“Veterinary practices today spend an average of $12,000 per year on Yellow Page ads because they feel like they have to,” said Dr. Richard Lanier of Warren Animal Clinic in Warren, Michigan. “But Yellow Page ads are expensive, and we don’t know if they actually work because it’s so difficult to track return on investment. Plus, they are becoming obsolete — more than 70 percent of consumers prefer search engines to Yellow Pages as a quick way to find information. We see My Hometown Vet as a more effective way for practices to get in front of the thousands of new clients searching online for veterinary care each day.”

It’s amazing to me that businesses still spend that much money on Yellow Page ads these days. Does anyone actually still use the phone book?

At MyHometownVet.com, veterinarians can choose a basic free listing, or pay $79 per month for premium listing for greater visibility. Premium level will not only get you high placement in the search results, but also a practice profile with a logo or image, interactive map to your location and other perks.

For pet owners, the website includes an array of useful information, such as a library of articles on topics such a flea control, boarding and more. There’s also two blogs – one geared to veterinarians, the other for pet owners. The only problem with the blog entries is they are not listed traditionally with the most recent entries first. They are instead in reverse order. This is something that My Hometown Vet really needs to address. When visitors arrive on the blog page, they will assume the blog hasn’t been updated (unless they scroll all the way down).

Overall Creative Marketing Solutions has done a good job with the website, integrating the search engine and article database to attract both vets and pet lovers. As more and more advertising dollars are being shifted to online campaigns, directories such as this will have to get creative in order to compete.

Photo credit: My Hometown Vet

Post from: EveryJoe

My Hometown Vet