May 2016

AUTHOR: Peter Alberti

It might seem a little odd for us to reveal – in the title of a post, no less – that we had a customer complaint, but every business has to improve continuously and I live by the notion that, “it’s not if you will have problems, but how you handle them that matters.” In this particular case, the customer is a veterinary practice who didn’t realize they could decline certain content on their screen — we allow this for all practices, as long as they permit at least some sponsorship to run, since this is what pays for the system.

OK – so we need to improve how we communicate that to practices. No problem; we can do that. But the point of this post isn’t about how we need to improve practice communications…

So how, then, did this complaint demonstrate the value of Veterinary Pre-Education Technology™?

The practice complained because we were running a couple of sponsorships for products they don’t carry, and – here’s the good part – clients kept asking them about these products, forcing them to say “we don’t carry that.” They got frustrated having to say “no” to clients so they called us on it.

That’s right – our systems did exactly what we expected them to do – they encouraged clients to ask about what they saw on the screen! Although we have plenty of data demonstrating that this happens when digital signage is present in a venue, it’s nice to know through unsolicited feedback (even if it’s a customer complaint) that our data is valid and that our system is effective.

About Pet Cause Media

Pet Cause Media is the national leader in veterinary pre-education and digital out of home marketing in veterinary offices. We work closely with our veterinary and sponsor partners to ensure full compatibility and maximum results. Visit our website (petcausemedia.com) or contact Marshall Akita (marshall@petcausemedia.com) for more details.

AUTHOR: Peter Alberti

Two recent articles captured my attention the other day. One was written by Marshall here at Pet Cause Media and (using some cute cats to prove his point) talks about how important it is to differentiate. The other was from AdAge and talks about how “Digital Darwinism Has Created a Market of Digital Narcissists“. Both articles had a similar message: Make sure your target audience notices you and wants to engage with you – even though that’s harder than ever to do! I began to contemplate how veterinary practices should apply this lesson.

Technology For the Sake of Technology

A common mistake for many businesses, veterinary-related or not, is to jump on the bandwagon when new technology is available. We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again: if you can’t articulate (and, ideally, quantify) the business benefit you’ll get from implementing new tech, then don’t do it.

“Digital Darwinism” is defined as, “…the phenomenon when technology and society evolve faster than an organization can adapt.” Businesses who don’t keep up won’t survive. But “keeping up” is a slippery slope and needs to be accomplished deliberately and productively.

Pet Owners Are Not All Created Equal – Or Are They?

A key premise behind the concept of “Digital Narcissism” is that the focus of consumers (well, actually, of people in general) is on themselves, fueled by the free and abundant availability of information at their fingertips. Pet owners certainly have myriad preferences — cat/dog; large/small; old/young; medicine/natural remedies; the list goes on endlessly. Yet there are only two drivers behind every single Share/Post/Tweet/Pin/etc.: esteem and belonging. Consequently, every single pet owner is created equal in that their digital life revolves primarily – sometimes exclusively – around themselves.

The challenge for veterinary businesses, as well as for any pet industry stakeholder, is to enable each individual pet owner to materially activate based on his/her list of preferences while still catering to the individuality of the person. Brian Solis has a really good article about how to approach this: http://www.briansolis.com/2014/06/accidental-narcissist-future-customer-engagement/.

About Pet Cause Media

Month: May 2016

How a Recent Customer Complaint Validated What We Do

How Veterinary Practices Can Benefit From “Digital Narcissism”