Hawthorne Animal Hospital in Glen Carbon, Ill. has provided generations of families with exceptional, compassionate care for their pets for more than 65 years. Since opening its doors in 1956, Hawthorne has evolved from a hometown vet clinic into a renowned 24-hour animal hospital serving the St. Louis Metro East. Hawthorne not only provides pets with cutting-edge specialty and emergency care their humans can’t find at any other vet clinic, but offers additional services including boarding, grooming, and training.
As much as the community loves Hawthorne, the hospital has a reputation for being on the more expensive side. However, Zeal saw this as a benefit – because Hawthorne offers the highest delivery of care at every visit, the majority of their clients could justify the cost. So, instead of tapping into the entire Metro East market, we narrowed our focus on the target audience of pet parents who appreciate Hawthorne’s extra level of care for their fur baby.
In addition, because vet staffing is a challenge for every clinic and hospital across the U.S., we added recruitment of both new and established veterinarians and vet techs as one of our marketing priorities.
While Hawthorne had a recognized logo, the hospital lacked consistency across marketing materials. Zeal wanted to modernize and humanize the Hawthorne brand – to make it friendly, cool, and approachable while offering a nod to its cutting-edge care.
Once the brand was enhanced, we carried the color scheme and graphic elements into the website redesign. Our goal was to depict the love and respect Hawthorne has for their furry friends and their commitment to caring for them like their own. We used custom photography and high-end videos of staff interacting with their patients to reflect the loving personality of every team member. Additional educational videos allowed pet families to get to better know their care team while learning important health and safety tips for their pets.
To recruit vets and vet tech, we created a separate site that extended Hawthorne’s branding while highlighting the benefits of working with one of the top animal hospitals in Southern Illinois.
The new Hawthorne website truly exemplifies the hospital’s promise of delivering exceptional care. To build relationships with current and potential clients, Zeal amplified Hawthorne’s social media presence, including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, allowing the hospital to connect with the public through engaging, fun, and informative posts. We also launched an online campaign to reach prospective vets and vet techs and created a variety of marketing materials and college-specific landing pages to use at recruitment events at universities across the country.