Flea, tick, and heartworm marketing

Have you checked lately to see where your pet parents are regarding their heartworm and flea and tick prevention? If you are in the northern part of the United States, now is a good time to start thinking about bringing tails through your door to prep for mosquito and tick season. Regardless of whether you want to market only to current clients or to encourage others to try out your services, marketing can move the needle on client compliance. What do you need to know?

Make it extremely easy

People are absolutely exhausted—both the hospital team and the pet owners. Marketing can help, but it will fail unless it is easy for pet owners to receive the medication and care their pets need. Take time to review your booking and ordering processes. Are they as simple as you might like? For example, has your hospital moved to online medication ordering? If you haven’t, how can people quickly and easily pay you and receive their purchase? Is there a way a pet parent can come in for a heartworm test and not wait 3 hours in the parking lot? Have you told your clients the most current “rules of the road” for visits? The good word will spread about your business if it is easy to receive care from your hospital.

Use online shopping carts

Speaking of making it easy, many practices have moved to online shopping carts as a way to reach current and new clients and reduce foot traffic within the hospital. Using data from the hospital PIMS or a marketing dashboard which shows data pulled from the hospital PIMS, you can target specific species, ages, and time lapsed since the pet last received care. Use this data to create a marketing message about stocking up on a flea/tick preventative, including a link to buy the item straight from you, their trusted vet. Everyone is exhausted these days so make it easy and simple to click and buy.

Get attention with your blog

A solid place for any type of marketing focus is a blog. Google adores blogs and they are easy to promote there and on various social media platforms. Pet owner compliance is boosted by education that is easily digestible. Blogs can include pictures, which help to hone in on the key information nuggets. Examples of possible topics for your hospital blog are:

The Importance of Preventatives
How to Properly Remove a Tick
Which Preventative is Right for You?
Natural Flea and Tick Treatments to Avoid
Lyme Disease—A Real Threat to Your Pet
Keeping Fleas and Pets Separate

Here are some live blogs with flea, tick, and heartworm focus:

How to Avoid and Manage Tick Bites https://www.marketplaceveterinary.com/blog/how-toavoid- and-manage-tick-bites-in-pets/
Heartworm Disease 101 https://www.baysideanimalhospitalonline.com/blog/ heartworm-disease-101-protecting-your-pets-heart/
Hello! My pet has fleas! Now what? https://www.marketplaceveterinary.com/blog/help-mypet- has-fleas-now-what/

Remember, blogs are typically between about 300 and 500 words in length, with small paragraphs and bullet points. At least one blog should be posted per month, directly on the hospital’s website. For example, www.abchospital.com/blog.

Post monthly reminders on social media

monthly reminder flea, tick, heartworm prevention social media post example with dog

Time is strange right now and nobody can keep their days straight. For many of us, we wake up on Monday and blink— it’s Friday. Days blur together and it is easy to forget to give a date-based medication such as a monthly heartworm pill. Reaching out with gentle reminders through texts, emails, and social media can be a good way to help nudge pet owners toward compliance. On social media, (Facebook, Instagram, Nextdoor) posts linking to blogs can be boosted to reach a wider audience. Graphical images also remind people it is medication time.

Since every pet takes medications on a different day, use a post or ad that is a gentle, but not specific, reminder versus a statement like: “Remember to give heartworm preventatives today.”

If you want to reach a greater pool of pet owners than just the people who like your page, try boosting your monthly reminder post or setting up a formal ad campaign for it on Facebook.

Create educational posts on social media

Education can be impactful for pet owners. It can inform them on the health impacts and dangers of ticks and heartworm and how to protect their pets. Blog topics promoted across social media can encourage longer discussions around the nature of the diseases. In conjunction with written education, there is also the value of visual cues. Simple graphic posts that show what types of ticks are the most dangerous, for example, can assist the pet owner in knowing when to be concerned.

If you are exhausted and done trying marketing on your own, give us a call. We provide data-driven marketing that focuses on goals and results. Our Nose-to-Tail bundles make it simple for you to have us manage your marketing. They include a website, marketing, blog, and data dashboard. Our full-service marketing packages make it easy for you to maintain a relationship with your current clients and reach out to new clients so you can grow. They adjust as your goals shift, which allows you to see results and not to-do lists. We are here to help whether you are open, reopening, or adjusting to the new normal. Click https://www.beyondindigopets.com/#contact to schedule a time with us today!

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