Advertising Trends For Veterinary Hospitals During Coronavirus

The coronavirus is here and the question lingers – what are veterinary hospitals supposed to do? Two weeks in and our hospitals are still going strong with revenue, web traffic, and appointments up. For most, the questions remains – what are we supposed to do during these odd times? Our team put together a huge guide of everything you should be doing with your website and online communications during the coronavirus pandemic. We also have a guide for you on implementing telemedicine to your clinic quickly and easily. Today, we want to talk about what we’re seeing with our hospital’s that have a steady stream of Google and Facebook ads running. This comes from our Advertising Team, led by the amazing Brandon Breshears

Advertising Updates During Corona Virus Pandemic

During these unprecedented times, we’re getting lots of questions from clients on what we should do to ensure their practices don’t slow down. We think it is important to note here, that for many of the practices we’re working with, we’re seeing improvements in results, which is great news. Our main goal with ads is to support your practice by driving in new clients during this unprecedented time. At this moment, veterinary hospitals are still classified as essential and should stay open until noted otherwise.

Are Ads Still Working?

We’re not seeing a decrease in the number of searches or click activity since the national emergency was declared in the United States. A worry that we were having was that we were going to see a dramatic decrease in search volume. This doesn’t seem to be the case so far. As additional restrictions are placed on activity outside of the home, we’ll continue to monitor and update you right here in this post.

In places like San Francisco, where non-essential outdoor activities have been banned, there are stipulations that allow for necessary healthcare which includes pets.

Should You Change Your Ads Strategy?

We work hard to target transactional search terms when it comes to Google Ads, which are the searches where pet owners are, but there is a scale of needs.

During unusual times like these, we suggest targeting new client searches, urgent procedures, and services that are most often considered essential. If we’re spending money to drive more clients into your business, we want to make sure to pick up the lowest hanging fruit first. We would suggest targeting new client searches, urgent care searches, and same-day services.

Address Your Client’s Concerns

Right now there’s a lot of fear and uncertainty being felt in the marketplace. Your clients are being constantly barraged by news and media telling them to self-isolate. We highly suggest highlighting the policy changes your practice is making to keep everyone safe.

People may be unsure that your practice is even open because there are so many other closures happening. We need to be agile in making updates to ad copy, and highlight that you’re open or that have new safety protocols in place.

Keep Your Business Growing

If you start to see a less busy schedule, a decrease in clients we can quickly scale up ads that will help drive same day services. We are here to make adjustments quickly based on how things are going in your practice, and are here to help you develop a plan that will help you get through this difficult and uncertain time. No matter what, it’s time for fight or flight. Turning off your ads and cutting staff may be what your gut tells you to do, but be careful, the clinic down the street may be ramping up their ads and getting ready to take your clients.