Three hot topics for
progressive veterinary practices in 2025
It feels as though the veterinary industry is entering a new phase: Covid is a strange, hazy memory, the economy continues to experience turbulence and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation rumbles closer to a final verdict.
I was recently invited onto the PetsApp Together podcast alongside PetsApp’s Naomi Oikonomou and VetCT’s Becky Taylor, in which we discussed key trends for 2025 – and afterwards I was thinking about how many directions that conversation could have travelled.
Well, I can’t rewrite history, but I can write a blog post.
So here are three hot topics to keep your eye on as we move through 2025, informed by meetings with clients and industry leaders, what’s been on the agenda at London Vet Show and SPVS Congress, and a dollop of life experience.
Marketing hacks for veterinary teams
Footfall is down – and there are gaps in the diary
From the onset of Covid we experienced a period of unprecedented growth – and our biggest issue was scrabbling to recruit to prevent our teams from burning out dealing with demand.
Many practices were oversubscribed and it wasn’t uncommon for doors to be closed to new clients.
However, that’s definitely changed. Anecdotally, we know that a lot of practices are feeling quiet for the first time in years, and when you look under the bonnet you can piece together why this might be.
Pet ownership boomed during Covid. The BBC reported in March 2021 that 3.2 million households had acquired a pet since the start of the pandemic the previous year.
Not all of those pets would have been puppies and kittens – but a large percentage certainly were.
Now we’re four years down the line, those Covid kittens and pandemic puppies are in the middle of their healthy adult years, meaning we’re seeing them in practice less.
On top of that, continued economic pressure means pet owners are feeling the pinch.
But it’s not all doom and gloom – and there are opportunities available if we change our thinking.
Our marketing focus in 2025 has to be on driving footfall. That means campaigns to attract new clients and initiatives to get our existing clients to visit us more often.
There are lots of ways we can go about this, from free health checks for new pets to vaccine amnesties. The important thing is to recognise the problem and to act to solve it.
The corporates are embracing unlimited consult health plans
For years, an unlimited consult health plan has been the preserve of the progressive practice – kind of like the price of admission to be considered one of the cool kids. By us at least.
But now the corporates are getting in on the act, and it feels a bit like if your parents started listening to rap music.
Just look at IVC’s recent marketing push for their Pet Health Club, with its recently introduced unlimited consult offering.
So if unlimited consults are mainstream, what does that mean for progressive practices.
For one, it could change client expectations – and practices who haven’t introduced unlimited plans may start to see an increased appetite for them.
This may have begun already: I spoke to a practice owner at London Vet Show who had created an unlimited plan based on feedback from clients, despite him and his team not buying into the concept.
On the flipside of this is practices who want to stay ahead of the curve. What’s the next trend?
This is fascinating and playing out in real time. We’re starting to see practices experimenting with consult only plans that leave out vaccinations and parasiticides. Plans that include written prescriptions in response to the CMA’s preliminary report. Plans that include faecal testing and bespoke parasiticides in response to the industry's growing focus on One Health.
The only thing that’s certain for now is that the innovation isn’t going to stop.
The CMA investigation isn’t going away
Early February saw the latest release of findings by the CMA, which inevitably triggered another round of negativity in the press.
I’ll leave the job of digging through the details to one side for now, in order to explore more generally the interesting situation we’re placed in as independent practices while the investigation is ongoing.
On one hand, we can get caught in the crosshairs. It's important to educate clients and prepare our client-facing teams in the face of potentially difficult and antagonistic questions.
On the other, we’re being gifted a fantastic opportunity to talk about how we're special and the benefits to clients in choosing an independent practice.
When I say this, it’s important to remember my favourite catchphrase – show not tell.
It’s not enough to tell a client that we’re independent and to expect goodwill in return. We need to explain why our being independent benefits them.
Let’s take a buzzword from the CMA investigation: transparency. Now, we can publish our prices. It’s the right thing to do and it’s certainly transparent.
But what we don’t want to do is instigate a race to the bottom as practices panic that competitors are offering cheaper spays and dentals.
The CMA have found that “only 18% of pet owners reported comparing prices when choosing a vet”.
That means 82% won’t be looking negatively at our prices, but may be open to our justification for publishing them – that we’re an independent practice, we decide what we think is right, and what we’ve decided is that being transparent for our clients is in line with our values.
It’s a simple way of showing our clients why independent is best, and of getting ahead of any criticisms that the CMA investigation may unfairly send in our direction.
Worried about how the CMA investigation may affect your practice?
Get in touch
If you’re eager to improve your practice’s marketing but you’re unsure where to start, I’m taking on new clients for the next quarter! Book an initial discovery below!