What Should You Look for in an Animal Health Marketing Agency
When searching for a B2B animal health-specific marketing agency to partner with your company, look for a company with proven veterinary industry experience that knows how your target audience behaves, where they spend their time, and what sparks their interest. Based on your needs, search for a partner with experience in lead generation strategy, content creation, campaign execution, CRM, and marketing automation expertise, and the ability to measure lead quality and other in-depth metrics that provide visibility into performance. The best animal health marketing agency should understand the needs of the entire stakeholder group at the veterinary clinic, including veterinarians, practice managers, technicians, and owners. Your marketing partner should also have a firm understanding of the relationships between sales, marketing, and distribution partners to help you optimize your sales process.
Why Animal Health Marketing Needs a Specialized Approach
The marketing engine looks similar across industries, but the car… is definitely different. While medical doctors may respond well to the Corvette, veterinarians prefer something more practical, like maybe a nice family-friendly Subaru?
Veterinarians are built differently. We commonly see companies try to transplant a successful human healthcare product into animal health and walk away scratching their head…why didn’t the same marketing tactics work for veterinarians? Here are a few reasons:
The insurance landscape in animal health is totally different.
Pricing strategies that work in human healthcare often fall flat in vetmed.
The demographics of veterinarians and MDs are totally different.
Purchasing decisions are made differently in vet med, with more influencers, nuances between private and corporate practices, distributor relationships, and the list goes on.
The stakeholders in veterinary practice are different: veterinarians, technicians, hospital owners, practice managers, oh, oh, and in most cases, they are ALL part of the buying process.
In animal health, it’s not a “build it, and they will come” type scenario. This discerning group of buyers needs education, studies, ya know, proof that your product works and is worth their time. Anything that gets brought into the practice has to pass a rigid initiation, and there’s no cutting corners. If you think “ah, I’ll just give my product to distribution, they’ll make it happen!” think again. The distribution environment in animal health is unique, and a strategy that relies solely on distribution is unlikely to work.
What Should You Look for in an Animal Health Marketing Agency?
Here are the five attributes to look for in an animal health marketing agency. Also, full disclosure, we don’t like the word agency. We’re only using it because that’s probably the word you’re using to search. We prefer “partner”. You know, the kind of group that feels like an extension of your company? A group that gives you the warm and fuzzies that you get when you look at a basket of kittens? Anyway, onward with the list.
#1 Veterinary and Animal Health Industry Experience
In addition to all the other aforementioned reasons, your animal health marketing agency (partner) needs a pulse on the market; here are a few others:
Which veterinary conferences should you attend? Your marketing partner should know. Psssst…. here are a few to consider!
Veterinary observance days. Oh yes. There’s a whole calendar of them, and you can make some real noise if you play your marketing cards right. Here’s a cheatsheet for a few that you might want to keep on your radar.
In animal health, there are nuances in the purchase process that can include buying groups and distribution. Your partner should know how to work with both groups and who the major players are.
Oh no. Your marketing agency (definitely not a partner in this case) referred to veterinary patients as “furry friends” in a B2B veterinary brochure…oh, you’re not seeing the problem? Your specialized animal health marketing agency would. To veterinarians, the “furry friends” are patients. It’s crucial that the people responsible for your marketing message know how veterinarians talk.
Do veterinarians respond well to conversations about business building? How about clinic workflow? Do they care about customer service? How do you have an ROI conversation with them, and when does it matter? Your animal health marketing agency should be able to answer all of these questions.
Education is a crucial strategic component of marketing products to veterinarians. Your animal health marketing agency should know how to get your content CE-approved when it matters and which hot topics will generate the right leads.
#2 An Obvious Grasp of Lead Generation Strategy
They say they can produce leads. Ask them to prove it with veterinary-specific case studies. There are a few key things to look for in these case studies:
What channels were used to generate the leads?
How much did the total campaign cost?
What was the cost per lead (CPL)?
What was the breakdown of lead quality (MQLs, SQLs, etc)?
How was lead follow-up executed?
In our experience, most companies searching for an animal health marketing agency are looking for leads. Sure they want people to know their brand but more importantly they want prospects that their sales team can work.
For example, we had a client who wanted to increase their productivity at VMX and WVC (the two largest industry conferences for you new-to-industry folks).
In previous years, they had attracted 110 leads per show from booth promos and another 80 per show from badge scans, so a total of about 190 leads per show. Based on the expense of these shows…that ROI wasn’t cutting it.
Our team stepped in and helped drive 2,337 leads from VMX that year and 767 from WVC. Read the full case study here.
#3 A Content Strategy, Not Just a “Make More Content!” Approach
More content does not necessarily mean more outcomes. In the age of ChatGPT, content production is at an all-time high. But highly-generic content that doesn’t hit the true pain point of your audience is just noise. Your veterinary marketing agency should know what topics are hot and what formats veterinarians prefer.
Different content is suited to different formats: quick-reference guides, quizzes (veterinarians looooove quizzes), webinars, long-form guides, checklists, videos, etc.
The agency should understand how to create:
Clinical education assets
Sales enablement tools
Webinars
Email nurture campaigns
Organic social posts
Landing pages
Case studies
Buyer guides
Video content
#4 Expertise in Connecting Your CRM, Sales Organization, and Marketing Machine
A good agency should not stop at the lead form. You’ll need end-to-end support to make sure your hard-earned leads are being worked. Support should include:
HubSpot or CRM setup
Lifecycle stages
Nurture campaigns
Lead routing
Sales notifications
Follow-up workflows
Reporting dashboards
Campaign ROI visibility
To take a deep dive into our lead generation process, take a peek at our 5-part “Got Leads” series:
#5 Proof That They Can Measure What Matters
Nobody likes a vanity metric. Metrics that aren’t tied to business outcomes are a bummer. Ask the tough questions:
What’s your projected cost per lead based on the webinar we want to run with Clinician’s Brief?
How can we connect leads from our clinical webinar series to sales conversions?
What does our team need to do to ensure visibility into full-funnel performance?
Do you have MQL and SQL lead definitions?
What’s the average CPL for a MQL vs. a SQL in the animal health market?
How much will it cost us to go to VMX, and how many leads should we expect?
What percentage of webinar registrants attend, and how should we follow up with them?
In essence, ask them how their efforts will translate to revenue for your business because, really, that’s what it’s all about. If they’re specialized in the industry they should be able to answer all of these questions.
Convinced You Need an Animal Health Marketing Agency?
Well, of course, we recommend you do your research. Talk to 2-3 agencies and see which one feels right. If you’re a start-up, small business, or mid-sized growth business, Red Brick Partners might be a good fit. Here’s the good news: if we chat and don’t think we’re a good fit, we’ll just tell you and help direct you to a trusted industry partner that might better suit your needs.
See why we identify as a “partner,” not an “agency”. Our team has been working exclusively in the animal health industry since 2010. We know the players, we know the industry history, we’ve seen what works (and more importantly, what doesn’t), and we can’t wait to bring our extensive industry knowledge to your next campaign.
If you want to know more, schedule a chat with us!