An open house can be a great way to boost revenue and increase new clients. They can also be a lot of work. Pulling one off usually requires more of a time investment than most veterinarians anticipate. Here is a short checklist of a few things that may make your open house go more smoothly and make a great first impression on some potential clients.
- Exploit Your Vendors: This may be the most important. An open house can get costly so use your vendors to offset some expenses. Approach them about product samples (food and dental especially), providing refreshments, or giving short product demos. If you support them, you deserve support in return. Some budgets have been trimmed over the past 18 months but they can still come through in creative ways.
- Highlight Your Clinic: Give tours, show off your equipment, explain your processes, and introduce your team. What may seem mundane and routine to you and I can be very exciting to others. Have some new x-ray equipment, an air powered dental unit, or a new laser? Show those babies off and let folks know why you’ve invested in them.
- Rotating Seminars: Use your techs and your exam rooms to do short demos on important topics like dental care, geriatrics, diet and nutrition, blood work, or parasite control. Education is the key to client compliance so take advantage of the captive audience to fill them full of animal health goodness.
- Rent A Bounce House: I don’t know if it will help anything but I think they’re cool.
- Announce It: Don’t just stick a sign out front – promote the daylights out of it. Doing a targeted direct mail campaign (here) can exponentially increase your attendance. Run a small ad in the newspaper, hang up signs at the grocery stores, and send out emails to everyone you know. You can even run a contest to see which employee can bring in the most pet owners.
- Schedule Appointments: Run a special on dental cleaning and do a free visual exam during your open house. Schedule appointments that day. The goal is to grow so don’t be afraid, you did give them a free hot dog right.
- Collect Email Addresses: Do a sweepstakes for a free anything. The winner is announced by email and all they need to do is sign up for the clinics newsletter. If all you do is collect email addresses at the open house, from everyone that walks in, you have made it a success.
I am always willing to answer questions for you so don’t hesitate to shoot me an email.
