Why Most Medical Logos Are Blue

Healthcare is an essential commodity, but consumers have many choices when it comes to receiving this care. In order to attract patients, providers engage in marketing. One of the most important components of any marketing plan is the logo, which is an image consumers will associate with your practice. Although these logos differ from one provider to the next, they are often blue in color.

How Popular Is the Color Blue?

Even outside the field of medicine, blue is a popular color choice for logos. In fact, according to 99Designs, 53 percent of all brands use blue when creating their logos. 99Designs also reports that more than 80 percent of industry leading healthcare companies have logos that feature the color blue. Some of the most well-known brands with blue logos include McKesson, United Health Group and Amerisource Bergen.

Why Are Medical Logos Blue?

Every color in the rainbow inspires different feelings and communicates different qualities to the consumer. The color blue is typically associated with credibility, trust, knowledge, power, professionalism, cleanliness, calm and focus. Because all of these qualities are valued in the medical community, blue is the ideal choice for medical logos. In addition, because blue is already used so often by healthcare providers and other related organizations, consumers already associate it with the field of medicine.

What Other Colors Can Be Used?

When designing a logo for a medical practice or another type of healthcare organization, you can use any color you choose. In some cases, you may decide to stay with blue because it is a traditional, time-tested choice. However, in other cases, you may decide to use a different color to set yourself apart from competitors and inspire different feelings among consumers. Alternatively, you may decide to use another color in addition to blue to create a more unique logo for your business that captures the consumer’s eye. When choosing colors for a logo, it is important to select colors that complement each other well and communicate the qualities you want consumers to associate with your business. Some of the other colors commonly chosen for medical logos include:

  • Yellow – Communicates happiness, friendliness and cheer.
  • Green – Communicates growth, balance and freshness.
  • Black – Communicates secrecy, luxury and formality.
  • Gray – Communicates maturity, composure and impartiality.
  • Red – Communicates vigor, speed and passion.
  • Pink – Communicates warmth, nurture and softness.

Some of these colors may be more appropriate for providers in specific niches. For example, providers of women’s healthcare may be more likely to select the color pink to communicate warmth and femininity. Providers who treat children may select playful colors, such as green, red or yellow.

Making the Right Choice for Your Business

The design of your logo is one of the most important decisions you will make as a medical provider. The right logo design will draw consumers in, communicate your desired message, be easy to recognize and be memorable. Don’t be afraid to experiment with several designs before you make your final decision. If you want to make sure your logo is sending the right message, consider consulting a professional that can help you create a unique, effective design.

Are You Reaching Out To Get Reviews From Happy Clients?

Whether you’re an established practitioner or part of a growing office, client testimonials may be one of your best available resources. By tapping into your current customer base, garnering reviews and nurturing healthy discussion, you can both gain new fans while prioritizing the old ones. Harness the power of happy patients, and spread the love to new visitors. If you can solicit customer reviews and testimonials effectively, you’ll grow as a preferred provider. According to MarketingProfs, 67 percent of consumers read less than six reviews before trusting a business. As a practitioner, these reviews count even more. Let’s discuss how to garner them.

Solicit To Real Patients

Sadly, a lot of practitioners “review stuff.” They ask friends, family and even other staff members to bolster their reviews. You’ll need to ask real patients for real accounts, including a rundown of events, appointments, and the overall experience. A Maritz Research study suggests that 75 percent of online survey respondents consider reviews to be fair. This study was adapted to veterinary practices, prioritizing real reviews over fake reviews. Don’t worry about quantity. Shoot for quality. Your respondents will follow your lead.

Be Visible

You’ll have more success if you’re accessible. Before asking patients to leave any reviews, make sure you’re accessible across multiple review sites. Online reviews are crucially important, as 72 percent of consumers trust them as much as personal recommendations. If you want high-quality, timely reviews, you’ll need to make the process as simple as possible for customers. Meet them where they are. Specifically, meet them online. Use Yelp, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google Reviews.

Prioritize Their Happiness

Happy patients rarely share positive feedback if they’re not prompted. That said, negative experiences tend to result in immediate—and negative—reviews. The average customer won’t search for ways to leave a review, experts say. To get good feedback, get ahead of them. Make on-the-spot reviews, and gather testimonials as soon as services are completed. A good way to do this is to have an accessible iPad available at your front desk. Make sure it has direct links to your review profiles, and share links to your regular newsletters, too.

Make It Fun

Testimonial writing can be lengthy, boring and monotonous—but it doesn’t have to be. Give your patients incentives, and make gift-giving a clinic setting standard. Don’t violate the Anti-Kickback Statute, however. Establish a clinic gift-giving policy which follows Office of Inspector General rules. So, spend under $10 per gift and no more than $50 over the course of a calendar year. Check out this post for in-depth coverage on gift-giving as it relates to healthcare practices.

The Most Important Information You’re Not Advertising

When it comes to website information, potential patients won’t stick around if information is lacking. A lot of modern optometrists, dentists, veterinarians and other healthcare providers accept a variety of insurance options. Unfortunately, too few provide such information on their website. Prospective patients browse the web quickly, and they’re likely to turn down providers who aren’t economically feasible. Even if you do offer Medicare or Medicaid—or even programs like CareCredit—your patients might not know you do. Your website needs a strong insurance information presence in order to effectively attract and convert new clients.

Increasing Website Traffic

When it comes down to it, clients use Google to find new care providers. Often, they conduct Google searches like: “Dentists near me who accept Humana”, or “Cigna dental providers.”

It’s all too easy to incorporate much-needed keywords into your site’s payment options page. It’s also easy to skip the nuts and bolts of a solid SEO strategy. To maximize prospective patient views, capitalize on low-competition searches. It isn’t enough to have an insurance information page. You’ll need to include the most competitive keywords around. Use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner to strategize your keyword plan, and incorporate the most popular terms in your area into your search marketing campaign.

Influencing Conversions

Potential clients will turn to a provider offering up-front information. They’ll also schedule an appointment with you if you’re offering superior services—or pricing options—to your competitors. To reach the right people at the right time, you’ll need to provide the most relevant information first. Locate your competitors’ websites, and check out their payment options page. What information is hard to find? What information is unclear? By making your coverage options well-known, you’ll immediately bring in an audience which would otherwise turn away from ambiguous information.

Linking to Other Content

Your payment options page might be useful, but it isn’t your sole source of information. A lot of healthcare practices offer information about CareCredit and similar programs—via website blogs. These blogs, of course, link back to the provider’s payment options page. While conversions will be increased by a website’s clarity, they’ll also be increased by a solid information network. Review your practice information as it is listed on the insurance directories to make sure that the phone number, address, affiliated doctors, and website address is correct.

Being Relevant

A medical provider which offers relevant information will seem industry-savvy, reliable and effective. Remember: your potential clients are already searching. They know what to look for, and they’ll bypass any providers which don’t display a knack for industry knowhow. By presenting the most-used insurance options, you’ll present a deep understanding for how patients purchase medical services.

Having a solid insurance coverage page can deepen your client connection before services are ever purchased. Prospective patients want reliable providers, and they want providers which can connect with them on a financial level. Often, dental, veterinary and other services are expensive. It pays off to present pricing options up front. A clean, easily navigable website will enthuse your customers. It’ll also turn one-time customers into return visitors.

To engage your audience, cast a wider service net and cater to those in need, you’ll need to make sure your payment options are instantly accessible.

Use Facebook to Communicate with Clients

When it comes to promotion, social media is king. Facebook is a great communication channel, and today’s practitioners are utilizing it for its high-end visibility, reliability and uniformity. Whether you’re trying to engage new clients, retain old ones or simply stay in touch, Facebook is your best available resource. People spend a lot of time on Facebook. Is your business showing up?

The Facebook Presence

A solid Facebook presence involves regularly posted schedules. 72 percent of adults online visit Facebook at least once per month. Facebook is today’s strongest social media platform, and it’s being used by practitioners to boost their business persona. Facebook’s algorithms prioritize repeat posts, so businesses that post regularly will have higher visibility.

Why Do Updates Matter?

From a marketing standpoint, constant updates can boost your exposure. Of Facebook’s active 1.23 billion active users, about 62 percent log in on a daily basis. Your business page is similar to a profile, but its existence as a professional page gives it Newsfeed priority. Facebook even has a targeted advertisement platform. Target your customers by age, geographic areas, educational levels or even previous visits. Over time, your updates will reach your business’s most valuable customers.

Engagement and the Digital World

It isn’t all about marketing, either. Ideally, your Facebook presence will be used to respond to comments, feedback and reviews. Patient engagement is important, and you—as a provider—have a responsibility to keep up with it. Facebook groups are similar to discussion forums, but they can be altered to meet various levels of engagement. A good provider cares about their patients, and Facebook makes engaging discussion easy to maintain.

The more engaged a practitioner is, the more personable they’ll be. A lot of patients make medical choices based on familiarity. Your online presence, in many ways, is a brand. To boost your brand’s “recognition,” you need to become familiar.

Giving the Right Information

By using Facebook’s About section, you can display the most important information up front. Patients won’t navigate to a business’s website immediately. Rather, they’ll locate them on social media. In fact, experts believe Facebook has become an indispensable information resource for businesses. Hefty timelines of Facebook’s platform updates cover its history with business-oriented benefits. Now, dentists, physical therapists and other practitioners are using the platform to attract long-term office visitors.

The Power of Links

Finally, Facebook is an indispensable linking resource. Include web addresses, Twitter links and blog posts in your updates. Or, ask your audience a question. Studies report that posts ending in a question have a 15 percent higher engagement rate.
Page Likes matter too, of course. Fortunately, a few developments have made it easier for medical providers to reach out. On average, Facebook users can experience 1,500 updates per day based upon their registered connections and Likes. It’s a big digital world out there, but it’s a well-connected one.

The Top 5 Must-Attend Veterinary Tradeshows in The US

Top 5 Veterinary Tradeshows in the US - Veterinary marketing tipsVeterinary tradeshows serve a variety of purposes. From educating industry professionals to fulfilling continuing education hours to sharing the latest and greatest technological developments and best practices, tradeshows are the lifeblood of innovation. Take note of the following list, all happening in the next year, and try to make it to at least one of these showstoppers.

Central Veterinary Conference

The Central Veterinary Conference is actually comprised of three separate events – hosted in San Diego, Kansas City and Virginia Beach – offering hundreds of hours of continuing education. Note that dates vary: The Virginia Beach expo takes place May 18-23, while the Kansas City event is held August 25-28 and San Diego goes down December 7-10 2017.

ACVIM Forum 2017

The American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine hosts one of the most highly respected veterinary events in the country every year, the AVCIM Forum, held June 8-10 of this year. Comprising an audience of practicing veterinarians, students, technicians and field specialists, the conference is the premier opportunity to learn about internal medicine.

AZA Annual Conference

Not every vet works with companion animals, of course. Many of America’s most highly specialized veterinarians instead focus their efforts on the health and preservation of wildlife from land, ocean and freshwater. Zoo and aquarium professionals have come together at AZA Annual Conference for 80 years, and you can join them September 9-13.

ACVS Surgery Summit

Surgery is not limited to humans, of course. Anyone in the field of animal surgery will benefit from this highly acclaimed conference hosted by the American College of Veterinary Surgeons and held October 12-14. Learn about the latest techniques and improve management of every case, from beginning to post-healing.

North American Veterinary Conference

Hosted by the North American Veterinary Community on February 3-7, 2018, this conference combines the best of all worlds with small breakout sessions, larger scientific events, exhibits and more. This conference is excellent for anyone interested in veterinary marketing, as it brings vendors to the forefront and enables connections through a larger variety of social and dining events than most expos offer.

No matter what you’re looking to accomplish this year, one of these events will no doubt help. Check them out and let us know what you’ve decided, or which was your favorite, so we can share your experience!

Are you looking for more marketing tips to grow your veterinary practice or drive more traffic to your veterinary website? Call our experts today to set up a free information session.

How a Veterinary Practice Should Handle Online Reviews

Veterinary practices, like all businesses, are subject to opinionated reviews by pet owners on the quality of their services. If pet owners leave the clinic feeling satisfied, they may leave a positive review. In the event that pet owners are dissatisfied with your services, they may conversely use online review platforms like Facebook, Yelp, Google, Yellowpages, and Angie’s List among others to publicly air their grievances. Left unattended – the online reviews about your veterinary practice can affect the flow of new pet registrations if not responded to properly.

When customers post a positive review about your practice, do not just sit back and smile at your monitor. Let the client know how you appreciate the positive rating and the chance they gave you to serve them and their pet. Remember to welcome them to return again (when necessary) and assure them that excellent services will be offered for as long as your business stands.

When it comes to handling negative reviews, no matter how fake the review is or how angry you are about it, remain calm and composed when responding to it. You need maintain a professional representation of your business. Take responsibility for any mistakes that may have occurred, address concerns, and reassure clients that the specific mistake will not happen again.

A word of caution – do not get defensive and succumb to the temptation of sharing confidential information about a particular pet owner or their pet. This will only portray your business and its representatives as immature and highly unprofessional. Instead, this is how you should handle negative reviews:
When the review is posted on an online review site, it can directly impact your business since it has the chance to reach both current and prospective clients.

How a Veterinary Practice Should Handle Online Reviews

Implement conflict resolution

Often, negative online comments or reviews can arise as a result of a disagreement or personal conflict. In this digital era, it is crucial for veterinary practices to learn how to handle conflicts effectively.

First, try to reach out to the negative reviewer personally – either by phone or email to express your regret at their dissatisfaction, and ask if there is a way you can resolve the issue and turn the situation around. Many times, direct contact regarding an issue that has prompted a negative review can sway the reviewer to take down their review or post a more positive follow-up review.

Post a polite and thoughtful response

In the event that the issue cannot be resolved with the negative reviewer – take the opportunity to broadcast how your business deals with adversity in a calm and collected manner by responding to the review. Let the public forum hear your side of the story (without revealing any confidential details about your patient). Online review platforms are a key part of your veterinary marketing strategy and it is important they reflect a positive representation of your business. A public response can also alert potential and current customers that your clinic monitors and cares about your online reputation and seeks to resolve issues when they arise.

Share the review with your team

Engage your team members in discussion of both positive and negative reviews during your regular clinic meetings. Make sure your team members are aware of how their interactions with pet owners can affect the practice as a whole. Many pet owners often complain about how they were received by the front desk, or the level of professionalism and attentiveness they got from various members of the veterinary staff. These issues are often much simpler things to address in comparison to other issues that pet owners may be upset about and try to blame a veterinary clinic for regarding the health of their pet.

Finally, don’t forget to reach out after veterinary appointments and ask your happy customers for positive reviews. The most important websites to collect reviews on are Google, Yelp, and Facebook. Be sure to claim your profiles on these sites, and keep them up to date with relevant information and photos of your practice. With an engaged review monitoring strategy, you are sure to rise to the top of the competition.

Don’t have the time or resources to manage and respond to your online reviews? Don’t worry, Doctor Multimedia can do it for you! Give us a call at to discuss our reputation management services for veterinarians, or fill out the form below today.

Your Veterinary Hospital Should Have a Blog

chartEvery veterinary hospital wants to show up at the top of the search results page, it’s one of the most common requests we get from our clients. There are a variety of ways to enhance your search results rankings, and one of the most important ones is blogging.

Blogging provides your website with content that is not only relevant to your clientele, but also improves your ability to capture searches from potential new clients.

Even more important, blogs allow you to use strategic keywords that are vital to your ranking on the search results pages. The use of keywords is one of the most effective ways to optimize your search engine profile.

But the major problem that animal clinics have is that they simply don’t have the time to create blog content consistently and creatively. Most animal health professionals are just too busy to blog effectively while managing all of their other responsibilities.

That’s where Doctor Multimedia comes in. We can provide your clinic with engaging blog content that not only draws your client’s interest, but improves your search engine ranking as well.

If you want to improve your hospital’s place on the search results, Doctor Multimedia’s blogging service is the solution to your problem. Give us a call today at 1-800-605-6987 for a free consultation.

Veterinarians Need a Mobile Website More Than Most Businesses

backbayDid you know that people searching for locksmiths, bail bondsmen and veterinarians use mobile sites more often than customers of other businesses? When customers need a veterinarian they’re usually not sitting at their desktop computer.

We made our first mobile websites in 2010 specifically for veterinarians. We have catered to the industry ever since, designing features like our Emergency Button, Appointment Scheduler and Virtual Tour specifically for animal hospitals. There are a handful of things a client may want while visiting your mobile site: call you, find your hours, or your location. We allow clients to do all that and more with the tap of a finger. No pinching, scrolling, or strained eyes looking for the information you need.

Make it easy for your clients to give you their business with a clear, easy to read mobile website. A mobile website not only attracts new customers but allows current customers to only be a touch away. Even if you’re happy with your current website Doctor Multimedia can build you the perfect mobile site for your clinic.

Take a look for yourself, click here on your mobile phone to visit a real, live veterinarian using our mobile sites. Don’t take our word for it, experience the ease of use and professional quality of our mobile sites firsthand.

For more information on how your veterinary clinic can get its own mobile website, contact us at info@doctormultimedia.com or call 1-800-605-6987. Your customers will thank you!

New Client Center

Screen Shot 2015-01-17 at 3.24.19 PMOne of the most important aspects of your veterinary hospital’s website is its ability to draw in and cater to new clients. Of course you need to balance the experience of new clients with that of existing clientele, but we at Doctor Multimedia have developed the best way to do that.

Our New Client Center has everything that a potential client would need, from information to forms to social media. Best of all, it’s all centrally located and easy to navigate.

The first and foremost information that new clients look for is contact numbers, hours, and prices. We have streamlined the process for potential clients who are viewing your website by putting all of this info front and center in our New Client Center. A user can even get directions or email the clinic with one click.

But we have taken the New Client Center a step further, allowing you to show special offers and pricing on the same page. We have thought of EVERYTHING that a new client would want to find out about your hospital, and made it easy to find for them.

There are even more features, like a virtual tour, new client forms, AAHA-Accredited symbol, maps, emergency care info, newsletter sign ups, as well as testimonials. Click here to view a real version of our New Client Center.

If your website isn’t drawing in new clients to your hospital, it’s not working properly. Contact Doctor Multimedia today at 1-800-605-6987 to learn how we can help enhance your veterinary clinic’s online presence.

Accessibility Tools

Increase TextIncrease Text
Decrease TextDecrease Text
GrayscaleGrayscale
Invert Colors
Readable FontReadable Font
Reset