PR is important for all sorts of brands. It doesn’t matter if you’re a multi-billion business, a celebrity or a small vet practice, your brand will benefit from a good PR strategy. Let’s start with having a look at the reasons why you should invest in PR for your vet practice.
First of all, it increases your visibility in your area. By doing PR efficiently, more people in your community will know about your services as a practice, increasing the chance you will attract more customers. Secondly, it will not only make people aware of the fact that you exist, but it will also give you the opportunity to tell a bit more about your brand. Who works at your practice, what is your story, how did you originate? Together with telling the world about your clinic, you will be able to let them know what you stand for.
Another good reason for PR is to establish yourself as an authority in your industry. If there are 2 vets in town, and one of them often comments in newspapers or gives his professional opinion on the local TV, which one do you think people want to go to when something happens to their own pets? PR can help you build up a strong reputation for your practice, and it helps the vets working there to establish themselves as thought leaders in the sector.
Public relationships aren’t only about getting your messages to a broad audience. The main benefit of PR is that you’re able to build strong relationships with your customers, reporters or other thought leaders.
One last reason to invest in PR is that it might bring in new employees or highly qualified staff members. If your business has a strong reputation, chances increase that it will attract skilled vets to work for your clinic.
Tips for a good PR Strategy
Brand story
Behind every brand, there’s a story. And this is no different for your vet practice. Your brand story tells about who you are, what you stand for and what drives you. If you want to invest in public relations, you should clearly define the story of your practice and how you’re different from your competitors.
Outreach
Secondly, you should compile a list of people can help you with spreading the word about your business. Who are people in your industry that could help you attract your target audience? This list can include local reporters, other vets in the industry and social media influencers that have a huge following because of their pet.
Main Pillar of a Great Pr Strategy: Create great content
Once you reach out to influencers or reporters, they will probably want to do some research about your practice before they decide if they will work with you or not. So as a vet practice, you want to make sure that first impression counts. The best way to do this is to have great content on platforms such as your social media accounts and website, where you process yourself as a thought leader and share your brand story with the world.
How to get started with PR Strategy
Now let’s get more concrete. You created a brand story, together with a good content strategy, and you know more or less who you want to reach out to. But what’s next? Here are some ideas on how PR can boost your vet practice.
Blogging
A blog is an ideal platform for content to share with your followers. These types of contents can be very diverse, ranging from tips on how to take care of their pets, to opinion pieces from one of the vets working at your practice. Make sure you keep your target audience in mind, and you think about what they would want to read on your blog.
Guest Blogging
Alternatively to blogging, you can give guest blogging a try. Which means you will be writing for another blog rather than your own. This will help you to establish some authority in the industry. Then, you can position yourself as an expert about a topic you know a lot about. When guest blogging it’s important you pick a website with a good reputation and one that of course is related to pet health in general.
Get your team out there
Another way to get people to know about your practice is to get your team on stage. There are multiple events, such as Pet Expo, where you can have a stand and introduce your practice to others in the industry. Other conventions or big fairs are also ideal places to network and create long-lasting relations in the industry.
Press Releases
A press release is a news update you send to the newspapers for them to publish as an article. This can be a very effective way to get your vet practices’ or vet’s name in the newspapers. These press releases can be related to your practice (in which case you should make sure that you actually have news). Or, you can write a press release about a new medicine for pets or some tips on how to keep your pets cool on hot days.
When writing press releases it’s important to keep in mind that this cannot be purely self-promotion. The ideal press release should be written in a way that the editor can put it straight in a newspaper. So you want to leave out any form of advertisement you’re making for the practice. Working with quotes is a good solution to get your name mentioned in an objective way.
For example: “Never leave your dog in a hot car, since it could heat up in a matter of minutes”, explains Dr. Smith, a vet at My Vet Practice.
Need help with writing a press release? We have a handy template ready for you to use!