Striking out on your own in veterinary practice is a wonderfully exciting time.
I vividly remember going from employed vet to business owner, creating Meridian Veterinary Practice way back in the late 1990s. I felt excited, scared and exhilarated all at once. It was a very steep learning curve.
Marketing vet practices (especially online) was in its infancy back then, but I’m very proud that the brand, logo and much of the original infrastructure we created are still standing strong today.
Over the past 15 years in full-time marketing, I’ve learned a lot more about launching successful businesses and making sure vets and other professionals see a short and long-term return on investment from marketing spend.
In this article, I cover each area of branding and marketing a new vet practice and offer a downloadable checklist you can use as you work through the process.
In my early days of vet practice marketing wasn’t something vets did.
As a relatively shy and polite profession, we used to simply place an ad in the Yellow Pages and wait for the phone to ring.
And I think even today, a lot of vets still struggle to promote themselves. There’s still some thinking that all vets need to do is build a clinic and provide great care and the waiting room will be full.
But a lot has changed in the last few years.
More and more practices, including large corporates, are aggressively marketing themselves on and offline. The pet-owning public is generally less loyal and more prone to shopping around on price.
And this is where brand comes in.
You will massively increase the quality of clients you attract, return on marketing investment and ultimately, the value of your practice if you build an attractive and powerful brand for your veterinary practice.
Brand includes
Getting your brand foundation right is a vitally important early step in the life of your business.
You’ll need professional help from an experienced veterinary branding agency, but done right, it will be worth every cent both now and for the lifetime of your business.
When I built the first website for Meridian Vet Practice back in the late 1990s websites were very much a sideshow.
However, in today’s digital world, your website is the centrepiece of your marketing efforts.
Your vet clinic website is the place where everyone goes to get a real sense of who you are and to book an appointment or call.
They may hear about you first by word of mouth or social media, but they will go to your website before they call.
Do not try to build your own website or go cheap. Going cheap will cost you way more than you save in missed opportunities and reduced growth.
If you’re setting up in practice, your website must be better than all the other websites around. It must be appealing and professional, work well on all devices and educate new clients.
Seek out quotes from a few professional website designers with veterinary experience and stay involved and engaged throughout the process.
Your website will then set up the look, feel, message and voice for your Google business profile, social media platforms and any online advertising you are planning.
This leaflet is a blast from the past.
We created it when we launched Meridian Vets and arranged for the Post Office to distribute it for us. The result was excellent.
New clients would come in clutching the leaflet, excited to meet us.
Do leaflets and fliers still work 20+ years later?
Absolutely, they do.
If the branding, messaging and imaging are right and you include QR codes linking to your website, it’s a great way to reach your local community and drive good business.
You can also consider building relationships with local groomers, advertising in local newsletters and giving talks at your local schools. Building positive relationships is always a great way to grow your business and build brand loyalty.
After your new clinic has launched, you’ll need a marketing plan that you can tweak depending on how effective each element is and how busy you are.
You’ll need a mix of channels and a marketing professional will suggest where to invest on each for the best return.
Key considerations are
The great thing about the digital world is that all this activity can be tracked and it’s much easier than it used to be to measure the return on each activity. In most cases, you’ll see a better return from Google and the other search engines than you will from social media
– more about this here.
Download this veterinary branding and marketing checklist to help you tick all the boxes – and give me a call if you need help.
Deb Croucher is the founder of SVMG, a strategic growth partner for veterinary businesses. A former veterinarian and practice owner, Deb combines industry fluency, commercial strategy, and structured marketing systems to help clinics, specialists, suppliers, and industry partners become clearer, more trusted, and better positioned for growth.
Find answers to common questions about our clinic and your pet’s visits below.
A veterinary growth system brings structure to the parts of marketing that often operate separately: positioning, content, search, campaigns and reporting. SVMG operates that system end-to-end, so activity is not just happening, it is connected, measurable and aligned with how the veterinary market actually makes decisions.
Most agencies deliver services in separate pieces: a website, campaign, content plan or ads. SVMG works at the system level, taking ownership of how those pieces connect, perform and support long-term visibility, positioning and growth.
Yes. Veterinary practices and industry partners operate differently, so the system needs to reflect the audience, decision process and commercial reality of each business. For clinics, that may mean attracting better-fit clients and protecting position; for industry partners, it may mean improving visibility, sales support and market response.
In most cases, disjointed marketing is not caused by a lack of effort. It happens when activity is spread across channels without a clear structure behind it. That’s where bringing everything into one connected system changes how the business is understood and how it performs.
Search is shifting from broad keywords to more specific, question-led queries across Google and AI tools. SVMG builds search and content into the system, so veterinary businesses are easier to find, easier to understand and better positioned when the right clients, clinics or decision-makers are actively looking.
Yes, especially if the activity is there but the direction is unclear. What typically happens is marketing exists across websites, content, social, email or ads, but no one is owning how it all works together. SVMG steps in where structure, accountability and stronger market alignment are needed.
