Although every veterinarian’s office, groomer, or other pet service business strives to spread awareness through word-of-mouth, the reality is that local marketing is key to bringing in new customers and building brand recognition. In fact, research suggests that nearly half of all online searches now have local intent.
And when it comes to localizing your online presence to reach nearby pet owners, efficient analytics and cost-effective marketing strategies can make all the difference. So, what are some best practices that veterinarians and other pet services professionals can keep in mind when leveraging local analytics and marketing? Let’s dig in!
Understanding Local Consumer Behavior
Tailoring your marketing strategy to your local audience is the first step in building your local brand presence. By understanding customer behavior and trends, you can get a better feel for how potential customers might find your business and the exact kind of content they’re looking for.
Consider, for example, a new-in-town veterinarian’s office that’s looking to bring in new patients. By using local analytics, marketing teams can identify the exact search queries that local audiences are using to find veterinarians in the area. From there, these same marketing professionals can start tailoring the new veterinarian’s office blog content, social media content, and website content to reflect those queries and keywords.
By tailoring content based on local customer preferences, businesses can improve their reach and make it easier for new clients to find them online.
Set Goals and KPIs
In addition to using local analytics, it’s also important for marketing teams to set specific and measurable goals for localizing their online presence. By setting these goals and actually tracking related key performance indicators (KPIs), marketing teams can determine which campaigns are performing well and which ones may need some improvement.
So, how do you go about measuring local marketing performance at a veterinarian’s office, grooming center, or pet spa? Some specific KPIs to consider tracking may include:
- Social media posts
- Photos uploaded to the company’s Google Business Profile
- Number of new reviews
- Number of check-ins
It is also important to decide on a timeframe in which to track your chosen KPIs. Many smaller businesses will benefit from assessing KPIs over a month’s worth of time to gain the most useful insights, but your marketing team may need to experiment with this to figure out what works best for your business.
Track Local SEO Performance
Using local SEO analytics for veterinarians is another effective way to monitor local search rankings and see where your business stands from a search engine optimization standpoint. This means looking closely at data related to organic traffic coming to your website (or your Google Business Profile) from local searches alone, as well as the specific search terms that people are using to find your business.
Once you get a better feel for what terms are bringing in the most organic traffic, you can adjust your local SEO strategies based on analytics insights to maximize your marketing reach. Some practical tips to keep in mind when it comes to optimizing your online presence for local SEO include:
- Making sure your business website is mobile-friendly.
- Using geotargeted keywords (such as “veterinarian” plus “[your city name]”).
- Including quality backlinks in your website content.
- Keeping your Google Business Profile as up-to-date as possible, and making sure that it is completely filled out.
Analyze Customer Engagement
Another important aspect of optimizing your local presence online as a vet or other pet services professional is taking the time to closely analyze the way(s) your customers engage with your business online. Ideally, this will mean tracking user engagement on localized content in measurable and definitive ways, such as by monitoring customer interactions on social media platforms (like Facebook or Instagram).
Meanwhile, your business may also benefit from analyzing engagement metrics, such as click-through rates for local promotions, paid advertising campaigns, and letters. If your click-through rates are relatively low, then this could indicate the need for more engaging or relevant content to your target audience. If your click-through rates are high, then you should be encouraged to keep doing what you’re doing.
Assess Local Advertising ROI
Whether your veterinarian’s office is brand new or is well-established, the reality is that many smaller businesses these days just don’t have extensive marketing budgets. With this in mind, marketing teams may need to get more creative and find ways to do more with less. This applies to local advertising and marketing campaigns, where teams may need to allocate their limited budgets based on which campaigns are performing the best.
With this in mind, marketing teams need to understand how to utilize analytics to measure the effectiveness of their local advertising campaigns at any given point in time. Specifically, being able to calculate the return on investment (ROI) for different local marketing campaigns will empower teams to determine which have the best chances of bringing in new clients and performing well—which can make decisions about budget allocation that much easier.
Implement Geotargeting Strategies
These days, more small businesses are beginning to implement geotargeting strategies as a means of reaching target clients that are located within a very specific geographical range. The important thing to remember with geotargeted campaigns, of course, is that your marketing is only as good as your analytics. Taking the time to effectively leverage local analytics will ensure that your brand’s geotargeting campaign is as precise as possible.
From there, your marketing team can tailor promotions to meet your specific local demographics and maximize reach without overspending on broad audiences. For example, if local data reveals that there are many young dog owners in a specific area, you might be able to target these customers with personalized offers for preventive care services (such as a free wellness exam for new patients).
Budget-Friendly Adjustments to Consider
No matter the size of your clinic or facility, of course you want to make the most of your limited marketing budget so you can focus on what you do best: caring for people’s beloved pets. Fortunately, there are always some budget-friendly adjustments you can make to your local marketing and analytics campaigns to stretch those dollars.
First, be sure to keep a close eye on analytics insights and make cost-effective changes when needed to avoid marketing waste. At the end of the day, data-driven decision-making can help you make the most of your marketing budget—but only if your marketing team knows how to use local analytics tools to its advantage.
Remember, too, that you’re never really “done” with your local marketing campaigns. Instead, your team will need to be prepared to make changes and adjustments for continuous optimization as the local market changes and evolves. By staying on top of local data and analytics, your marketing team can stay agile with budget allocation and launch campaigns that yield real results.
The Bottom Line on Localizing Your Marketing Efforts
At the end of the day, serving pets and pet owners with the best possible care is at the forefront of what you do. However, if you want your services to reach the most local clients, putting in the effort to localize your online marketing and analytics is a must. With these strategies in play, you can maximize your local search results, engage your customer base, and grow your business without wasting any precious marketing dollars in the process.
Finding success in local marketing and analytics also means finding the right tools for the job. From Google Analytics and popular SEO tools to platforms that are specifically designed for local small business marketing, it’s important to select tools that are based on your unique business goals and budget. When the tools are easy and intuitive to use, this means that your marketing team will have less of a learning curve—which means less time and resources set aside for training and more time spent putting local analytics and marketing tools to work for your growing business.
At Surefire Local, we take a lot of pride in our budget- and user-friendly platform that’s designed with the needs of small businesses in mind. Through our localized online marketing platform, your brand can grow its online presence and boost local search—making it easy for pet owners to find you when they need you most. Get in touch today to learn more or to schedule a demo with our team!