To understand how education-based marketing works to help pet owners make better pet health decisions and ultimately strengthen their relationships with veterinary practices, imagine you’re shopping for a new couch and you’ve narrowed down your search list to two stores with different approaches to selling:
- Store #1 focuses on what they can offer you, highlighting their wide selection of styles and product discounts, and provides a weekly flyer as supporting material.
- Store #2 focuses on who will be using the couch, the size of your home, and where the couch will be in that space. The store also shares a decision tree on types of couches, some reading material on stain-resistant fabric options, and access to an online redecorating tool to help you with room arrangement.
In terms of overall style difference, Store #1 follows traditional marketing that uses sales-based messages, whereas Store #2 uses education-based marketing—the concept of sharing information to build trust. This strategy focuses on credibility and helping clients make good decisions. In the case of veterinary practices, this strategy helps pet owners make good decisions about the health of their pets.
Why Use Education-Based Marketing?
Where traditional approaches to selling have their place in the marketing mix of any business, research shows that many people now disdain such selling practices. Inversely, people are always looking for helpful information to empower them in their own decision-making. So, it’s no surprise that in a recent article by Cornell Digital Marketing, researchers found that “education-based marketing always yields results—regardless of the time and industry.”
How to Use ClientEd in Education-Based Marketing
Where veterinary teams commonly use ClientEd handouts during or following pet appointments to reinforce client understanding and learning retention, you can take ClientEd a step further and use handouts as part of a larger education-based practice marketing initiative:
- Booking an appointment: Email new clients a ClientEd handout on how to prepare their pet for their first veterinary visit.
- During appointments: Share ClientEd handouts that support your pet health recommendations. Tangible handouts support better understanding and information retention, leading to improved compliance.
- At checkout: Show clients where to find the ClientEd library on your website. If they don’t know where to find reliable pet health resources, making decisions about their pets becomes more complicated, especially when it comes to knowing when to call your practice.
- Between appointments: Keep clients aware of seasonal pet health issues by attaching links to relevant ClientEd handouts in emails and social posts. By providing education on relevant topics, you empower clients to make good decisions for their pet year-round.
In short, no matter what the size or style of your furniture store (i.e. your veterinary practice), education-based marketing using ClientEd builds client trust, which helps return clients through your door when they’re looking for a matching loveseat or coffee table (i.e. additional appointments for their pets).
Not a ClientEd subscriber yet?
You have two no-commitment options to find out more: Sign up for our 30-day free trial or book your free ClientEd consultation to see a free ClientEd demo and all the features that ClientEd offers to support your clients and your practice.
As a unique pet health education library designed to strengthen your veterinary team’s roles as animal health educators, ClientEd encourages client compliance through easy-to-understand information. Written and reviewed by animal health and communication experts, ClientEd contains more than 2,100 handouts that cover a wide range of pet health topics and species. Handouts are written in plain language, include many custom illustrations, and can be shared in print or digital form.
ClientEd is easily integrated into practice websites. This helps your practice support your clients 24/7 with credible information that is quickly available, easily understood, and supports active decision-making. ClientEd also integrates into many popular practice management systems, streamlining workflows and providing library access to all veterinary team members.
Sign up for our 30-day free trial or book your free ClientEd consultation today.
