that this discomfort is normal, and that mistakes and "worst case scenarios" will happen along the way that really aren't that bad. Of course, there are some risky ideas that just aren't worth doing, but you'll be able to tell which these are. Simply ask yourself "Is fear the main reason I don't want to do this?" If so, then keep moving forward.

John Carlton, a legendary marketing copywriter has a concept called the Professional's Code:  "You show up where you're supposed to be... when you said you'd be there... having done what you said you'd do."

This sounds simple but can make a crucial difference in your veterinary marketing.  In today's world, even in the medical industry, we have flakes everywhere.  People miss deadlines, are late to social and professional engagements and half-finish projects if they start them at all.

Even with veterinary care, people half expect to be over-billed or to be stuck in waiting room for 20 minutes pas the appointment time.

If you can take care of these hang-ups, even the widely "accepted" ones for your industry, you will stand out from other veterinarians as the one most trusted.  Your competition is likely neglecting a number of these, so take advantage while you can.  

The idea that "You are not your client/customer" has been around for a while and is crucial in marketing.  I got a nice example of that yesterday when talking with a large provider of advertising.

Yesterday I had an appointment with an account rep, and we missed each other.  I called her office line, while she was waiting in another part of the building for me to call a special conference line that was included in an Outlook invitation.  

One of my favorite movie lines is from the greatly underrated "Under Siege 2: Dark Territory."  After taking control of a train, a criminal team continuously is outwitted by the hero and comes back to the crime boss thinking they've stopped him based on erroneous assumptions.  The leader reminds them again and again "Assumption is the mother of all f--- ups."

The account reps assumptions were that I would be familiar with the Outlook appointment system and that I would be familiar with the idea of using a conference call line for a one-on-one call.

My assumptions were that her office line would be the default place to call, that a separate conference call line would have been specifically mentioned in email conversation, and that worst case scenario, she'd be taking the call in her office or have her cell phone on her.

On both of our ends, we had inaccurate assumptions about the other person and that's what caused the miscommunication.  We have to walk through life with assumptions, so we're not locked in indecision and second guessing.  However, it is helpful to be flexible and take some time to consider whether the person you're dealing with experiences the world like you do.  This is especially important when using technological tools that are constantly advancing and that many people are still behind on.  

In a post earlier this year, we talked about what can happen from imitating other veterinary websites blindly. Sometimes, the other veterinarian may be doing an unproven marketing experiment or simply be taking bad advice and succeeding in spite of it.

There's another danger in imitating competition, and that's in selecting providers. It may seem likely that a star veterinarian would only pick star suppliers, but this is often not the case. Sometimes a veterinarian can get locked into an unfavorable contract, or may simply be trying to save money without doing due diligence.

In many successful companies, you can hear the murmur of employees complaining about a really bad software system or accounting service. Make sure you always investigate a provider yourself before taking it on for your veterinary website. 

If you're familiar with the self-help classic "Psycho-Cybernetics" by Maxwell Maltz, there is a concept of comparing your subconscious mind to a guided missile that locks on a target and continuously corrects its course to reach it. If the missile veers too far left, it will correct itself and go right. If it oversteers right, it will correct to the left. For 99% of the missile's journey, it is actually off course and makes countless zig-zags.

As a veterinarian, you may email your list a tough-sell email and tick some clients off. Then maybe you'll write very mild and boring emails for a period of time and lose readership as well. These are not failures, but mistakes that improve your internal guidance system's calibration towards success.

An advantage that a missile has over us is that it doesn't punish itself for each zig and zag. If a missile had our emotions, it would drop to the ground every time it went 5 degrees too far to the right, and never hit the target. This is why movie villains like the Terminator and the sociopath assassin from "No Country for Old Men" are so intimidating in their effectiveness.

The good news is that you don't have to be emotionless to consistently hit your goals. All you have to do is learn to embrace mistakes as a necessary part of your success path instead of making yourself feel bad for them. You don't even need to consciously analyze your mistakes because your internal system will do it automatically. Just acknowledge what happened and move forward. 

In this current time, there is more product disappointment than any time in history. Technology expands at an astounding rate, and apps, products, and services are released before being completely tested. This results in errors, computer crashes, and sometimes security issues.

In the small business world, this hits a lot harder because money is at stake when you trust a provider to do a good job.

However, try turning this around and see the other perspective. Ask, "Is this something wrong or an imperfection in something great?"

More likely than not, it's the latter. For example, people like to complain about bugs in Facebook or privacy issues, but the value that Facebook provides is unprecedented in history. If you compare Facebook to the ideal version of a social media service, you'll realize you're comparing it to a fantasy company that doesn't exist.

Now, if you have a client management software for your veterinary website that regularly crashes, and this is not typical for the industry, then there's a good chance something might actually be wrong. Maybe you should replace the software with a competitor. However if there is no legitimate competitor, consider the infraction to just be one flaw among many benefits you get from the product.

Earlier in this blog's history, we've discussed how visualization techniques can get you closer to your goal.  Here is a different technique to visualize your way to success.

All you need a quiet spot where you can sit with a pen and paper.  Think of a goal you'd like to accomplish with your veterinary website or clinic.  Maybe you want to have revenue of $2 million a year in your animal hospital.

Some self-help experts recommend you vividly picture your thriving, wealthy clinic (which is fine), but this technique works a little differently.  

Think or your goal and write this down: "What kind of person runs a clinic that makes $2 million a year in revenue?"  Ponder this and see what qualities come up.  Write down each personality trait, and visualize yourself with that trait.

You might have a list of "confident," "immune to criticism," "excellent at client communication," etc.  Picture yourself vividly with these traits.  You may construct an image of this perfect veterinarian, and then step into that image so it's you.  Don't concern yourself with how you'll apply this tomorrow.  Just take this time to experience having these qualities.

If you do this for a half hour a day, you'll see changes in yourself at a staggering rate.  Do this for anything you want to happen in your life, personally or professionally.

When you put new content on your veterinary website, you may be tempted to save money wherever you can.  It can seem like a good idea to cut corners and take an image from Google or another website instead of buying your own.

It's important that you make the tiny investment of legally buying stock images.  If someone owns a photo that you take, you could receive a cease and desist letter or worse.  It's always good to "stay clean" in legal matters as a veterinarian.

As you market your veterinary website, you'll see a growing number of places where you can advertise. An increasing trend is being able to auto-populate your ad with your potential client's demographic information.

Yesterday, I saw an ad which made a pretty big mistake using this feature. It read "California: Is it a scam?"

This ad headline has worked in many niches, often being formatted as "E-cigarettes: is it a scam?" or "Tax Lien Investing: Is it a scam?"

To be asked to ponder if your whole state is a scam is pretty funny for the end user, but it doesn't help the advertiser who's spending hundreds or thousands of dollars.

When you buy advertising, either be extremely careful when auto-generating ads or avoid that feature altogether.

The following question was actually printed in a newspaper advice column:

"Dear Abby, I have a man I can't trust. He cheats so much, I'm
not even sure the baby I'm carrying is his."

When we read something like this, the first instinct we have is to laugh, and the second instinct is to show someone else (I've satisfied both urges from posting this)

Now, what if you get a ridiculous question in person? Suppose a client asks, "How do I stop my dog from barking? My neighbors complain even when I wear earplugs."

If this happens, you may want to laugh or shake your head in amused contempt, but I suggest you take a different approach. If you can calmly explain to your client that the earplugs will only help him or her shut out the noise, then you will be positioning yourself way above other veterinarians in the area.

People carry a fear of embarrassment for asking questions, and often are aware that a question carries a high chance of ridicule. Being the "safe" veterinarian to ask silly questions to will get you more regular visits, as well as referrals. Take the high road and let go of judging any clients based on intelligence.

It can be beneficial to both your reader base and your search engine rankings to have ongoing content posted to your veterinary website. Sometimes, however, you can feel that you've run out of stuff to say or don't have enough time to write a good post.

When you're faced with this, a quick fix is to find an article about veterinary care and post about it, and share the link, along with your opinion.

Always make sure the sites you link to are either information based or veterinarian sites from out-of-state. It's dangerous to link to your local competition.

This week I phoned a number of printing service companies for an upcoming brochure we'll be mailing out. Many of these printing firms do not show pricing on their sites, so you have to call directly to ask for a quote. In one conversation, a lady took down my requirements for the brochure and said "Thanks for the information. We'll email you a quote very soon."

I was quite puzzled by this company's way of doing things. They had a live lead on the phone, which is really a golden opportunity. Not only was I not given pricing on the first call, but I wasn't even asked for my phone number for them to follow up.

By ending the conversation with just my email, she effectively encouraged me to continue calling other companies on my list, one of which I picked for the order.

When you have someone on the phone who could become a new client, do whatever is necessary to book an appointment on the spot, or at least set things up so you can call later to schedule an appointment. You can't lean on the client to show initiative. 

One thing you can do to increase your efficiency in your veterinary marketing is to identify and complete microtasks.

"Microtasks" are little things you can accomplish in less than two minutes. These are tasks you've likely been putting off and sometimes can be done in even 30 seconds.

Maybe there's a cardboard UPS box that you haven't bothered to throw out from 8 months ago. During all this time, you waste energy and efficiency by repeatedly thinking "Hmmm I should throw that out," and having to step around it. Other microtasks include making a certain phone call, emailing someone, or putting together a quick invoice.

Look at potential microtasks that you can take care of so you can focus on the bigger things, uninterrupted.

When you're marketing your veterinary website online, it's essential to keep track of when you are getting results back. If you hire a service, you need to make sure the claims are legitimate.

This is a big reason why VetMatrix provides call tracking for Premium and Elite Clients.

When a client is interested in this service, we can put a special number on your website or online ad that tracks the number of calls and clients that result from that promotion. This is proof for you that the ad or website is doing its job.

Think about how you can verify when your veterinary website is performing and bringing in revenue.

There was a very creative April Fool's post on SEOmoz this month, where they introduced a program called FutureRank BETA. This was a program where, if you gave them your web page and targeted keyword, you would get an accurate prediction of what your ranking would be in a week, month or year, assuming you kept up the same SEO activities.

This was too good to be true, though even I was fooled. Still, it got me thinking about the implications of taking the same action on your site for a full year. If you took what you knew was already doing and kept the action up year round, can you imagine how much better off you would be in 2012?

Think about what you could commit to keeping up that would continually help your veterinary website rank better in the search engines. Having this ongoing improvement will make all the difference.

Whether you have professional veterinary web marketing help or not, there will sometimes be times when your site is being worked on and you will feel like you can't take action to improve your web marketing. You may feel your hands are tied.

"I can't work on my blog while it's being updated," or "I can't ask for backlinks while my site is 'under construction.'"

If you truly want to take a break, that's totally fine. However, make sure you're deliberately and intentionally setting time aside and not just making excuses. If your blog is locked during a software update, then write some posts offline. Outline them in a notebook if you have to. If your website is under construction, then research what sites you can contact next week to ask for links. Even if the entire United States internet is shut down, you can always call some networking contacts for referrals.

There is ALWAYS something to do.

There seems to be a lot of inspiration for this blog from the VetMatrix break room.

As our VetMatrix team hit a new milestone in business development, we were treated to a pizza lunch in the break room. We had several types of pizza to choose from, and it was very enjoyable. I wanted to see where the pizza came from, because I was thinking of ordering for myself sometime.

When I looked at the box, the only identification I could find was "From your neighborhood pizzeria." That's it. They were using a generic box and probably saved a few dollars from not having their name on it. I wondered how many opportunities they were losing for new customers by not having their name or address or phone number on the box. Most customers will not take the extra time to track you down if they want your service. It's been a couple hours since the pizza and I still haven't asked anyone where it came from. By tomorrow, I may have completely forgotten about it.

If you give or sell any product from your clinic (maybe kennels, puppy shampoos, cat vitamins), make sure you have at the very least, a sticker with your clinic's name and address on it. You never know who might pick up the bottle and be on the lookout for a new veterinarian.

It's always important for business owners to distinguish themselves from their competitors. As a veterinarian, you may have chosen an alternative title, such as "pet health specialist," or "animal physician."

This week there was a funny example of a billion dollar company taking this too far at this this link.

A representative for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE, formerly the WWF) asked TV Week to remove "wrestling" from a press release headline. Kellie, a publicist for WWE, gave the rationale that WWE is now a "global entertainment company" instead of a wrestling company. Chuck Ross from TV Week called her to follow up on this. Here's a piece of the conversation:

Chuck Ross: Your release says that Carey is being recognized as being an entrant in the 2001 Royal Rumble. I believe that was a wrestling event.

Kellie: No, we don't do wrestling events. They're entertainments. And we don't call them wrestlers. They're superstars and divas.

Chuck Ross: Kellie, I really don't have time for this. WWE presents wrestling events. I'm not going to change the headline or anything in the item. If you'd like, I'll just remove it. What do you want me to do?

Kellie: Remove it.

The absurdity is pretty clear here. It's fine to position yourself as something alternative to your "official" title, but there's no reason to fight off the old label to the point of alienating people trying to promote you.

At VetMatrix, we like to celebrate our team members' birthdays with a cake and candles every month. Today was an interesting occasion.

We ordered a Chocolate Cake and a Raspberry Bavarian Cream Cake. Both were covered with white frosting, and one had chocolate shavings on top to help tell which was which.

When we cut the cakes, we were shocked and angered to see that both were Raspberry Bavarian Cream and that the chocolate shavings on one of the cakes were only skin deep

The lesson that was brought to mind was that if you can't deliver what you promise, there's little value in dressing up your services superficially, as the truth always comes out. It made us madder to have been misled, rather than knowing the situation from the start. Your clients will feel the same way if things aren't straightforward with your clinic.

One thing we like to do is on the VetMatrix blog is share web tools that can help you get more traffic to your veterinary website, or understand how things are working with it. Today, SEOmoz posted a great article about Google Intelligence Alerts and how it can help you.

When you use Google Intelligence Alerts, you can get a heads up about any sudden important behavior (both good and bad), happening with your website. If your web traffic gets an immediate surge, you can sign up for an email alert to find out right away. If your traffic drops by half in a day, you'll want to be alerted as well. Maybe you stopped ranking for a top keyword and need to find out why. Here is the alert for this.

There are plenty other alerts you can set up as well, such as if your lead conversions spike or flatlines. See what works for your veterinary website.

On Monday we discussed what time of day was ideal for sending clients and prospects your newsletters and appointment reminders.  Today we're going to look into what days work out the best for your blogging.

While the best email times can be nailed down to a numerical range, the most important concepts for blogging are consistency and regularity.

If you post 2 or 4 times a month, that is ok, but make them the same day of the week.  Even a single blog post every month should be nailed down to a specific day, such as first Tuesday of the month, third Wednesday of the month, etc.  Your readers should be trained to expect a posting at a certain time. As for the time of day, mornings are best, but the first priority is always keeping the day consistent.  

When you have the ability to schedule emails from your veterinary website, some veterinarians ask what time they should email their clients. This is some good information to know for your newsletters and appointment reminders.

An extensive test showed that emails sent between 6:00 and 7:00 am are most likely to be read. Email reading is often a "morning ritual" which contributes to this.

When you schedule your emails this way, look at the open rates and see if anything changes.

As a business-savvy veterinarian, you may be used to figuring out the return on your investment whenever you spend money on your veterinary website and clinic. Unfortunately, it's not always easy with Social Media to tell how much money the efforts are returning, even if the sum is significant.

You may be paying an assistant or buying ads to build a Facebook or Twitter following. Unlike PPC, social media requires some time to build up, so you may not necessarily know if the campaign is profitable until you've put in the bulk of the effort.

There are some things you can track. When a new client comes in, you can ask how you were found, and if he or she mentions Twitter, then you know. However, for repeat clients, you'll never get a real number for how much more often they're coming in because of your social media efforts. 

One question we sometimes get is whether it affects your veterinary website rankings if you capitalize keywords. In this post we'll look on what happens if you capitalize URL's or your on page content.

Your on-site keywords are not made better or worse with capitalization. You'll want to keep your text looking as "normal" as possible for user experience, but in terms of getting good rankings, there's no difference. This is true for both anchor text for links from other websites, and the content on your own site.

For your URL, the capitalization will not change how high you rank in Google, but it can have a tremendous effect on how easy it is for people to get to your website. In most cases, you want to keep everything lower case. Everything in the domain name is automatically converted to lowercase, but your directories and filenames are treated differently if there are capital letters in them. The only reason you'd want an upper case in there is if you wanted to discourage 3rd party linking and wanted to make it harder for a random person to end up on your site.

Directory submission is an SEO technique that comes up a lot when discussing veterinary website marketing.

There is a lot of value in submitting to directories, including greater traffic and better rankings in Google. However, it pays to have some vigilance in what directories you submit to. Some websites are known as "link farms" because they are nothing more than a mass of sites trying to get links.  Because of this, membership in a link farm can sometimes be punished.

If you're not hiring a professional marketing service like VetMatrix, then do your best to stick to relevant directories. You will do far better submitting to veterinary related directories than ones that include every type of website available.

When you create your veterinary website, you have some control over how your linking structure is put together. There are basically two ways your pages can be linked together.

Flat architecture is when you can reach any page on your site within a few clicks. Having a powerful menu system like VetMatrix provides can automatically take care of this.

Tall architecture is when it can take many clicks to get to some of your pages. In general, the more clicks a page is away from the home page, the harder time you will have ranking for these pages.

Keep your veterinary website's link architecture as flat as possible.

When you market your veterinarian website, you must always present yourself as an utmost professional. This is part of why your website's appearance is so important.

You'll also want to have a professional looking email address. You can use whatever you want when contacting friends and family, but when you're writing to a client, it will look unprofessional to use AOL or Hotmail.

This is one reason why we create multiple email addresses for clients, using their domain name. When you communicate with a client, this will give much more credibility to your name.

The initial challenge to go through with your veterinary website is to clearly communicate to your audience what service you provide. As obvious as your message may be to you, your web visitors are not in your head and may not necessarily "get you."

As an example, before my VetMatrix days, I was doing freelance web marketing. To make sure a client's message was getting across properly, I came up with the "coffee shop test." I would put the website on a laptop and take it to random tables and ask a simple question, "What is this website about?" If the person could tell right away, then it was a good sign. If it took some time for the person to figure it out, or if he or she had to click to another page on the site, then it was clear that major design and message changes were needed.

Don't underestimate the value of an outside perspective for your veterinary website. Even if the person does not fit your ideal client, he or she should be able to instantly know that you run a clinic or animal hospital.

If you have been using a "Request an Appointment" form on your VetMatrix website, you may be curious when you should follow up. If someone becomes a prospective client on Friday Night, should you call them the next morning until the next business day?

If at all possible, follow up at the next decent waking hour. Many of your new leads will want a veterinarian right away and if you can see them even that day, they will grab the appointment. They may also have requested an appointment from several competitors and you calling back first will win you the spot.

Remember to still respect sleeping hours, and possibly Sunday if that's a custom in your community. When it's not a good time to call, you can still email and invite them to schedule an appointment over email, while letting them know that you'll follow up the next business day regardless. This is your best way to make the most of your veterinarian website leads.

As you work on marketing your veterinarian website, you may have realized that there are other things at work besides your keyword rankings for getting good traffic from search results. Google continues to make search results multi-dimensional, which changes how you need to approach your SEO.

Even if you're ranking well for your keyword, you can get bumped down on the screen by Google Places and maps.

Make sure your veterinary website is on Google Places and start asking patients for reviews. This will be crucial in getting you the search traffic you need.

This past week we've been talking about some of the very simple but overlooked parts of having a veterinary website. Today we'll talk about something not so marketing related but extremely important.

Once your website is up, it can be vulnerable to server meltdowns, hackers, and simple computer errors that can cause some or all of your website to be wiped out. This is part of life for any online business. If you don't have everything saved somewhere else, then you may have to start over.

At least have the content for your site on your own hard drive. If your hosting provider automatically backs things up, then this is a good option as well. 

Last week, we talked about how important it is to have your phone number on your veterinary website homepage.

Today we're going to take it further and encourage you to have a real call to action on your site. Maybe you think that having a phone number available is enough, but you often need to explicitly direct your prospect to schedule an appointment.

VetMatrix websites allow clients to use customizable sidebars with a "Request an Appointment" button. No matter what you do for your veterinary website, remember that it exists principally to bring in new clients, which all start with a first appointment.

In previous posts, you may have noticed that we are in favor of using Google's free tools to promote your chiropractic website, such as Google Analytics and Website Optimizer.

Today we want to give recommendation to avoid a certain free tool, Google Blogspot, a free blogging platform. Here are a few reasons:

1)    Unlike other free tools, it is blatantly obvious to your clients that you're using a free blogging platform. This runs the risk of making you look cheap or broke.
2)    There is a "Report Abuse" link on top, which not only makes you look like you need someone else's approval, but it can jeopardize your blog if some ill-meaning people click it.
3)    There are distractions, such as the "Next Blog" and "Create Your Own Blog" links, which can lead your potential clients away from you.

VetMatrix has its own blogging platform called iBlog, which lets you get all your veterinary website blogging benefits without any of these problems. Call your Customer Support Coach to get this going.

In our recent posts about veterinary website best practices, we've mostly been referring to elements of marketing strategy that can go from an intermediate to advanced level. Today we're bringing up something so simple and basic that a lot of veterinarians miss.

Is the number for your clinic on the front page of your website?

Many extremely intelligent veterinarians make the silly error of not making their contact information easy to find. Your potential clients will usually not take the trouble to look up your number. Have your contact information so easy to find that a five-year old can find it on your veterinary website.

When putting your veterinary marketing plan together, you'll come to situations where you disagree with your staff or marketing consultant on what to do with your website.

There's an easy 2-part answer to this:

A)    If you have the budget, test to see which way works better.
B)    If you don't have the budget, follow the standard marketing practices.

This is a very easy fix. It would be great if you had the money to test every little thing, but this is both unrealistic and unprofitable in the long run. It's better to research your options on Google or marketing sites that have good reputations. Most of the time, you'll find a pretty good agreement among the marketing gurus on what to do. This will often take away your need to test even if you do have the budget.

Remember that there are no direct financial rewards for veterinary marketing creativity. You only get paid for what works, whether it was your idea or not.

You may hear certain standards and rules for how veterinary web marketing should be. Sometimes they make sense and sometimes you feel like you might have a better idea.

My quote on this is that in marketing, there are best practices but no sacred cows. An example of this is colors for a sales-oriented website. White text on a black background has been proven to be a poor choice many times over. However, for energy drink and nightclub websites, the white on black has a more chic effect.

For your veterinary website, you should know the best practices while be willing to test when you think you have an idea that other people haven't thought of. The important key to this is you must be conscious that you are violating a best practice as an experiment, instead of just assuming you know better. Always be prepared to go back to the recommended guidelines if the experiment doesn't work.

When using Facebook ads with your veterinary website, make sure you understand all your targeting opportunities. One area that people forget to look at is "Connections on Facebook." If you click on "Advanced Connection Targeting," you can set your ads to either only show to your current fans, or to never show to your current fans.

Some ads will work better for people who already "Like" your page, while others will be redundant for that group. Consider both options for your veterinary website.

To get the most out of your veterinary website, you'll have to continuously take note of where your visitors come from and what they do once they get to your site. With Google Analytics, you can find this information very quickly.

There's a tool that will help you get even more out of Google Analytics, and it's called the Google URL Builder. It is at: http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55578.

When you're creating a traffic campaign, you would enter some information on this page to create a special URL. For example, if you're running a display ad on Yelp.com, you might put "yelp" as your source, "display" as your medium, and "doghealth" as your campaign name, if your ad copy talked was targeted to dog owners. If your site is PetWellness.com, you might end up with a URL like http://petwellness.com/?utm_source=yelp&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=doghealth.

While this might look technical, know that Google will take care of all the hard stuff for you, as the right details will be automatically plugged into your Google Analytics reports. See how this helps your veterinary website.

A very intelligent reader of ours recently commented on a post on paid search.  She said that for marketing a veterinary website, organic search was very important as well.

The answer to this is that you would ideally have both bases covered.  Natural search results are generally trusted more, and get more visitors.  It also becomes much more economical to depend on natural search once you actually have the rankings.

With paid search, you get clients and clicks right away, without having to wait.  Having your animal hospital or clinic showing up on both sides of Google will also give you a lot more credibility.  

For this reason, VetMatrix ideally takes care of both organic and paid search, so clients can have the maximum power with their veterinary websites.  We don't do this for everyone, but for a dedicated client, we can put together a package like this.

On Super Bowl Sunday, we were all given a great example of how advertising shouldn't be for your veterinary website.

After one of the ads, a friend in our watching group asked "Hey, what is GoDaddy?"

"Exactly!" I exclaimed.

She had just confirmed what I was thinking, that GoDaddy had wasted an enormous amount of money advertising on the Super Bowl.

GoDaddy is a web company that sells domain name registration and hosting. This means they can give you some "space" on the internet for your site and let you pick domain name, but that's it.

So why would you choose to advertise on the TV program with the most untargeted, diverse viewership ever? Remember that everyone from small children who can't spell "daddy" to 95 year old people who have never used a computer are watching the Super Bowl, and most are unable or unwilling to benefit from that product.

The second big mistake was the content. The ad featured some attractive women wearing GoDaddy shirts, with some odd storyline about a contract. There was no indication of what service was actually being sold. This meant that even if there were a number of potential website owners watching, they wouldn't realize they needed the product.

How does this apply to your veterinary website? The first thing to take note of is how important it is for you to appropriately target your audience. Unless you're a company like Pepsi, and can serve everyone, then limit your audience as much as possible. For example, ideally, you would only advertise to adult pet owners within a short distance of your clinic. Secondly, don't try to entertain in your ad, but instead explain clearly what your service does and why the pet owners should go with you. You may get some laughs for a funny ad, but it won't get you clients. 

Last week, we talked about using paid traffic to invest in your veterinary website. If you were uncomfortable with the thought of spending $1200 to get $2200, you're not alone. It can be painful to tie up funds for the sake of future cashflow, especially if it could take a year or more before you even break even on what you spent.

Ironically, any investor would look at this arrangement pretty positively. You're almost doubling your money in a few years, which is a rare find except in risky stocks.

The reason why it feels different to you is because you're operating on a "hunter/gatherer" mindset. Back in the caveman days, we used to go out and hunt bison every single day and gather berries when we could. Storing food was impossible. There's no way to build wealth this way as a chiropractor.

You have to switch to an "agricultural" mindset. You buy good seeds, plant them, water the soil, and wait. If we hadn't made this shift, we'd still be using spears to hunt because we wouldn't have had the time to invent guns, let alone raise farm animals. The only way you can afford to switch to this way of business is to put together an aggressive savings plan for your clinic so you have enough capital to both pay for advertising and comfortably make payroll every month.

Think about how this shift in thinking can help your veterinary website marketing.

Sometimes you'll be paying money to advertise your veterinary website and clinic, and you'll wonder if the money is being spent well. For example, you might spend $1200 on Google AdWords and get one new client. Was it worth it?

It might be, or you might have overspent.

Any time you pay for traffic or ads, you are acting as an investor. You are buying clients and hoping that you get more money from treating their pets than you spent bringing them to your clinic. The way you tell if this is a profitable setup is to calculate a lifetime customer value, which comes down to how much the average client will spend with you for the length of service.

On a rough scale, here is a way to find that number. Add up all your revenue and divide it by the number of clients that make up this revenue. Suppose your clients will, on average, each spend $2200 with you over time. If you have the space and scalability to work with these clients, then $1200 per acquisition isn't bad at all.  You can still make an effort to lower ad costs, but that's secondary to maximizing the amount of clients you can get in at this price.

See if looking at these things this way makes a difference in how you market your veterinary website.

If you've had some difficulty in completing milestones in your veterinary website marketing, then it is possible that you've been letting yourself get sidetracked with "escapes." There are too many examples to mention and it's different for everyone.  Some of the offenders can include Movies, TV, alcohol, web surfing, and social media sites like Facebook.  You have to identify which apply to you. Beyond being time wasters, these can also result in lack of motivation or energy available for your tasks later in the day.

If you feel this might be an issue for you, then a solution is to take a set period of time and decide not to use those escapes. For example, you may set a three week period of not watching movies or going on your social Facebook account. When you do this, you have two very significant results. For one thing, a surprising amount of time is freed up to work on your veterinary marketing. Additionally, you find that your energy isn't being dispersed as much in your escapes, so you'll feel a greater charge towards your marketing goals. It will actually feel more peaceful to work on your business than to be idle.

You'll have to decide for yourself how much you will cut out from your life. Just cutting out one or two escapes can run the risk of a third escape taking their place. Cutting out ALL escapes can place a crushing burden on your willpower. If you can find the right balance for yourself, you'll see that, at least for your time period, your veterinary website marketing moves a lot farther in the right direction.

When you're creating emails to market your veterinary website, you may find that some ideas appear to be sound at first, but are too close to what some marketing "bad guys" are doing.

Recently, I got an email from Tony Robbins' company for an upcoming business seminar.  The email's subject line was "We guarantee you 1 million dollars but you must act now."

It was striking not only for the ridiculous statement, but that it sounded so similar to what those Nigerian scam emails say.  For such a big company, this was a staggering error.  Something like this can affect credibility to a large degree.

Most of you won't drop the ball this much when sending emails to promote your veterinary website, but this is a good concept to remember.

When you are ordering paid traffic for your veterinarian website, you sometimes get the choice between a CPC plan (cost per click) or CPM (cost per 1000 impressions).

The main difference is that with CPC you only pay when someone clicks your ad and visits your site, while with CPM, you pay when your ad is shown 1000 times, whether they click or not. There are reasons to consider both options.

In terms of "things that can go wrong," CPC carries the inherent risk of click fraud, while CPM makes it tempting for a paid traffic distributor to show your ad as many times as possible, whether or not it helps your sales. Neither of these issues should be deal breakers, but they should be kept in mind. To save your money when using CPM, you have to be extremely targeted in what type of person sees your ads, where they live, and even what time of day. A tiny mistake in targeting could cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars showing your animal clinic, to some confused Malaysian viewers who don't even speak English.  If your animal hospital can only serve a 10 mile radius, make that a setting for your advertising.

However, if you do have all these variables under your control, then you have the opportunity to pay basically a flat fee for exposure, and can maximize traffic to your veterinarian website based on the strength of your ad. Just make sure you test both options before making a final decision.

One of the easiest ways to start getting visitors to your veterinary website is to use paid search traffic, also known as sponsored search or PPC (pay per click). This is very helpful for a new website because you can start getting visitors immediately instead of waiting until Google takes notice of your site.

The idea of paying for traffic can feel uncomfortable. Shouldn't clients be able to find you using natural Google Search? That's what it's there for, right? Remember that even the largest companies use PPC to maximize their customer and client potential.

Fortune 500 companies understand that if their paid traffic converts into sales, that it's worth the investment. With an enormous advertising budget, these companies will pay a lot, even if the profit margin is low, because the sheer volume will bring in a lot of total profit.

As a small business owner, you can profit from the same system, but you have to watch your spending and advertising a lot more closely because you won't have the same type of volume and cash reserves.

In the future, we'll go over some more specific paid traffic strategies, but for now, consider what kind of budget you can put aside for PPC for your veterinary website.

When marketing your clinic with your veterinary website, you may feel the temptation to model yourself after a competing animal hospital, especially a very successful one. This can be a good plan at times but also has risk involved. Here are some reasons why it might not work out to copy a competitor:

1.    She might be powerful with her offline marketing and be succeeding in spite of making a lot of web mistakes.
2.    She might be generally successful online but testing a new way of doing things. The version of her website you're looking at might be an experiment that does not succeed.
3.    She may have been doing things perfectly in the past, but has switched to a bad marketing team and has not realized there are any problems yet.

There may be some powerful things to pick up from competing veterinary websites, but you should always know fully why you want to model your marketing after them before you do it. Keep away from blindly trying to follow others.

A while back, we gave some advice on how to better promote your veterinary website through contacting your clients on their birthdays. We talked about using eCards, postal mail, and the phone, but didn't mention one of the simplest contact methods.

If you have clients connected to your Facebook page, then you should be updated when each client has an upcoming birthday. You may have this information anyway and can set up a Google calendar to send you reminders. This makes a big difference because Facebook doesn't send you automatic reminders when a birthday comes.

On each client's special day, say "Happy Birthday" on his or her wall or any nice words. This will make your clients very happy, and encourage others to check out your veterinary website.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. When you're watching your veterinary website performance, you may be wondering when all your big money will come in for your clinic work. Do you have what it takes to become a millionaire veterinarian?

Here is the simple truth. There are only two types of veterinarians who become millionaires with their animal clinics and animal hospitals. No exceptions.

The first type is the veterinarian who lives, breathes, and sleeps business. He wakes up at 5:00AM naturally and rushes to his notepad to write down a new business idea. You have to drag him kicking and screaming from his computer to go to his child's school play. He gets edgy while at a movie because he wants to go home and work on his video script for his veterinary website.

The second type will NEVER reach a million dollars in clinic profits unless he sets regular goals, deadlines, and benchmarks for himself. He needs to drag himself out of bed kicking and screaming when it's a weekend to meet his personal deadline. He writes his video script not out of pure inspiration, but because It's on his checklist for the day. He rushes to get his objectives done for the day so he can go to his child's school play without having any loose ends.

If you were in the first category, you would know by now. It's a gift to have that natural addiction to success behavior and very few of us have it. The rest of us have to live by discipline and self-imposed restrictions. There's nothing wrong with this, and it applies to every big project in life, including creative works, athletics, and all areas of entrepreneurship. Accept that you're not a "natural" over-achiever, so you can take the necessary action to bring wealth to your veterinary website and clinic. 

Yesterday we shared a great tool to help with picking a domain name for your veterinary website that wouldn't flag Google's spam sensors. You may have noticed there was a difference between a .com and .bz, in terms of the extension.

These are known as TLD's or domain extensions. Here are some rules of thumb for choosing.

It's always best to choose a .com if it's available. This is what people are most used to typing in, and Google will always give ranking preference to the .com, all other things being equal. For competitive domain phrases, a .com signifies you either have been around a while, or had the money to pay for it. Either way, it means you're a bigger deal than someone who had to scrounge for a .biz because all the good stuff was taken.

After .com, the next best to go with is .org. People associate .org's with non-profit organizations and community sites, so this can be an added advantage.

After .com and .org, there's nothing else work looking at. You may do better with .net than the other alternatives, but it's much better to snag a .com with a less effective domain phrase than to take another extension. If you pick a .tv, .biz, or .us, many potential clients will accidentally type .com equivalent and not find you.

If for some glorious reason, however, you can register a .gov or .mil (government or military extensions), then you'll be enormously ahead of the competition. However this is very unlikely. Stick to .com's for your veterinary website.

When it's time to choose a domain name for your veterinarian Website, you want to think about how Google will see your pick. Google has a system to judge whether a domain name seems to be spammy or scammy.

SEOmoz has a great tool to work around this, by testing it ahead of time. The URL for this is seomoz.org/labs_tools/spam-detection/index.php. You want your score to be on the lower end, with 1.0 being a sign that it's not going to be treated well by Google.

A URL like "happypetcare.com" has a healthy rating of 0.365

On the other hand, "we-treat-pets-first-appointment-free-911.bz" has an earth-shattering 1.468.

The good thing is that the tool shows you what parts of your domain are causing the flag. Use this before choosing your veterinarian website domain name. 

As your clinic and veterinary website becomes more successful, you'll find that you will be less available to field the usual calls, questions, and complaints from clients. You may also be traveling and your technicians and assistants may be running operations without you.

To create and maintain an efficacious support staff, there are two areas you need to have handled. First, you need to make sure they are trained with the basic operations and know the solutions to common situations. They should know what to do if a client brings in two dogs for a one-pet appointment or how to handle a dog fight in the waiting room.

However, there will be situations that aren't covered in whatever training manual you supply. This where you need personal empowerment for your support staff. The more you encourage your staff to make their own decisions for situations while you're present, the easier a time they will have when you're not available. You should convey that you trust them to run the ship without you. This will compel them to live up to this expectation.

This can only work, however, if you are kindly corrective when an employee makes the wrong decision. You have to accept that support mistakes can honestly happen, and be able to tell the difference between a "reasonable" and "unreasonable" error. This practice is what turns a rookie assistant into a seasoned clinic manager you would trust with the keys if you were in a coma for a month. As your marketing grows for your veterinary website, so will your staff's ability to handle these situations.

When you start promoting your veterinarian website with paid traffic, you may find yourself overwhelmed with numbers like CTR, CPC, cost per conversion, etc. You'll have to make decisions about whether to put more money into a campaign or scale back to save money.

A common question is what to do if you have a good conversion rate, but you're not getting a ton of traffic. Do you sacrifice your conversion percentage for more patients?

There's no one answer to this, but there an easy way to find the solution. Take the action that will result in the most money in your pocket at the end of the month. If you know by buying from another traffic source will lower your conversion rate, but double your amount of clients, then it will likely be worth it. If you have a lot of clients already, you will want to focus more on lowering costs per new client acquired.

Remember that these numbers are always relative to each other, as well as to the current state of your clinic and veterinarian website. This is something VetMatrix can help you with.

Have you ever heard the saying "There's no such thing as bad press"?

As an animal care provider with a veterinary website, you know that you do have to guard your reputation.

However, something to think about is the difference between "good bad press" and "bad bad press."

Here's the difference:

Bad bad press is when the person involved does something which bothers the fan or customer. An example would be a rock star being two hours late to his concert or a veterinarian banning clients with opposing political views.

Good bad press is when the person does something which bothers anyone but the fan or customer. It's amplified when fan or customer benefits from the offense.  An example of this would be an energy drink manufacturer that the Olympic board wants banned for giving athletes an unfair advantage. For a veterinarian, it would be getting fined by the city regulators for healing stray dogs and giving them homes instead of turning them over to the pound as instructed.

Obviously, any of the above actions can have their own consequences, including losing your license to practice medicine, so don't go looking for trouble. However, it's always good to understand how reputation truly works when promoting yourself with your veterinarian website. 

Do you ever get the feeling that the blog for your veterinarian website is being ignored by Google? Maybe the robots haven't crawled your blog in a while.

Here's a quick tip to get attention of the technical side of the web.

Go to http://pingomatic.com and enter in your veterinarian website's URL. Check off all the boxes aside from "audio."

Ping-o-matic will send a signal to a bunch of networks to crawl your site again, which will get Google to crawl your blog again. You can do this as often as you want, but once in a while should be enough. 

Most people make business more complicated than it really is. No matter what your situation is with your animal hospital and veterinary website, there are only four elements that make up your business:

Product/Service: This is your actual skill and proficiency as a veterinarian. By the time you're licensed to perform animal medicine, you have this taken care of already, so that's why we don't talk about it so much here.

Traffic: This is the art of getting people to see and hear you so they can make a decision on paying for your services. It includes getting visitors to your veterinary website, and at a local level, even includes people who see a flyer for your clinic and want to find out more.

Conversion: You only start seeing revenue when visitors turn into clients. Conversion is your process of helping pet owners choose you as their veterinarian. This includes your design of your website and how your treat potential clients that want to meet you.

Retention: This is making a one-time appointment a regular client for possibly a lifetime. While many businesses can run without thinking about retention, it will make your life and business exponentially easier to have clients who keep returning to give you money.

Now, sometimes you'll have one or more of these elements taken care of for you. If you are a regular wildlife consultant on Discovery Channel, you will likely have conversion taken care of for you, and most likely traffic won't be an issue either. If you are a traveling veterinarian, then retention is something that may not be as important. However, if you have an issue in making profits with your clinic, then at least one of the four elements is off. No exceptions.

You may have noticed that since this blog has been running, we've covered a large range of topics. There are posts on big picture concepts like goal setting and more detailed strategy sessions for local SEO. Depending on where you are with your veterinarian website marketing, some posts may appeal to you more than others. To help illustrate why we cover this range, here is a quote from Lao Tzu's Tao te Ching:

"When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos."

To give a business perspective on this, there is a range of motivations and intentions you can come from when working on your veterinarian website marketing. Ideally, you're coming from a place of focused intuition, where you're in such a good rhythm with your business that the right strategies and decisions flow effortlessly.

If you can't access that state, then the next best option is to come from a place of sincerely wanting to help as many clients as you can. You want the world to have happy, healthy pets, so you design your veterinary website to bring in as many people to your office as possible.

When that mindset is unavailable to you, you have general business principles go to on. These include sales funnels, lowering costs, and making your veterinary website easy to find online.

When you can't even think from those terms, you get into more detailed tactical measures, such as making sure your site has xx% of keyword density, and searching for the most Google-friendly video platform.

Do these little details need to be taken care of? Absolutely, and this is why we recommend you have your veterinary website marketing be taken care of by professionals.

However, the higher you are on the ladder mentioned above, the easier all the smaller decisions will be. When you're in the right mental state, everything else seems to come together without need for micromanagement. If you do feel like you're very tactic-hungry, that's fine, and this is why we make the more detailed strategies available on this blog. Wherever you are on the scale, you can make great progress for your veterinary website, using what we offer here.

This week we've been going over strategies to help with your goal setting for the New Year. Today I am going to introduce an often over-looked aspect of goal-setting: making your objectives measurable for your veterinarian website and clinic.

A goal like "I will blog regularly on my veterinarian website" is attractive because it's easy to slip under the rug if you lose motivation. How often is "regular?" If you don't know when you succeed, you don't know when you fail, and that is the allure of the vague goal.

Another reason why vague goals don't work is because there's no light at the end of the tunnel. You need a clear benchmark of when the goal is done so you can celebrate and reward yourself.

If you want to set a blogging goal, say something like, "I will blog once a week on my veterinarian website for six months." If you want to do it once a month, or once a day, that's fine too. If you want to do it for three months, that's also perfectly acceptable. Just make the goal so clear that by the end of your deadline, you've either succeeded in meeting the goal or you haven't. No excuses.

Yesterday we had a post on how saying you'll "try" to do something will neutralize the power in setting a goal for your clinic and veterinarian website. There is more to the art of goal setting; and today we'll discuss the difference between "action goals" and "results goals."

Here are some examples.

Action Goal: "I will ask 10 clients a month for new referrals."

Results Goal: "I will bring in $350,000 in 2011."

The clearest benefit of using an action goal is that your success with it depends entirely on your discipline. With results goals, you have much out of your control and are constantly faced with the questions like "How do I do this?" and thoughts like "I only have 3 months left and have to make $200,000!"

With action goals, if you are realistic about what you can take on and allot yourself enough time to deal with unexpected roadblocks, you will predictably and consistently achieve your goals.

It's still very valuable to have a results goal in mind, such as how much money you plan to make, but in terms of what goals you make commitments to getting accomplished, keep these objectives action-based. This will have a great effect on your clinic and veterinarian website for 2011.