Steps to Grow a Veterinary Practice (In 2024)

The pet care sector is expanding as a result of increased animal adoption and developments in veterinary treatment. The rivalry for clients is growing every year due to these and other causes. There is no other option for practice owners; expansion is essential.

Just starting out or already established and in need of growth, understanding how to expand is a multifaceted discipline. This article will give you the foundation from which to conduct further research and build your custom action plan.

The goal is to expand your veterinary practice while maintaining service levels and in doing so, beat out your competition.

There are six parts of the guide, as listed:

• Part 1: Veterinary Industry Awareness
• Part 2: Strategy For Growth
• Part 3: Marketing
• Part 4: Customer Retention
• Part 5: Services and Specializations
• Part 6: Practice Administration

Part 1: Veterinary Industry Awareness

Maintaining your knowledge of the veterinary market is essential to your future development and prosperity. Having an understanding of current issues and trends might provide you with a competitive advantage in your market.

Primary Sector Trends

The pandemic significantly increased pet ownership, which in turn increased the demand for veterinary care. This growth is still affecting the veterinary sector.

Digital tools and telemedicine are two examples of how technology is changing veterinary care. To satisfy the demands of contemporary pet owners, these developments are essential. They will also allow the practice to scale their business more effectively.

• Veterinarian Telemedicine (virtual VCPR) – Its use was rising during the pandemic; some research reveals that today, “88% of pet owners agree that having the veterinarian physically examine their pet and talk to them in person is what leads to the best care.” Offering it as part of your practice is still going to be important in the years ahead.

• AI diagnostics – AI allows vets to quickly make diagnostic decisions as it amasses and analyzes large sets of data faster and more efficiently than ever before.

• Wearable technology – As this technology becomes more accepted and deployed, it will have even more of an impact and keep clients connected as well as their pets: “(it will) push the profession away from a reactive health-care system toward a proactive culture that can identify diseases earlier.”

• Premium, individualized care is in high demand as a result of the continued humanization of pets.

Current Issues in the Industry

Two of the biggest obstacles for vet practice are DVM shortages and economic constraints.

• Economic challenges, such as inflation and growing operating expenses, are compelling practices to reevaluate their pricing strategies.

• Practices find it difficult to attract suitable staff, including vets, which has a big influence on operations.

• Pet owners are seeking more individualized, superior care, which is pushing practices to continuously innovate.

Business Prospects

There are many chances for new revenue streams despite these obstacles.

• Specializing in particular markets, like senior services or exotic pet care, may set your business apart and draw newly devoted customers.

• These specialized services have promise, especially if you get out ahead in the market and become known for one or more of them.

Summary

To make wise business judgments, one must comprehend the market. In part two, we begin to design a strategy.

Part 2: Strategy For Veterinary Practice Growth

The cornerstone of every prosperous veterinary practice is strategic planning. It is the process that converts concepts into concrete actions and objectives into quantifiable outcomes. Without a clear strategy, development turns from being an intentional goal to something that happens by accident.

Developing a Thorough Business Plan

A solid company strategy serves as your growth map. It begins with a comprehensive market study & competitive analysis that includes finding unmet needs, comprehending customer demographics, and being aware of your local competitors to properly position your practice.

Realistic financial estimates are also very important. This covers forecasting revenue, managing expenses, and creating a budget. Precise financial planning leads to long-term choices and sustains profitability. Your pricing strategy and service offers are also very important. Make sure you stay profitable while maintaining competition by reviewing your prices regularly.

Creating Specific, Measurable Objectives
Your company strategy stays on course by having goals. Set goals which can successfully move your business forward by using the SMART method:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

Formula: improve [kpi type] by [%] over [previous period] by [date].

A useful tool for tracking success is the key performance indicator (KPI). This formula is specific and measured by comparing the KPI over a previous time and a date to accomplish it. Beyond company goals, identifying and measuring your KPIs are critical to staying on top of your business. Monitoring these objectives is crucial.

Money Management and Planning
Without sufficient finances, getting your strategy off the ground and sustained will be impossible. Without allowing your service level to falter, you and your team must find ways to find efficiencies to tighten operation expenses. Some of the easiest ways are with digital and AI platforms that can help with front and back-office operations.

Total expenses to your budget must be one of the KPIs you monitor daily and review weekly with your team.

Risk Management
Market downturns, new regulations, or competitors—preparing as best you can for these and any unforeseen risks to your business is imperative to grow and succeed long-term.

Develop backup plans with your team. Ask all of them for their input, they see things you cannot and they will have buy-in, more of a personal investment in helping the team.

Legal and insurance issues are also quite important. Having sufficient insurance for your practice, whether it is for professional indemnity, property, or liability, guards against monetary losses resulting from unanticipated circumstances. Frequent legal evaluations can help save future expensive problems.

Putting the Plan Into Action and Tracking It
After creating your strategic plan, the emphasis moves to carrying it out. Creating a schedule with clear due dates helps to guarantee that your strategy is carried out effectively. Every milestone should have specific goals so that you can track your progress and make any necessary corrections.

To keep on course, regular monitoring is essential. A very helpful way to monitor your business is to set up a KPI dashboard in Excel or by using an online app. The key is to share as much information as you can with the whole team. Get them involved and design methods of rewarding everyone for great performance.

In addition to revenue, retention, and new clients, you could also measure client satisfaction in your KPI dashboard by compiling all review methods, etc., and tracking them over time.

Above all, it is important to remain flexible and prepared to change course as needed so you move with the economy and local trends.

Summary

Setting objectives is only one aspect of strategic planning; another is developing a roadmap to steer your business in the direction of long-term development. You may successfully traverse the difficulties of the veterinary market with a well-thought-out plan in place at your office.

We’ll then go into the marketing techniques that may assist in drawing in and keeping customers, converting your strategic plan into real outcomes.

Before we move ahead to the next step, as a practice owner, we understand that these things might sound overwhelming. Well, in fact, we have met many practice owners who found that administrative tasks and growing their practice is a significant challenge for them since they want to focus more on caring for the pets and treating them. If you are one of them and just want to focus on working and want someone else to take care of administrative tasks, then selling your practice can be a good option now because it’s the best time in history to get the maximum value for your practice. Hear from some of our clients.

To help you get started, we would like to offer you a free Practice valuation call with our senior financial advisor “Tom”. Just fill in the form below and book the call at your convenience. 

                                        

Part 3: Marketing Strategy For Veterinary Practices

Use Social Media to Connect & Build Community

Social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are excellent resources for community engagement through regularly scheduled posts with interesting material, such as pet health advice and customer endorsements—don’t forget to make plenty of cute animals the stars of your content!

Educating Clients with Content Marketing

• What is Content Marketing? Content is created to build awareness of a brand. It can include blog posts, podcasts, videos, and images. 

• The goal is to form an authentic connection with a community you build, in part, with the help of the content. It is not a direct ad or promotion; instead, you are either educating about your business (pet care) or you are entertaining (pics of puppies and kittens).

• By using content marketing, you may position your clinic as a reliable source. Keeping up a blog with informative posts like illness prevention or pet care advice may increase website traffic and benefit your customers. 

• According to the Vetport Veterinary Market Trends Report, “… (in order) social media should be used to connect with pet owners, share strategic services, and educational content. Online marketing has become essential for reaching new clients and growing your veterinary practice.”

• Newsletters and other email campaigns sent regularly keep clients informed and involved in your practice.

• The key is not to directly promote yourself or the practice. Make it about them, the audience, your prospective clients, and what they want to see: information on pet care and fun visuals of cute animals.

Using Social Proof

Credibility-boosting social proof, such as customer testimonials and internet reviews, is essential. 

• Good ratings on Yelp and Google My Business may have a big impact on prospective customers. 

• Direct links and reminders are two ways that help to get happy customers to submit reviews and testimonials.

• By demonstrating the high caliber of care your clinic offers, posting success stories or case studies on your website and social media will draw in new customers.

Regional Promotion Techniques

Getting involved in your neighborhood helps you develop a devoted clientele. 

• You may build stronger community links by taking part in neighborhood events
  
• Partnering with other pet-related companies, and organizing pet adoption days and other events.
  
• Consistent community engagement fosters long-term development and customer loyalty.

• Programs for referrals are yet another successful local marketing tactic. The best marketing is word-of-mouth and having a referral program that rewards your clients for referring a friend or family member to your practice can be very successful.

Summary

To draw in and keep customers, a solid marketing plan is essential. Your clinic may stand out in a crowded market by developing a strong online presence, utilizing social proof and content marketing, and concentrating on local marketing initiatives. Making sure that customers remain long after they enter your doors is the next stage. We will look at ways to improve client retention in the next section.

Part 4: Customer Retention Strategies for Veterinary Practices

While gaining new customers is vital, keeping them is what keeps a business growing over the long run. Developing enduring ties with your current clientele guarantees a consistent stream of revenue and fosters devoted supporters of your establishment.

Customized Client Communication

Personalized communication is essential to giving customers a sense of worth and appreciation. Personalized appointment reminders, follow-up emails, and even pet birthday notes are small but impactful ways to increase customer loyalty. Automating and managing these conversations with the use of tools like customer relationship management (CRM) systems may guarantee efficiency and consistency.

Wellness Plans and Loyalty Programs

Well-being initiatives and loyalty programs work effectively as a means of promoting recurring business and maintaining connections. To encourage patients to stay with your clinic, consider developing tiered incentive programs or providing discounts for routine checkups. These initiatives guarantee that clients’ pets receive consistent treatment in addition to keeping them involved.

Evaluating the Success of Client Retention

You must measure your retention methods to determine their effectiveness. Key performance indicators (KPIs) that offer significant information include the average duration between visits and customer return rates. Gathering and addressing customer feedback is also essential; knowing what matters most to customers allows you to adjust your strategy. It is vital to periodically evaluate and modify your plans in light of these indicators to guarantee their sustained efficacy.

Summary

Retaining clients is essential to a successful veterinarian practice. You may develop a devoted clientele that helps your practice expand by emphasizing individualized communication, putting loyalty programs into place, and routinely evaluating progress. After laying a solid basis, the next stage is to investigate ways to broaden your offerings and penetrate new markets; this is a topic we’ll address in the section that follows.

Part 5: Services and Specializations

Increasing the scope of your offerings or focusing on certain markets can be effective growth strategies. You can draw in new customers and better serve the changing demands of your current ones by broadening your offerings.

Determining Services in High Demand

The first step in growing your service offering is to comprehend the unique requirements of your target market. The identification of underutilized yet highly demanded services in your community requires market research, which you conducted to design your business plan in Section 2. Services including sophisticated diagnostics, dental treatment, and telemedicine, for instance, have grown in popularity, which would be best for your objectives? You may give your consumers more convenience and more thorough care by including these services.

Difference-Making Specialization

A specific market specialization might help your practice stand out from rivals. Whether you specialize in rehabilitative services, geriatric care, or exotic pet care, you may position your business as the go-to choice for patients in need of specialist care. Specialization can draw in a committed clientele that values customized, high-quality services.

Launching New Services

Careful preparation is necessary to implement new services successfully. Resources like focused marketing, new equipment, and employee training must be in line with your objectives for expanding your services. A staged strategy can facilitate the changeover by giving employees time to adjust and clients time to learn about the new services. Ensuring that the expansion aligns with both your company goals and customer expectations requires regular monitoring of the services’ performance and adjustment in response to client input.

Summary

By drawing in new customers and building your reputation, offering more services and concentrating on particular fields may greatly accelerate the growth of your practice. However, robust operational assistance is essential for successful growth. We’ll look at how effective practice management may support these expansion plans and maintain the smooth operation of your business in the next section.

Part 6: Practice Administration

A veterinary practice that is expanding must have effective practice management as its foundation. Profitability, sustainability, and well-organized operations all contribute to high-quality services.

Using Technology to Increase Productivity

Modern veterinarian operations rely heavily on technology to be efficient. By streamlining everyday tasks like appointment scheduling and medical record maintenance, cloud-based practice management software frees up staff members to concentrate more on patient care. As previously said, the integration of telemedicine can improve service delivery by simplifying remote client connections. Automation technologies can also lessen administrative burdens and prevent mistakes, increasing overall practice efficiency. Examples of these tools include invoicing systems and appointment reminders.

Cost Containment and Financial Management

To continue expansion, effective financial management is essential. Maintaining a stable cash flow ensures that money is accessible for expansion plans. Regular budgeting and financial forecasts help with this. Optimizing resource utilization, negotiating with suppliers, and closely monitoring expenses to avoid unnecessary spending that might negatively impact your business’s profitability. A further way to stabilize income and lower financial risk is to diversify sources of income, maybe by launching new services or goods.

Professional Development and Training

Sustaining new service offerings and upholding excellent service standards require spending money on employee training. Consider getting a temporary part-timer to work only on getting programs like this up and running. Hire designers and producers using gig apps. However you can get it done, your staff needs to get ongoing training so they will be able to deliver the finest treatment possible. Keeping them up on the latest technology, techniques, and internal policies and procedures will aid them greatly. Additionally, encouraging a culture of growth raises employee morale, which results in a more motivated and productive workforce.

Frequent performance assessments ensure that your personnel keep developing along with your practice by pointing out areas for development and training needs.

Summary

Maintaining development and making sure everything is operating properly depends on effective practice management. Your practice is well-positioned to execute the growth initiatives described since it has solid operational support in place. 

Closing Remarks

By staying aware of industry trends, setting a clear strategic path, leveraging marketing effectively, and ensuring robust practice management, your veterinary practice can thrive in an increasingly competitive market. Remember, growth is not just about expanding your services—it’s about improving the quality and efficiency of the care you provide, which ultimately benefits both your clients and their pets.

Start implementing these strategies today to see tangible improvements in your practice’s growth and client satisfaction. Don’t wait until your competitors pull ahead—take charge of your practice’s future now.

If you are a practice owner who is looking to value their veterinary practice. We would like to offer you a free valuation. Just fill in the form below and get started today!