Promoting your practice through public continuing education events requires careful planning for a successful and well-attended outcome.
Promoting your practice through public continuing education events requires careful planning for a successful and well-attended outcome.
Marsha L. Heinke
Open houses and other public events can be a very satisfying way of showing off your veterinary practice, improving staff team work and communications, and gaining new clients and reinforcing the bond with your existing clients. Having recently survived two recent public events relatively unscathed, we thought DVM Newsmagazine readers would appreciate some from-the-trenches tips and planning recommendations.
What is the primary purpose of your event? Existing client education? New client acquisition? Staff education? Client appreciation? We found it fairly easy to get fragmented and diverted on tangents that were secondary to our primary purpose. Expenses really add up when you try to do too much at once.
Revisit the practice mission statement and your own personal vision. Both will help you focus on finding a strong purpose the entire practice can rally around. A successful event depends to a great extent on enthusiastic practice employees. An event mission statement will sharpen the focus and keep it there from project start to finish.
You may find you have two parallel objectives that should be succinctly defined. Veterinary practice events often have the two- pronged goal of expanding market awareness of services and to educate.
Once you've defined the primary objective(s), concretely define the target audience. Write a list of all prospective guests and attendees. This first list will be the core around which the rest of the event is structured, based on the marketing and education objectives.
A year in advance of any event is not too long. Special guests, speakers and some of your audience have prior commitments that can span greater than a year. You'll want to pick a time of year that is typically at the nadir of patient and client activity.
At the same time, practice slow times are the most common for employees to take vacations, and your audience, too. Get staff on board with concrete event dates early on. Not only avoid vacation schedules overlapping the event, also be careful of key employees taking time off within two or three weeks beforehand. Much last minute logistics take place in the final 10 days preceding larger events.
If you are seeking economic or other support from vendors, they need to know well in advance. Veterinary industry vendors are known for substantial generosity in supporting events and are in high demand. Available funds to support your event may be gone if you wait too long to put your proposal and request forward.
Check calendars for conflicting events. For example, if you are conducting a seminar for your horse-owning clients, a rodeo or horse show could decimate the guest list. We made the mistake of overlooking a major dog show that significantly impacted a seminar targeted to trainers and other professionals.
A successful event depends in large part on the majority of your practice's employees participating. Early communication of the mission and objective, dates and guest list stimulate interest and excitement.
By keeping your staff informed, you benefit from avoiding conflicts and challenges you might have overlooked. Employees contribute great ideas that can make an event even better than you originally envisioned.
Regularly written memos and a project board updating help keep the lines of communication open and help employees meet your expectations. Assignments made in writing encourage better follow through. Establish deadlines for delegated tasks, and refer to your master project management plan at least once every two weeks in the early stages, and daily when closing in on the event date.
Take care to retain control of those aspects of the event over which you want a certain way. Give clear direction and budget guidelines. Enthusiastic staff can easily strip your wallet without some defined limits. We blew our budget on excessive purchases of logo-emblazoned giveaways (magnets, key rings, balloons, bags, leashes) because of unsupervised employee ordering.
Keeping all the event planning balls in the air, while running a busy practice, can be challenging. We found using an outside marketing consultant made all the difference in the world. She kept assigned staff on task, helped with intimidating writing projects, like press releases, and maintained contact with key local media outlets.
A marketing expert knows how to effectively distill media releases to the exciting essence of what will get your practice attention. We found our event objectives were much better defined and client interest peaked.
Because we expected our event to draw general media attention, our consultant provided basic media training to key employees, so they knew how to adeptly handle questions. The training investment was well worth it, since the acquired skills blend over into everyday effective client communications.
Decide if you will want other organizations involved with your event.
Inviting members of non-profit groups and clubs can increase the probability of media attention if your event is for the general public. Otherwise, various clubs, breed groups and similar entities can be an excellent resource to increase the invitation and mailing list.
Vendors are helpful for more than just financial support.
Many will contribute products or small promotional items suitable for door prize use. One of our favorite salespersons volunteered to help us with set up and throughout the event as a tour guide and client greeter. Another generously offered support through use of her fax list that included members of our targeted audience.
Will participants be taking notes? Ask your supplier if he can help with paper and pens.
For space consideration, the following list bullets additional topics you'll want to consider as you plan your big event:
That concludes our short list of logistical needs. Those of you who have been blessed with daughters and wedding planning probably have a good handle on what to do, or maybe have a lead on a good planner.
Regardless of your outside resources, the key points are these: Concretely define your objectives, plan ahead, and have fun in the process. There are many professional and community rewards of a well-planned event.