3 Tips to Assist Veterinary Businesses with Building a Successful Digital Road Map

A digital roadmap is an easy to follow plan of steps a veterinary business can follow to achieve both their short-term and long-term goals online. It begins by understanding the needs of the business in order to build a strategy that can be layered into its existing business plan. Whether you're starting out afresh or looking to refresh your current online strategy these 3 tips will assist any veterinary business with building a successful digital road map.

Brainstorm

To build your digital road map, you should first complete a quick brainstorm, answering the following questions:

1) Who are you trying to target with your online strategy?

2) Where can these groups/individuals be found?

3) Why do you want to target them; what's in it for you and them?

4) What content, products and services do you have to share?

5) How will you engage with your online community?

Online growth is an ongoing process with many different successful outcomes. According to IBM, businesses that get it right can decrease operating costs by up to 70%, cut inventory costs in half, and increase revenue by 20%. Creating a clicks and bricks hybrid through the use of PetsApp has seen our onboarded clinics get the best of both worlds and save as much as 3 hours a day as well as reduce missed call rates by as much as 85%!

Define your Clinic's Target Audience

Before you really dig in, it's good to note that a successful digital road map doesn't just explain what needs to be done and how to do it. It should also illustrate why investment is worth it. Your ultimate plan for your online presence to align with and support what you're doing offline.

Although most executives agree that digital growth is essential these days, without a road map to outline how this growth will be achieved any new ideas and investments will likely end up a waste of time and resources, this goes for technology too. Even the newest, most sparkliest pieces of tech will fall short if they're not put to use with a strategic purpose. The best route to success being 'buy in'! You need to make sure that your teams are engaged and onboard with your strategy, that your road map is clearly outlined and understood, that you've a combination of internal and external collaborations and that all activities have a clear line of accountability for being actioned and reported.

Make your Road Map Simple

No two road maps will ever look the same. However, the most successful are those that are built using the simplest objectives and key results as a base with additional activities layered in quarterly, making sure each objective is achieved before adding in the next. A successful road map (digital or other) will typically include plans for addressing challenges and opportunities, such as:

Improving compliance Increasing efficiency Building advocates Growing your online presence Increasing conversions and click throughs

Ideally you want your road map to captivate your entire team having all levels onboard. So make sure to outline not just the 'how a business will approach its digital transformation', but also the 'why'.

For increasing conversion rates, building advocates via your online activities is essential. Try creating private user groups and inviting clients to complete a Net Promotion Score (NPS) review after every client engagement.

Inviting clients to help you grow through their ongoing feedback can massively ignite the success of your business via its user groups, which can fuel group discussions via the feedback you collect. Utilising NPS as well as user groups will also help make all stakeholders accountable for your clinic's success both offline and online, creating continued learning while also aiding the upturn of your over all efficiencies and compliance.

For more educational content around user groups, NPS and change management why not also request to watch our recent webinar recorded in partnership with SPVS ⬇️