Mobile transactions are becoming vital to the success of businesses across the globe. We've out together an eBook that highlights the benefits of utilizing mobile transactions and easy ways to implement it in your practice.

I recently got back from NAVC and the experience was a bit overwhelming. Endless rows of vendors telling veterinarians all the latest and greatest things they should be doing to grow their practice. Apps. Texting. Telemedicine. Loyalty programs. The list goes on and on. This experience reminded me of watching a high school football team try and win by using fancy, complicated plays when they didn't have the basics down. Are we making the same mistake in veterinary medicine? Have we forgotten the fundamentals like blocking and tackling?

I've long believed that the problems with veterinary practice management software is what I call "Frankenstein syndrome": they keep patching on more and more features in an attempt to make the software better, but all they end up doing is confusing you.  All this leads to a bad user experience, and is a main reason why I've never met anyone who loves the practice management software. Do you? Didn't think so.

You're now up and running and ready to start using your new marketing technology platform, but simply using it isn’t going to change things overnight. The truth is, you’re asking for help from a marketing technology platform that requires more than just choosing a partner and turning it “on”. You must also change the behavior of your staff and your clients. We’ve put together some tips on how you can do that.

When it comes to marketing, promotions are a key go-to for any business. Companies like Groupon and LivingSocial structure their entire business on the search for the perfect deal. While promotions can be largely successful for clothing stores and restaurants, that’s not always the case when it comes to veterinary practices. However, when done correctly, discounts and loyalty programs can provide a handful of benefits to your practice.

Chances are you’re either prepping for a demo and creating a list of important needs from a marketing technology partner (if you haven’t created a list, check out our recent ebook here for help), or you’re at the final decision stage of what marketing technology partner you should go with. To help you better understand what needs are a priority and what aren’t, we want take a closer look at some things you may have written down as something that is important to your practice, but may not be as important as you think it is.

1. Postcards - Yes, you heard that right. Postcards are not as important to the success of your practice as you think they may be. Sure, you’ve been doing it for years, but the honest truth is postcards are not essential to the survival of your practice and your attachment to them is more of an familiarity or “safe” attachment. It’s always hard to break a habit that you’re comfortable with but there are better ways to save money and send more effective reminders, like push notifications, text messages and email. I’m not going to go into detail about postcards because we’ve spoken about them a lot, and you can check out our recent blog, Postcard reminders: 3 reasons you’re kidding yourself, but the bottom line is, postcards are costly and the ROI is poor. As a pet owner myself, I’ll honestly tell you that I give my one-year old son the postcard to play with because it has a “kitty” on it and then it gets thrown in the trash can. Chances are, your clients do something similar.