Launching Gil Riley Equine Vets
“You guys are amazing! 🤩”
SUPPORTING NEW VETERINARY ENTREPRENEURS TO ARCHIVE THEIR DREAMS
There’s nothing more rewarding than working with people to launch their businesses and helping them to achieve their dreams.
Despite – and perhaps because of – the uncertainty of the past few years, increasing numbers of experienced vets are becoming masters of their own destinies and setting up their own practices.
Many factors will determine whether these new practices are a success, not least the skill and dedication of the founders.
But a big part of building any business is the technical process of establishing a brand and presence – work no vet should be expected to specialise in but, fortunately, we do!
We’ve got a long history of helping veterinary practices to launch and achieve their goals, and while it may seem daunting to build a business from scratch, we can lend our experience to guide you through the process.
Most recently, we worked with the lovely and very talented Rileys, married couple and business partners Gil and Emma, to set up Gil Riley Equine Vets – and we’re absolutely delighted with the results.
GETTING TO KNOW THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE PRACTICE
We were first introduced to the Riley’s when, following a recommendation from another of our satisfied clients, Emma reached out to discuss how we could aid the launch of their own practice.
Emma and our founder, Justin, then met at SPVS Congress, where Justin was presenting a talk on the very subject of launching practices.
Once the decision had been made to work together, we began the process of getting to know Gil and Emma as people.
Every practice is unique – but when marketing a practice you need to pull out exactly why this is when you’re telling their story.
Fortunately, with the Riley’s there was plenty to work with.
We discovered that Gil is one of the most respected equine vets in the country, with a loyal and dedicated following. The more we chatted, the more our marketing strategy came into focus.
Gil is a past winner of the Petplan Vet of the Year award, he’s one of the go to veterinary contributors for both Horse & Hound magazine and Petplan. He works closely with the Worshipful Company of Farriers and is a thought leader on poor performance throughout the industry.
More than this, he’s a much-loved, inimitable personality who is renowned for dealing with clients, colleagues and patients with warmth and humour.
It was our job to communicate all of this through the Gil Riley Equine brand and website in a subtle yet persuasive manner. We took time to chat with Gil over Zoom about the veterinary industry and his approach to his work, and by recording this gold mine of content, we could draw out quotes verbatim.
We scattered these throughout the website and printed materials, giving readers a direct insight into Gil’s voice.
It’s not something we’ve tried before, a totally unique approach within years of working in the veterinary marketing industry.
And we’re delighted with the results.
HOW TO LAUNCH A NEW VET PRACTICE
But of course, there’s more to launching a new veterinary practice than framing an engaging story.
Here are a few of the more technical aspects which we worked on with the Gil Riley team.
BUILDING THE BEST EQUINE VETS WEBSITE
Your website is the first thing many potential clients will see of your practice, so it’s important you make a good first impression.
Not only that, but if you build it correctly it can do a lot of your job for you, funnelling users into actions you want them to take and saving yourself the effort of answering phones, selling health plans and working through queries.
We helped Emma and Gil with every aspect of setting up their website, from choosing and registering a URL, to establishing their Google Analytics. And we must have done something right, because the guys had over 250 online registrations in the three weeks of the website going live!
EQUINE VET PRACTICE BRANDING
A good brand, consistently applied, should say everything that needs to be said about your business. That’s why it’s important you get it right.
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We created Gil Riley Equine’s brand from scratch, from colour palette to logo, and set up guideline documents to allow them to keep everything they go on to build in the future tightly aligned.
STUNNING PHOTOGRAPHY
Many equine practices use heavily clinical, and often rather graphic, photography on their website and in their marketing materials – a big no no if you ask us.
However, Emma had a vision of focusing on wellness, and the base for team Riley is the beautiful Derbyshire countryside, both of which lent itself to a very different style of photography.
We helped to coordinate a shoot, providing a brief to the photographer complete with examples we researched from other practices, and the resultant images go a long way to establishing the warm, personal Gil Riley brand.
AND ALL THE REST… THIS ISN'T OUR FIRST RODEO!
Launching a practice requires attention to detail in a thousand places, and the marketing side of the launch is no different.
From inception when we advised on the name of the practice, through to setting up a Google Business profile, Instagram and Facebook profiles, creating email signatures, writing terms and conditions and cookie policies… when we work with a new practice, we’re here to help in any way we can!
WHY WE LOVE DOING WHAT WE DO
We said in the intro this is the most rewarding part of our jobs.
This is in part because of the satisfaction of creation, the feeling of starting with nothing and delivering work you can be proud of.
But the human element of helping individuals, who you form close relationships with, to achieve success is even better.
Here’s why:
“WOW, WOW, WOW!!! LOVE IT!! You guys are amazing, thank you so much! We have had a fantastic response to the website! Gil and I are so pleased with what you and your team have done, you are amazing, thank you!!
The feedback is just what we wanted to hear… very friendly, very Gil, warm, inviting… hits the spot we were aiming for!! I can’t thank you enough, you have really been a huge support and we both very much appreciate your input in these scary early days.”
Emma Whiston-Riley, practice manager and founder,
Gil Riley Equine Vets
Feedback like that makes all the hard work worthwhile! 😻