You’re about to learn why content marketing is such a powerful tool in your veterinary website and marketing strategy. To do this well, it helps to begin with a story.
In 1838, a young blacksmith named John left his home in Vermont to find fortune in the west. He set up shop in Grand Detour, Illinois with $73 in his pocket. What made John special was his earnest desire to understand the problems of his customers. He would spend hours listening to the challenges the local farmers faced, such as how the thickness of the Midwestern sod caused mud to stick to the plows.
His desire to fundamentally understand his clients’ problems would make John Deere a household name. This desire was something that John built into the very fabric of his company. That’s why, in 1895, the John Deere company launched “The Furrow” magazine. It’s the first great example of effective content marketing.
“The Furrow” was a novel concept. It wasn’t about the John Deere company. It was about the farmers, their goals, and the challenges they faced on their way to prosperity. The Furrow taught farmers how to more effectively face their problems, which caused circulation to grow to four million subscribers by 1912.
When each one of those four million farmers opened the magazine, they read about the issues most dear to their hearts. Something special was happening – the farmers were learning deep insights into their largest challenges, and were simultaneously (and probably unconsciously) gaining a tremendous amount of trust in the voice delivering his solutions with such remarkable clarity.
This is the essence of content marketing. Your customers care about something, and they need to figure out how to protect what they value. For your customers, the value is the livelihood of their pets. They may be concerned about the best way to raise a puppy, the best nutritional regiment for their cat, which household items are toxic to their pets, or about a thousand other worries or questions a pet owner might face.
They’re asking these questions by the thousands. Right now. This is a remarkable opportunity for you! We’ve been taught to ask these questions to the search engines as the beginning to our research. If you write educational articles on the topics that people are searching for, they’ll find your article when they perform their search.
This is where the magic happens. You’ll teach them insight and clarity into the problem that is important to them. When they’re reading the answer, they’ll be on your website, and they’ll be gaining a tremendous amount of trust in you as the obvious authority and expert on the topic they care about!
Great marketing isn’t about closing a sale. It’s about opening a relationship. The way to begin a relationship is by showing that you understand your prospective customer, and that your advice alone can be tremendously valuable. The transition to paying customer will then be their natural and obvious choice because they trust you.
Do this well, and your veterinary clinic will gain many more customers for a very long time.
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