Alexis Nahama, vice president marketing, VCA Animal Hospital, gave the audience four tips for working with him and other national advertisers: provide incremental ROI, respect my time, get to the point, and come recommended.

1. A National Client’s Perspective
Dr Alexis Nahama
Head of Marketing
VCA Animal Hospitals

2. Objective
Provide you with information and
insights that can help you grow your
business.

3. Q: VCA is
a/ a small family owned group of hospitals
b/ a multi-billion dollar animal health company
c/ a reseller of adult only video
d/ b and c
e/ None of the above

4. VCA - Hospital Division ($1.4B)
• VCA General Practices
– 540+ local ‘community friendly’ hospitals
– Independent medical decision making (medical director)
– Corporate control over all business operations
– Serves 1.5 M active pet owners annually
• VCA Specialty hospitals (referral centers)
– 35 Specialty Centers across the nation
– 300+ Board Certified Specialists
– Leading professional provider of veterinary education
– Serves 6,500+ independent hospitals

5. Other activities (divisions)…
• Diagnostic laboratory serves 17,000
independent veterinary hospitals
• Marketing Services company serves 6,000
independent hospitals (Vetstreet)
• ‘Technology’ division (Sound-Eklin) serves
3,000 independent hospitals

6. 1986 1
1996 151
2001 215
2006 445
2007 465
2008 480
2009 495
2010 530
2011 550
2012 575
2013 610
History
Local… local … local…

7. MARKETING A VETERINARY HOSPITAL
Hospital Brochures
Yellow Pages
Newspaper Ads
Newsletters
Reminder Cards & Calls
Open Houses
Word of Mouth
Direct Mail
Website
Social Media
Promotional Items
pens, magnets

8. From Print Yellow Pages…

9. VCA - PYP history
• Big account for 15+ years
• Historically lacked rigor in placement
• 2007 > 100% call tracking
• 2008 > ROI model for all decisions
• 2009 – 2012 > improved volume +20%
year on year while maintaining volume
and reducing CPA.

10. To Complex Digital Channels …

11. VCA – New Client Digital Program
• Flash based sites (not searchable) to
fully data and CMS driven sites
• Now SEO/SEM to multi-million dollar
campaigns tracking over 38,000 local
keyword combinations
• ROI driven (data matched to the
transaction level)

12. About Social Media Activities…

16. Q: What is the next big thing?
a/ Social anthropology
b/ Big Data
c/ Econometric modelling
d/ Marketing automation
e/ Zentrophotaic numeric localizers
f/ Back to the business fundamentals

17. No magic black box…

18. Candid Topics

19. C-Suite Pressure on Marketing

20. No time to ‘educate’ everyone

21. Cold Calls / VM harassment

24. Sweet talk to me …
Proven
incremental
ROI
Respect
my time
(balance)
To the point Come
recommended

25. Thank you
ALEXIS.NAHAMA@VCAANTECH.COM
@BizDVM
www.linkedin.com/in/anahama