Marketing Automation Success Story: TopDog Health & Rehabilitation

With a staff of just four and a small-business budget, Dr. James St. Clair, owner of TopDog Health & Rehabilitation, didn’t have the time or resources to contact and follow up with his growing list of prospects and customers. Not to mention, he was a vet, not a marketing whiz kid.

“If you’re anything like me, you’re not a super-duper marketing guru,” says St. Clair. “I own a veterinary business, so taking care of animals is what I’m really good at, but marketing is important to the business, so all the more reason to have a system in place and to surround yourself with the right people, tools and technology to make marketing your competitive advantage.”

He started to follow some of the known marketing gurus for tips and became intrigued with the automated emails he received. The information was the right information, sent at the right time to the right person. He felt like these experts were talking directly to him.

He did some research to figure out what system they were using and, sure enough, it was Infusionsoft. Not surprising, Infusionsoft is used by many of today’s most well-known information marketers.

What TopDog Health & Rehabilitation Was Trying to Accomplish

Dr. St. Clair’s goals were simple. He wanted to be able to reach more pet owners at one time with his free post-surgery information. He wanted them to feel like he was right there next to them for their pet’s entire recovery process.

“Trying to market manually without using technology will make you go gray for sure,” says St. Clair. “I liken it to this: you can spend several hours walking five miles to the nearest store, or you can get in your car and get there in five minutes—it’s up to you how much you value your time and energy.”

In addition, his success as a vet enabled him to launch a line of joint supplement products. He needed a way to market to his list of pet owners and upsell them on products that were a perfect fit for their pets.

Finally, he needed a system in place to improve his sales and follow-up process with his vet customers. He sells informational products to vets that can be shared with pet owners leaving their office after a pet’s surgery.  His door-to-door sales tactics were failing him. Conversions were low. A lot of time was being wasted by his limited staff.

Check out what Dr. James St. Clair has to say in this two-part video interview from InfusionCon 2010.

How Infusionsoft Helped TogDog Health & Rehabilitation Get More Customers

It didn’t take long for Dr. St. Clair to realize the power of segmentation. Being able to segment vets and pet owners based on their interests and previous activities gave him the ability to target directly to their needs with customized messages.

“Whether you have list of 100 or a list of 10,000, you need to centralize your customers and prospects into a database that allows for segmentation,” says St. Clair. “Let’s face it, not every contact you have is exactly the same. Though many of them have similar characteristics, your contact lists shouldn’t be lumped into one group.”

This is especially true in the vet business. Explains St. Clair, “We used to send mass-emails to everyone. Not anymore. Some pet owners might have a dog having TPLO (Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy) surgery and another owner might have a dog having Extracapsular repair for its torn cranial crucitate injury. My messages need to be tailored to their individual needs because each of these requires different instructions for post-surgery care.”

Now TopDog Health & Rehabilitation targets vets and pet owners with planned out automated follow-up campaigns that include timed emails over a period of time based on what the customer has bought, or the kind of information they have downloaded from the website.

As a result of capturing leads more effectively, better segmentation and saying goodbye to the mass email blasts, TopDog Health & Rehabilitation has seen a double-digit increase in sales. He’s sold more info products to vets than ever before.

Next up, we share the success story of Christina Wagner from KFNX, a local radio station. You’ll learn how she was able to strengthen the relationships between advertisers and listeners for the station.

Questions for Dr. St Clair? Leave it in the comments.