We recently came back from the ASAV 2026 Annual Conference with plenty of notes.
There were conversations about AI, websites, Google, reviews, content, advertising, client communication and all the different ways veterinary clinics can continue to grow.
If you were there, perhaps you came home with a few new ideas of your own. If you weren’t, you probably don’t need to attend a conference to know the feeling. There’s always another article to read, platform to consider or idea that another clinic seems to be doing particularly well.
Most of the advice isn’t necessarily wrong either. The difficulty is working out what actually matters for your clinic.
Should our veterinary clinic be doing more marketing?
It’s an easy conclusion to reach when you hear about something you’re not currently doing.
Perhaps another clinic is investing heavily in Google Ads. Someone tells you how important AI visibility is becoming. You hear that you should be publishing more content, collecting more reviews or communicating with clients more regularly.
Suddenly, the marketing you were reasonably happy with last week can feel like it’s missing something.
Before adding another activity, it’s worth looking at what you’re already doing and what you actually want to achieve. A clinic struggling to attract new clients has a very different challenge from one with plenty of enquiries but poor retention, just as a clinic opening a second location will have different priorities from an established practice with a loyal client base.
More isn’t automatically the answer. The right focus is.
How do you know which marketing ideas are worth pursuing?
Start with the problem rather than the tactic.
If you want more new clients, look at whether enough pet owners are finding you and what happens when they do. If certain services have capacity to grow, consider whether people in your area know you offer them. If existing clients aren’t returning as often as you’d like, the opportunity might sit in how you communicate between visits.
Once the goal is clear, it becomes much easier to judge whether a new idea is genuinely useful or simply sounds interesting.
This also makes it easier to say not yet.
Something can be a good idea without being the right priority today, and resources spread across ten different activities won’t necessarily achieve more than focusing properly on the few that matter most.
Are we already doing enough?
This can be harder to answer from inside the clinic.
Having a website doesn’t necessarily mean it’s doing everything it could. Running Google Ads doesn’t tell you whether they’re generating the right enquiries. Sending newsletters is useful, but consistency and content matter. The same applies to reviews, social media, Google Business Profile and newer opportunities such as AI visibility.
The question isn’t simply whether each activity exists.
It’s whether the things you’re doing are working together and helping the clinic move in the direction you want it to go.
Sometimes the answer will be that you need to add something. Other times, the better opportunity is improving what you already have.
What should veterinary clinics focus on next?
There isn’t one answer that applies to every clinic, and we’d be wary of anyone suggesting there is.
Your next priority should depend on your clinic, your local market, your capacity, the clients you want to attract and the opportunities that already exist within your business.
That’s also why reacting to marketing one idea at a time can become overwhelming. You end up with plenty of activity, but not necessarily a clear sense of how it all fits together.
A better place to start is with the bigger picture.
Where do you want the clinic to grow, what’s helping you get there now, and what’s currently getting in the way?
Once you know that, the long list of things you could be doing becomes much easier to navigate.
So, do you need another marketing idea?
Not necessarily!
You need clarity around which ideas matter for your clinic, where the strongest opportunities are and how the different pieces can work together to support growth.
That might mean improving something you’re already doing, filling a gap that’s holding you back or deciding that an idea you’ve heard about simply isn’t the priority right now.
The individual activities matter, but how they work together matters more.