
The Fake Marketer
Do you know how to spot a Fake Marketer?!?! What if I told you EVERY Marketer was once a fake, or actually never anything else but a FAKE?!? I’m here, with the help of industry experts, to get to the bottom as to why we are ALL fakes in some way or another, and why we still have to learn every day in this fast paced online and offline market.
The Fake Marketer
Matt Madden on Why The Vet Industry Needs a Marketing Shakeup
In this episode, James is joined by Michael and special guest Matt Madden from heedly who specialise in working with vet clinics on their marketing. We discuss the weird world of the veterinary industry, how it differs from other sectors, the challenges and best ways to cut through this crowded market. James also breaks down how he would market his own vet (thankfully he doesn't have one by the sounds of it).
Prefer to watch? You can find the video version of this episode here on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/VCbVvZMeRJU
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marketing for that. I'm intrigued by ask it's a really weird industry, I don't think there's many, if any, like it. they're not necessarily fighting new clients. gone from 13%, corporate owned clinics to 63%. I would think that, you know, I've had an issue with they come from Says was horrendous. Like awful, it's crazy how handcuffed we are with what we can do. email and SMS automation is somewhat new within the family industry, they lost me? for one phone call. Make okay for. is a profitable industry, but vet clinics aren't wildly profitable. think. I It's not the vets making the money. they've not lost money. They're just being lazy in my opinion. verbatim what they've set aside. We don't have budget for marketing. This is the great thing with Vet and the return on investment is a no brainer if they don't stand up, who's in the room? a lot of business owners. A so as soon as I was on the box, they look at this successful businesses that do this outside the box, they go, me He. welcome to the fight market. Plus the name of the forecast for the land. Thank you. I'm very excited to franchise with a newer model, a better looking the. I don't know who Nick is. I'm sure he's a lovely guy. know he's the doctor. Right? Okay, doctor. Okay. I know when he was in France, right. I suggested at the start that, you know, okay, age of 45 is that he is a trench coat. His doctors don't usually change coaches. That's usually. Change coaches usually hang around pucks that he was. It doesn't have to be a doctor that, I do know Nick. I do know Nick Walsh. And, so there's all of us today. So you've got the wonderful Matt. So now tell the listeners, hear you on. Hi, I'm Matt. I am director at Heatley, and we help vets get the right clients through the door. Yeah, that is who I. That's me. That's me, Hayley Healey, h e Doyle. Why? You should have called it. Hayley, I don't know what's on to Boston Dog. Praise and glory. Each of our children, you know. Fantastic. Peter, I think it's a bit highly prominent. The English is very, like, about the turn to make it with adults in mind. No, it's very good. I, I've got nieces and nephews. As far as kids shows go, that is very, very palatable for he, he say I feel it would have affected SEO would have been competing with dog breeds now in the UK and some sort of say is starting down is, yeah, a little halo. So yeah. So, we for your site because we have so many vets listen to him. Yeah. Go on that. There are other podcasts out there. Well, I think we are. It's, you know, as it option for that. Yeah. That that's come off the vet to that he wanted to vet a lot of veterans. I saw a couple of national marketing for that. I'm intrigued by ask me to. So, yeah, it's a really weird industry, and I don't think there's many, if any, like it. Vets are one of the few industries a bit like doctors and to a degree, dentists. So like healthcare, where they're not necessarily fighting for new clients. Some are. Some want to grow, someone to expand, someone to recover from potentially a drop off in in client numbers. But actually there's also a lot of people that aren't looking for new clients. And that's why the sort of marketing space I think is really interesting within veterinary. So why aren't they looking for new funds? So it really stems from around Covid. There was like a nationally about a 10% increase in, adult like adoption, people getting animals. So literally went from 53% of households had a cat or dog to 63%. And obviously the knock on impact to vets is massive. That's like hundreds of thousands, if not millions more animals, 53% to 63% have a higher adult who I thought, yeah. Wow, that's a lot, isn't that? Yeah. How about going? There we go. There we go. I don't know the numbers though. Like. I mean wow that's a lot. So they so Covid went bananas. And then on top of that you had so a lot of vets from abroad, they're from the EU or further afield. And you just did not have enough vets to service the amount of animals in the UK. Now, there's another interesting dynamic which is, since 2013 to, the figures got it. Well, to 2024. But the last one I looked at was 2023. You've seen corporates do a lot of buyouts of independent practices. So it's again gone from 13%, corporate owned clinics to 63%. Again, owned by corporate companies. So the market share is now predominantly in the it is now corporates not no longer independence. There's a knock on impact there of you then have independence trying to compete with corporates. And I think at a service level because clinic owners have skin in the game, they can literally offer and want to offer a better service than big corporates. But if these big corporates have a massive marketing budgets and, you know, all the sort of weight behind them of the big corporate, it does make independence lives a lot trickier. But essentially what you've got is vets with really little time. And what we try to do is come in and support them and say, basically, don't worry about your marketing. We know what your problems are. We know how to talk to clients, what they're looking for, and we support the vets, and basically take any marketing stress off their shoulders. So I would think that, you know, I've had an issue with they come from how many know? But my own by way up all the time. Laurie had their own legend sold up, to a couple of, Allergan overnight. Says was horrendous. Like awful, awful awful awful. So I, I am a big believer the independent should stay. Hey, how did Laurie leave the practice when he got bought out? Yeah. It's just you don't have skin in the game or the. At best. At best, it'll be like, 50% ownership. But, you know, even though the perception sort of I said, you know, that's what what's going on here. The incentive structures are all wrong because you then have at the highest level, people looking purely at a numbers game and by its very nature is health care. Like, yes, obviously businesses need to make money, I get that. But you choose your health care provider or your vet clinic based on emotion, based on the trust that you have with that service provider. And if you suddenly start to just make it really numbers focused, you're not going to be service servicing the clients to the highest standard that you can. How the most best when you do business, when you guys. Because we've had discussion before and I you know I'm not upset if I stay, but if I give me a huge and, you know, my situation, for example, 513 years ago I my gave, 13 years I my responsibility. Yeah. So I it wasn't I didn't God's market you know like a an insurance provider. So I mentioned when what the prices fall. Is that does not have a policy on you know that you know, so that planning was an essential reason in how many, you know, level five, six in the Central Committee was like, give or take. Yeah. Come home. All right. Yeah, I guess that would be okay. My email. I know how to, Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but. Yeah, it's a good rule of thumb. You're looking at, within either AA5, mile radius or you're looking at a time travel. So obviously five miles in London is completely different to five miles in Leamington Spa. So if you're sort of within a more basically outside of London, you're looking at time travel and then outside of that you're, you're realistically looking at, yeah, like a proximity and a good rule of thumb is probably about five miles. You can then get special referral, clinics that, you know, if there's a specific thing you need, then that can be made much bigger. But your average clinic will be about five miles. So from a message like you said about not the issues of winning a clients, that issue is actually focusing on receiving. Increasing overall value for increasing lots of money. Yeah, I think there's I mean, once you have a business this up and running and doing well, and profitable, it's really easy to set your foot off the gas with marketing. I think it's a really interesting time in the industry because of the change of dynamics with independents versus corporates. But it's also a really interesting time because you have, like, you will always be prioritizing something. So as you say, like average order value is a is a great example actually, you probably your focus probably is like a couple of other KPIs. So it's not just average order value. You probably look at kind of active clients, i.e. people who have been there in the last year and making sure that you're keeping that number, hopefully sort of up into the right steady increase over time. You also will have average order value within that or you could even just say actually spend over the course of a year and you're seeing what you call probably like pet health care plans or pet plans that are becoming increasingly popular as a service for owners. That kind of guarantees that income for vet clinics. So they might have 2 or 3 different tiers of, level of health care that you provide and you say, right, if you pay whatever, ten, 20, 30 pounds a month, and with that you'll get five. So for the 30 pounds a month, you might get unlimited consultations with your vet. So any time you have any concern, you can speak to a vet straight away. And then the 10 pound one might be you can speak to nurses. And so it's like smaller things, but it's that peace of mind that you can speak to a professional health care provider, like if, if you need to. So there's lots of different ways that you can increase. Like lifetime value and average transferable. Well, I suppose in theory or technically lowering average transaction value, but increasing lifetime value with guaranteed spend over a longer period of time. So there's lots of kind of different ways you can angle it and spin it. And also the acknowledgment that there's also going to be a different target that want slightly different things. You're going to have people. This is another really interesting thing. Being in like healthcare is all walks of life have animals literally from like homeless people on the street right through to your multi-millionaires. Everyone feels literally the gentry, but everyone has animals. And actually, even within that, though, it's interesting that you it's you're probably better focusing it on a need and behavior. Customer segmentation rather than a are they're low income so they won't spend much. That's not actually necessarily true. It could be that their dog or cat or guinea pig or whatever is their world, and actually they're willing to spend whatever the they'll do. Whatever whatever is needed for fluffy to survive. They'll spend it. And actually, you might get someone really rich that just doesn't have that emotional connection to their animal. Obviously, it really depends on the individual, but the customer segmentation is also like a really interesting thing to look at for life. And I find this, this, this market really weird because I don't get to like, you know, say I'm back in touch and I say touch my face. But I mean, it's all on me. That's to the wall. And then just the follow up, if I'm in the office or the office. And so that's you on each other. Yeah. So, but now we also have the giant, which, you know, and this is all feel safe, but it is a nice, he has known for his yearly inoculations because I've got the appointment, but it didn't fit inside me. There's another one. So it's kind of they to send me a text. But I'll tell you the reason. Now, I didn't go because I know it's me, and I'll tell you that. So. Yeah. Medevac is a big corporate. Very big corporate. Yeah, I like that. Probably. I have family pictures, potentially you for your appointments online. For me online, I don't know one online local buy houses. They seem to work. And look how an online account allows you to quickly book appointments at any time of the day. But it's cool. Cool chest. Hello. It was a link as of Saturday, and I've never had, you know, not chase my appointment and I was on the fifth job. But not only was not coming in 50, I was at first to make sure that not only was I just sent a few text messages later but. Yes, I'm sorry that you had that experience, James, but his father is there so that is what's interesting, though, and this might shock you, is even sending follow up texts, follow up emails. Basically user flow and like email and SMS automation is somewhat new within the family industry, so that might sound mad, but like they have been so busy that the actual thought of, well, let's follow up, you know, busy day are doing more taking calls. They do a lot of organizing. They genuinely do a lot of organization within the clinic. I'll let you have this argument. I can assure you they are busy. They are busy in clinic. That's some of the busiest people in clinics is reception. Are they lost me? But so £70 for me. But I don't get as much good I should have. I should enjoy that service. But at least I know one local. I know, I know, probably not lost out for one phone call. Make okay for. But then again it will come down to numbers. And I think a lot of people, if they're busy enough, which a lot of them are, won't won't be looking right in the granular detail because they won't have time. And I think that's where we can come in, is to say we want to look into the the nitty gritty, into the into the we want to go into the weeds and actually find out how people are acting, why they're acting that way, why they're coming back, why they're not coming back. Because their last customer was essentially that's all I know. I yeah, I'm a lapsed customer. Yeah. I'm out. Yeah. I own the only reason I am and I'm sure you know, and there's hundreds, thousands in the UK is because they just have been contacted in ways you have. So. Well, I heard some contacting. You got a phone call, don't you. Don't you know, because it's. You might as well. Do you have the number saved. Right. So, so how do you know. I mean I played offense but but is that an emotional connection thing. So if you got that text out of curiosity, if you got that text from an independent. Would you feel a greater sense of connection to it? Probably could have been a little bit more. Trust was nominated and. I can tell you went out there and there was a cutscene. Yeah. There's another interesting dynamic because for, for big corpus, you've got, basically they just want to make sure clients of service, they have a lot of that in the clinic, but it doesn't really matter about that continuity of care. So that's another thing. Independents are better at, which is, having that continuity of care. So every time you take Rupert to the independent vet, you're seeing the same vet over and over again so they can build up a dialog and a history with you, with the dog, understand Rupert's behaviors, understand you know, his his health issues, prior to you take him in. Whereas if you have local vets, which is increasingly more popular as time has gone on, local vets where they just come in for the day, do their shift and then leave, and it's all around price. I know because I've spoken to a bunch of local vets, it's all around price now, so they're not even trying to get the best vets, they're just trying to get in vets. They just want headcount. They're they're not focused on continuity of care. And that's why I talk about the sort of quality of service. So I guess the marketing side is just kind of in front of the door because I, we have this vision for which is in the early stages. I don't have this data you may have or I don't know if it's widely known, which is, I would assume the first 18 months of a dog's cats typically jump over these dogs in some phase. You will spend a lot of money in the in the first 18 months. Yup. The long running post. And you see the some really harsh stuff that just sort of they're like, you just, you just nasty day and I guess there will be some studies and so on. But the proof for the first 18 months or a trial of some of these, like dogs, I would I know, I've known you'll spend some solid gold and you know, it's it's huge and then it just dwindles and reduces per year. But then as they get older, it'll basically be like a year. Because as you get older, does the health implications? Yeah. There's the initial excitement, as you say. There's also the the legally have to be microchipped. If it's a cat or dog, they have to be vaccinated. They may have concentrations. Castration. Yep. Spaying neutering. There's sort of lots of reasons like growing issues, whatever it is, lots of things. They also love to eat things they shouldn't eat. As, will need to happen throughout their life, to be fair. So you just you just want to say the word I know something about your stomach, right? That a lot of people don't want to know this, right? Yeah. This is, Yeah, it does stink. Yeah. So, but, yeah, as you, as they get older, there is also an expectation that the health care costs will increase, but I, you know, it brings example insurance. I highly doubt my insurance went for me in the last month. And I bet you just to that how much they don't spend a month on this insurance firm. I some time. Yeah. Yes. Feel free. Which means it's not all for these dogs, right. Exactly. It's like a correlation. Jack on the same on insurance for my 13 year old dog. So won't have a gas. You rubbish. You should get some of these. We have. We have insurance for my cat. But in the home. If you can't, that's not helpful. I'm going to guess 13. For between 30 and 40 a month, 136 animals. It's got to be honest, I had a hard time, but I'm. Well, it's this go for what's this? And then sort of suddenly face is quite a month. Like a lot it is absolutely insane. I'm happy with how it becomes, interesting. You a little bit like a phone call for me on the way home. 130. Did they automatically do that? They didn't tell you that about the price rise? That's. Surely there's a legal requirement that I should ask you if I could buy a heat. I was I was suddenly like, everyone's got their price for that once, but, outside of, like, an operation, I caffeine. Yeah, I need one of that. I just need an hour. Someone needs a coffee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, so expensive. That is just very expensive. Yeah. It. Yeah, that's. But you said before that don't make no money. So veterinary is profitable is a profitable industry, but vet clinics aren't wildly profitable. I think. I think customers assume the, the when you get a price of a full time like Now if you're not afraid to quit, probably for me personally, how is this how is this working? It's not the vets making the money. Who's making the diet? Drug companies? Insurance companies is not the it's it's the man. It's the man. But like with any like any big industry, there's sort of behind the direct contact. There's always things going on and this huge amount of money to be made. But it's, as I say, like being a vet is pretty competitive. It's a competitive market's been, but like, so I used me an example that last customer like, they've not lost money. They're just being lazy in my opinion. I don't know Disney like that. They literally lost me. They lost me as a customer. I'm not a like the customer. Do you think a better text would have made a difference? Potentially. It's a poor. It's been written by someone. I think some someone in marketing doesn't really care. Hi. Mr.. It just it just feels impersonal. Yeah. It's just you've got the right. Come on. Does it have Rupert's name in it? Right. So yeah, it is a very impersonal, reminder. Customer status. You have an appointment with many, many. Well, I am, I do I really hasn't gone so many battles that you. Remind me. So I want play with many back 24 hours. So this is a new Microsoft data. So I feel you have to play with many that this is a 24 hour plus. I does miss calls. Yeah. 24. Yeah. They're open 24, 24 seven. But I, I says he's not going to be tell all of those but is it. But not like literally that's the only text I got. If they have text me like a 20 minute or an hour and full day, I don't get an hour's time. I need to come in. The phrase is related. Yahoo! Oh, I do not. Indeed. Mr.. Come on. But let's listen. So I hear you. But they are they are healthcare professionals, though, so there's, an interesting balance between being profession. No, and being personable. And they're obviously erring on the side of caution a bit. So. Yeah, but it there is a huge amount of opportunity and not great products on the market. Around maximizing your relationship with your customers. And there's loads of different ways you can do that. So how how do you recommend your customers. So how do you recommend them? Some of them have. Yeah. Rules say Mr. Slash Mrs.. Surname. Oh no. There is going to be rules of thumb that will work. Well, but I would always recommend you test and learn clinic by clinic because some audiences will just engage differently. Based on maybe how you are as a clinic. But as a rule of thumb, I think social media is a really powerful way to build a really strong and engaged community. Newsletters is a additionally a really good way for to tell people new and exciting things about your clinic. So if you've got new equipment, if you're using new services weekly updates with the team, with the clinics we work with, if we say something about the team, whether it's person, in fact, they even prefer personal things. The viewership of that content skyrockets. They care. They literally care about the staff and the team that you have in the clinic. So at a high level, I think there's plenty of stuff around the storytelling in the engagement that you can do to by for owners to be brought in emotionally to what you're doing as a clinic. And then on top of that, then you start to go into things like, automated user flows. And there is there is a there is a reason and a purpose for what Maddie vet have done. Is that the best thing that they could have done? No, there's there's clearly more personalization that they could have done, but SMS and email reminders are a powerful tool as well. And most clinics do have them. But they'll be very it will be like you have an appointment booked or it might be vaccinations. It'll be very high level at the moment. Veterinary isn't good enough with proactive, health care and actually predicting what your animal is going to need ahead of time and giving the owner the best information that they can at an individual level, like sort of your dog based on your dog's breed, based on its age, geography, even the sort of demographic that there's lots of things that you can look at that offers a massive amount of opportunity for proactive care. And it might be that they don't even need to come in. In fact, there's huge value to saying, we we think, you might want to talk to us about x, y, z. Just give us a call or something or even a WhatsApp text, and we can actually talk about it, because if you're able to save a client from coming in for something, they don't need to come in over, that's huge win. That might save that person an hour of their time that day, or an hour and a half you and a few hundred quid like. But how valuable is that? So actually, by being, just by being really transparent and honest and giving people different ways to communicate and giving them the information to make informed decisions easily is really, really powerful. Just trying to be more proactive and reactive. Yeah. You know, a lot of, just a lot of vets for doctors because I just, I work out, I totally someone but yeah, like you said, the brave side is that, you know, with the rise of reality and the ability to not have, which is, you know, they do a PDF on every single bone prescribed by every category. Well, it's a long time of day. And every time they get in focus, the findings have staff a lot better television, whatever it might be. Hey, mister, you know, we'll send you some of the PDF files. You know, some you know about the bridge. You know, so that you could use jump in to literally fire one. Like how incredibly valuable. Nothing for for, you know, that's just. How do you go for there? Yeah, I got you know, funded, you know, again. Okay. Anything for dolphins? You want to really make it. So we're working with the clinic at the moment that has, it's it's with a big pay system called Merlin. That's a bit of a legacy system. Has lots of bolt on things to it. And candidly, if I compare it to what I did previously in digital marketing, sort of in any other industry, it's crazy how handcuffed we are with what we can do. And there's so much opportunity for more simple and better marketing. So for example, the email said that when someone registers with the clinic, the email send out the template that we have to edit Buckner name any names is, is terrible. It's terrible. We're doing what we can with the products that are available on the market. I mean, very simply, we're going to solve that problem. I'm working with people now to literally create a better product, for communications because the clients need it. It's as simple as that. Look at the what we call us. I don't, you know, so clearly that sector is failing. But you should have it. You know, in our system. That is tastic. It's easy. It's cheap. As long as you've got the data and this is what's great about that is that's how you have to sell this phrase data to the fullest. Why does it my back send me so free? The best I can. If they could, they do. Do you know that's the. I've known a few. Okay. That's good, I know that would that would Christmas cards definitely take that second class. Okay, I'll be right back. Okay. Well, yeah. Christmas cards. I know clinics. Yeah. Physical activities. Physical cards. Yeah. Tons of it. Unless you got a voucher in that, that. I don't want any of it. It was a Christmas card item, like. Okay, so if anyone gives you any money about their Yeah. They're not great. I'd much rather have physical. There's something nice about having a card on your mantelpiece. Yeah, my parents used to have cards covering the sitting room, which is just full of it. Yeah, it's a bit sad now that that's not the case. It's very much like. Well, I'm seeing and I'll get a handful of cards at best. And maybe that's a reflection of me right? Haha. Different. I know at the moment I don't know what my bad players want to say, because I do. I refuse to tell people, my best life is I always forget you birthday because it's only every 4 or 5 years and we remember good example because you don't tell anyone about nice someone else. But I have, so I have the important birthdays saved on my phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it does mean that I don't buy presents inside because I, I see the notification the day before, and then you're like, well, I know that I've missed the present buying card, but that just assumed I do that Facebook was actually good come true. Don't usually use Facebook to know what I do. Well, I mean, you do the well. Yeah. And read the there's a Facebook actually has a huge amount of interaction. It's it's like a really weird skew. And when we talk about socials with that's still very much Instagram and Facebook covers a lot of the demographics because although TikTok covers a huge I mean, it covers everyone now, but the adoption rate is still lower for older demographics. So because of time constraints, when we talk to connects, we try and just say do less, but do it better. So really we just say like Facebook and Instagram. But for sure, TikTok is a mega powerful platform. Jojo puzzle. I was a cool I have a full I have you full time at that with your camera. Yeah for eight. So for. Yeah, every single recording comes to me, you get so much good content. But, like the like that TV shows and so. Okay, local forest server that is. I don't think Rolf Harris is a good example of, you remember, I remember of Harris. I've met Rolf Harris unscathed. It's not. You remember his version? Yeah, he had feuds and he had a bad one. Yeah, I remember that. I don't I don't remember that one. Yeah. I think it's like a little bit, so. Yeah, maybe the organized mind that I really like so much content. Because it'd be Sony on the side. Oh, I don't care if it's the same on TikTok. You know, they might get a dog and, Oh, we've seen this dog today. What do they talk about? The brains. Yeah. I mean, that's why it costs. I guy's so cost, isn't it? Yeah. Hopefully I can send on course. That's I think that's the challenging thing. So a lot of people will love to have their animal features. Like if you, So another time that we're, in talks with at the moment, they so they have pet plans and with the pet plans, they have cards that they give people to be like, you're now on this pet plan. And it was a really simple thing, but they're like, you can put your animal like the we're basically going to pick an animal from our client base that is the cover of the pet plans and put it on social media. Is that a competition? It went mental. So like a lot of people just love their animals. Mother animal to be spread across the world. But on the flip side of that, if there is something stressful or traumatic that's happening and you have a videographer shoving your camera in their face trying to get the best, it would be a point of contention. I mean, they call the company. Yeah, I think an Osmo would be more appropriate. That is just obvious. Just like you just need to be tactful, wouldn't you? But if you might have to pull the amount of people that go into it about, hey guys, I'm putting this dog in, you know, it's like today I'm teaching you about euthanasia on the fire. And less than 2% of conversations that I think we're going to start now, it's pretty likely back in the fall. That's what I would do. I try and make like my chair, my gym, my back slash back. Yeah. To come out of that service environment. No, no face time. That's what I would do. Yeah I agree I think I think there's a really good opportunity for it to. Yeah. Was about me committed to you for the rest of the debate. I would look at some blog posts, not trench coats. Now he said that about that that that ties up. They kick it out. Can't get them until they have a plan so they can go left side behind. So they generally does like defensive means as on as I think that, you know, like credit cards for people engaged, that people went mad for it because they were like, my animal can be no front. And since I know, I know, we're talking about the cards, but I can imagine you've got I've got the right hand on the car, right hand side. Yeah. I mean, type of thing. we just talked about how he liked having cards. I liked having cards. And you can sit on the mantelpiece is nice reminder all the time. Exactly that. Not not medevac. Precisely not medevac. Yeah. So in some way it's a way to market sway. Ways. Yeah. There's also an interesting thing around new clinics where. A lot of the conversations we've had people just assume it's kind of a build it and they will come mentality. So actually their budget. Yeah. So this I've had some interesting conversations recently with new vet clinics and the literal like verbatim what they've set aside. We don't have budget for marketing. And it's a really interesting mindset shift that actually what I've told people, they've been really receptive to it, which is you're thinking from a cost perspective, I'm going to spend whatever it is, five grand on marketing work or ten grand on Google Ads or whatever it is, without thinking of lifetime value. If I can get that customer through the door quicker, if I can capture that market share quicker. The return on investment. This is the great thing with Vet and the return on investment is a no brainer for me when long term value one is like waiting room for money. Like at the moment I know what I want. Money is I'm not able to know what to spend to acquire. But my dog is very interesting. Well, the average order value for McDonald's in the US is around $9 plus the average spend, but the lifetime value of most customers is $50,000 over a lifetime, right?$30,000. So the question is, if you work on doubles, what would you be happy to spend to acquire a customer? Four of us know that. I know this is $50 a month. And you should really you know, we'll see what the margin is. I'm sure it's high, but yeah, a thousand bonus is 50 x. So seeing the call out figure, I guess the one who is thinking environment. But let me understand, there should be enough data to say, well, that was all somebody was X just go. Yeah. So people are really loyal with their animals and in fact clinics. So loyalty is not a huge issue. Although there is an interesting shift, particularly when when clinics get bought out, actually, it presents a really good opportunity for independents locally to boost their marketing, steal market share from, from the corporates. But you're right. But it is a mindset shift. And you have to remember from our perspective. So we have a marketing background. So we're taught these perspective. And we're told how to think really numerically and objectively about these things. But you know we've been doing this for years and years. And actually if you've spent five years getting a degree, sometimes specialisms with extra years in in veterinary education, and then you've been working in a clinic and yes, there's small parts of business, but you suddenly become a business owner. You don't have necessarily the business know how unless you've proactively gone out and trained yourself to do it. So a lot of people don't have that perspective. So to us it might seem intuitive, but we actually did have to learn this perspective at some point. And I just think, yeah, when you start talking about when you start talking about lifetime values, and honestly within veterinary, the ROI numbers are just black and white. You go like, right, we're going to spend whatever it is like 25 to £35 to acquire a client. That might sound scary to some vet clinics, but then if you're suddenly saying, well, the chances are in the first year they're going to spend 500 pounds with you, or the lifetime value is 1,000 pounds, say £5, suddenly seems like a bargain. This is a it's a drop in the ocean. And yes, they have costs and you need to factor that in. So but that's the whole thing is like when we have conversations with people upfront, we say what are you, what are you happy to spend to to acquire a client. And then we work through all the marketing channels with them and say, let's test them, learn where we can gather that cost per acquisition down. And then essentially we can scale it. We can just keep spending until the cost per exhibition becomes higher than what it's worth. But that's a mindset shift because it's like all of a sudden, if I'm saying to you, you need to spend three grand a month for marketing or five grand a month or whatever. The the go to as a business owner will be like, well, that's a cost. So well, it is a cost, but the revenue figure goes up dramatically. If that figure goes up a little bit. Yeah. I say if they don't stand up, who's in the room? It's just going to go down and they will let us know very quick. I read a really interesting thing about organic. So it was a talking about how organic search is changing in relation to, AI snippets from Google. And it basically said that, so as a research firm, specialist SEO research firm, and they found that there was a drop of 33% going onto websites. when there is an AI snippet from Google. So that's not even considering sort of ChatGPT. That's literally like an AI snippet. So. So what we're going to see is SEO becoming trickier and trickier to be the number one. I think there's also a really interesting dynamic as well in the market where if you haven't been focused on your SEO and you've just focused on, you're basically a word of mouth and you've been around for years and you just have steady clients coming in. If you're not getting discovered by new people, it's going to go from Google search results where you had, in essence, unlimited results. But in reality, people are going to check maybe the first three that come to mind, maybe with the highest reviews all of a sudden lams an AI snippets will be like we think based on your buying habits and your preferences, this is the one for you. And if you're not thinking about that, now is going to put you in a really tricky position in a few years time where you're fighting to be number one because you haven't put in the groundwork and it will take time to get there. Like we all know, SEO takes months, if not years to get close to the top. So if all of a sudden it's just one instead of even your top three, top five, it's going to be a tough time for a lot of clinics. So yeah. Yeah, there's got to know. Just fall behind, and they won't notice. They'll be like, oh, there's a small drop off over time. And then all of a sudden they'll be like, hold on. Well I wanted to leave a little bit, but I thought, we need to teach in the wrong direction so that you got to figure out there's a gap, which we and we need to fill 40 shops a fortnight in marketing is only going to increase across. Yeah, yeah, that happens every year. You know the CPMs on Facebook, Google constantly. You know we don't I you know a lot and just just just go up this say and it'll be interesting to see. And I don't have the answers for this sadly, but it'll be really interesting to see how alums commercialize their products. So obviously there's like the premium tiers and you pay. But we all know what happens is all of a sudden they get into 20 pounds and they're like, well, actually we could chuck in a couple of ads, I suppose, like, you know, your Amazon Prime. Now we've all got onto Amazon Prime. We all gone to Netflix because there were no ads. You were paying to have no ads, and all of a sudden there are ads and alarms will be exactly the same. So interesting. There is an ad tier. Yeah. There's like a cheap ten out. It's got, spikes. And so yeah, I know, but it's still the price of what Netflix sort of was. Yeah, the cheaper version of Netflix. But it's probably what Netflix used to go. Yeah. No, no I just have not. Yeah I don't have it. And this one you can do. But I think YouTube I probably tested I tested it, it's really good. But I'm not going to pay how much I don't get. YouTube YouTube premium. Hi. YouTube late night and YouTube. This way continues. You got tens of thousands of views. Well again the user experience on YouTube without premium. Obviously this is deliberate. Like Spotify, the user experiences atrocious. So you can actually see what she's doing. Fine. Yeah, it's called picture in picture play that you get all the premium features for free. You can minimize it, you can lock it, you can do it in the corner. Not not like that. Google does doesn't include this because you don't want them to know about it that you didn't know. So I think this up. Yeah. There is that about Rupert. Jason, that will be worth. Rupert's gonna be worth millions. And another thing, if I ever learn a lesson, he might be. Oh, he's got a good face. And then the other guy is implying that I'm not crazy. got cataracts in my eyes. It's blessed. Yeah. Jason in the back is growing quite a bit. Everyone. Yeah, yeah, it's looking pretty scarce, isn't it? That was a shoot. It was a cut off on my right. Okay. Have my baby. One of my baby teeth. That's great. A great thing. It's a lot of medals there as well. You've got, you know, myself big. Is that the goal? Right? This weekend? So leave a nest with no amount if you are to give a lot. Effects, back end user devices, a lot. We've we want to do two forms of boxing. We can only do so because, for some strangers. And doing so, we want us to. Good question. Grandmaster. I would say it's a case by case basis. You've got to the UK. Basis. So I think there's two things I would really focus in on. Are we talking marketing platforms or other forms of marketing okay. For example. Yeah. Yeah. So you know, you go to mass or okay for that. So those are channels. The reason I, the reason I say out of clarify amounts, because what I was initially going to say was I would focus on Google visibility. So local, Google, local. I'm seeing a little bit of local SEO and Google ads. But so that's why I say Google Visibility is searching a little bit, if I could choose only one. Do Google ads because of the immediacy and the ability to turn it on and off? That's interesting. I've pretty got involved in the local stuff, but both both are going to be super powerful. Nice. And I was going to say, so this is why I've tried to differentiate between sort of marketing and marketing channels. The other thing I guess is so called new customers. Yeah. Yeah. So the other thing I was going to say is, it's all well and good having loads of people come through to your website and they, they made a book online or call, call through to the clinic and the reception, reception team pick up. What's often forgotten about is the experience. So for a lot of clinics, they'll be booking through the phone. Still, that experience from me pressing the button to call the vet clinic through to booking that appointment should be absolutely effortless and all the barriers to entry should be removed. It often goes missed. So, for example, if it's taking over 10s to pick up the phone, you have a huge drop off. If the person's in a slightly bad mood, that will put the customer off. If it's taking ages to find a slot with the right. That that will put the customer. So, That's why. So that conversion point I think is really, really important. If I'm allowed to pick another awareness point to acquire new clients, I think you're going to be, I think your, I think organic social's really powerful, not price action. Again, it's a bit like Google. You can speed up the process of building your community, but actually getting in the process of creating content and creating stories and things and information and education that people want to receive and hear about. I think social is really powerful, but I'm cheating a little bit because I've essentially said paid and organic social work. And I think Google and the conversion method. But the thing is, is that they're all really powerful tools. He's the right hand in the right hand, right. Pay attention all day. Like. Sure. And so when. I wouldn't even optimize for conversion. I would just go radius. I would just pull that all. Conversely. And if it wasn't me, copy, I don't have a because the app type. Oh, no, it's up to like a puppy is not going. I'll just. And it'll be so cheap to CPM for that. But by year round just run out like an only a different content to sponsor. The second thing I do is a big time maximum like damn letterbox through the door. And I would I would make it so funny that it doesn't hit on me on Facebook. Speaking of like, maybe not dogs. Some say like, I want a finger or a dog coming up, right? And I'd make it. So I've seen that people over, you think, oh, I got this great viral that's on me. James, you want to join the team? Oh, I think, you know it's you're not allowed to join the team if you're going to finger dogs. So, I really was I've. I've talked to a lot of these, a lot of business owners. A so as soon as I was on the box, they look at this successful businesses that do this outside the box, they go, me Jason is really bizarre. I'm just just saying, because that's boring. You don't like go. You don't spend a lot of money off the first year, 18 months, I believe, because it's just a pain you've got to put on your Yeah. Especially when the opportunity is now, like £20 like I got for you in a fight, like is I'm saying it's not a nice experience to answer that because, you know, when I get done with, £500, it's nice. Not nice at all if I have a dog. Just was ill, chronically ill all the time, which there are a lot savings from buying a pub from Russia for, like, this is not a good work. Yeah. The popular breeds just live in the vet's, basically, like French bulldogs, pugs, all these short nosed dogs. Yeah. Yeah, it's not for me. So, yeah, that's what I would do. James. The vet workshop. Yeah. James is boxing back TV city. So my wife. Thank you for having me. Do you enjoy that? It's great when we don't even need the boxing. There's going to be. Yeah. Oh, not for asking the front five. Oh oh, thanks for listening. 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