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Veterinary Practice News Editorial Blog:
Friday, February 6, 2009
Easy Ways to Promote Pet Dental Health Month
By Somyr McLean Perry
Contributing Editor of VeterinaryPracticeNews.com and Veterinary Practice News
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Welcome to February, the ever-popular dental health month, when discounts on dental exams and cleanings are offered, pet dental swag is passed out and poor technicians spend 10 hours a day up their eye goggles in cat and dog mouth.
It's a glorious time of increased revenue for the clinic and lucky furry companions leave the clinic with a clean set of pearly whites.
Promoting pet dental health month has become much easier over the years because of sponsors such as the American Veterinary Medical Assn., Hill's Pet Nutrition, the American Veterinary Dental Society, the Academy of Veterinary Dentistry, the American Veterinary Dental College, the Academy of Veterinary Dental Technicians and the Veterinary Oral Health Council.
These groups work together to provide handouts, brochures and other client education materials to clinics. The website Petdental.com, hosted by Hill's, allows clinics to access news and resources for dental health education, as well as order a dental health campaign kit.
Although free stuff and discounts help get pets in the door, direct consumer marketing tends to be quite successful in niche markets too; and the best, cheapest path to direct marketing is e-mail.
If your clinic hasn't yet jumped on the e-mail bandwagon, start.
Collecting clients' e-mail addresses is the hardest part and many people aren't yet ready to open their in-boxes to possible junk mail. That's why drafting a hard copy of a mock e-newsletter to show clients could be helpful. "See Ms. Johnson? This is a sample of our e-newsletter that we e-mail our clients every month. It features pet health news, tips, upcoming events at the clinic and even coupons!"
Making a e-newsletter is made simple with design programs build right into most versions of Microsoft Office, which offers templates for filing in the words and photos to build your e-newsletter. E-mailing it to all your clients is even easier.
It's also important to update your clinic's website with information on pet dental health, including the official campaign logo and even pre- and post-dental photos of patients' teeth. All Pets Veterinary Clinic in Macomb, Ill., updated its website just for the occasion using resources from Petdental.com to include an article about dental month and instructions for pet owners on the best dental care practices for pets. It also features a simple before-and-after dental photo.
Shaughnessy Veterinary Hospital in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada, also make great use of its website to promote dental month by posting photos of various pet dental products and how to use them. The best part is the coupon clients can use toward dental services.
Another great website belongs to Kansas' Lawrence Veterinary Hospital, which features several photo albums dedicated to pet dental month. Great use of in-clinic photography!
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