Marketing To Veterinarians UK | Directly Contact Decision Makers

The veterinary sector is an important part of the UK’s economy.

Owners lavish care, love, and attention on their pets and statistics demonstrate that they are willing to spend on their pets’ veterinary care.

Although content marketing, social media platforms and search engine optimization have their value when promoting products and services to veterinary practices, effective marketing involves communicating with decision-makers within the sector direct.

So, for the next few minutes, we’ll ask you to forget about paying for Google ads, social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), or asking for online reviews from your current clients.

Instead, we would like to focus on a sales-driven marketing strategy that generates more leads and sales than other marketing strategies – direct marketing.

Marketing to veterinarians- direct marketing approach

Digital marketing offers significant benefits for those trying to reach the pet owner market.

However, for businesses looking to supply veterinary practices, a more personal and professional touch is necessary. Search engine marketing relies on customers finding your PPC ad or organic content and coming to you with their requirements.

Direct marketing involves communicating an offer, direct to a potential client, that you’ve selected based upon how relevant your products or services are to their veterinary business. 

When using this marketing approach, you contact veterinary practices you’re targeting regardless of if they’ve heard of your business before.

The most valuable channels when trying to find a new client base are the three direct marketing channels:

• email campaigns – you deliver information about your business and products or services to the audience,
• telephone campaigns – you can set appointments with decision-makers within veterinary clinics, and
• postal marketing

With an end goal of creating effective marketing automation you should:

• identify the veterinary practices most likely to need what you sell,
• understand how your products or services solve a problem or create an opportunity for a vet practice,
• buy or create an extensive list featuring contact information for decision-makers in UK veterinary practices,
• send targeted messages to each vet practice you aim to sell frequently, and
• follow-up on any leads generated by your veterinary marketing campaigns.

#1 Get to know your audience

Typically, veterinarians are looking to please pet owners and animal lovers to beat their competition and attract new clients. Animal lovers will choose a vet based on how much they can trust them to look after their pet.

Find the right veterinary marketing idea for your prospects by researching the animal health sector and understanding where your product or service fits. Inform yourself about industry trends and scientific developments. This will demonstrate to potential clients an expert understanding of your niche.

When the vets you’re in touch with feel that they can trust you, they will feel confident in using your products and services in their practice. These two elements should be the foundation of your veterinary marketing campaigns.

What data do we have for marketing to veterinarians?

On our list of vets (part of our UK business database ), we have the following contact data on vets:

• 6,051 registered veterinary practices on our business to business mailing list ,
• 3,524 contact names on our B2B telemarketing database, and
• 2,206 email addresses on our B2B email database .

#2 Understand how your product or service solves a problem or presents an opportunity for a veterinarian

Veterinarians spend money on different companies’ products and services only when they deliver one or more of the four following outcomes:

Greater returns

Typically, veterinarians use the same products in their practice that they used during training. Can you offer similar products but at a lower price and of equivalent quality and efficacy?

Veterinary clinics play by the same rules as any other type of business. But, first, they look for a company that offers solid and affordable products.

Competitive advantage

Your products or services are supposed to improve the veterinarians’ ability to provide pet care, and their relationship with the pet parent. This helps them to grow their business by gaining new customers.

Build your strategy around these aspects.

Short sales pitches

Owners of the veterinary practices are extremely busy and don’t have time for long sales cycles. Make sure you avoid long sales pitches and follow up immediately on the leads generated by your campaigns.

Pets’ wellbeing

Veterinarians usually got into the business due to their love for animals. This aspect will drive any business decision. Can your product or service bring the best outcome to the animal?

#3 Separate the benefits from the features when marketing to veterinarians

A feature is a quality that a product or service possesses while a benefit is an advantage that a product or service delivers. Benefits are nearly always much more straightforward for prospective veterinarians’ clients to understand and appreciate during the sales process.

If you sell technical products or services, features tend to be more important than benefits and potentially drive the business decision. However, the aim of marketing is to create and deliver a message of enough interest to veterinarians to generate a lead.

Then, your sales team takes the lead and closes it. Make sure that veterinarians clearly understand the benefits if you want the highest number of leads from your marketing campaigns.

#Three direct marketing channels to reach decision makers within veterinary practices

Email marketing to veterinarians

Email campaigns to veterinarians represent a cost-effective method for your company to market your products to potential new clients. 

You can deliver information about your business or special offers and promotions to the vets on your B2B email database.

So, what makes a successful email?

Subject line

The subject line should stimulate recipients’ interest without sounding too salesy.

Email content

Your headline should deliver information and insights of real value straight away to the reader. A good veterinarian marketing idea is to describe precisely and quickly what you offer and how it can solve a problem or unlock an opportunity for a veterinarian.

You should link your images and text to a page on your site. At the bottom, there should be a call to action – preferably a telephone number and email address so that recipients can leave you their details for follow-up.

Email design

Your email design should be user-friendly and legible.

For example, the size and positioning of the imagery should not obscure the sales message. Since over half of the B2B emails are opened on mobile devices, the design must be mobile-compatible.

Email sending schedule

You should email at least once a month. However, we would recommend, if possible, once a fortnight.

You should vary the content of your emails each time, making sure that you offer something of value in addition to the information about your product or service to make sure contacts continue to open them.

Once the email campaign is over

After your veterinary marketing campaign, you should run a complete and detailed Google Analytics report into the activity generated by your marketing efforts

This will contain valuable information for your sales team, such as who opened your email, and how many of the openers clicked through to your website.

Marketing to veterinarians by telephone

Email marketing is still the most effective channel when used alone. However, using email and telemarketing in a multi-channel approach helps make a strong impression on prospects.

Telemarketing is a great way to set an appointment with a prospective client. If you send a follow-up email to confirm, you then have the opportunity to reintroduce yourself and summarise your discussion.

Your prospects will feel more comfortable choosing your products/service because they have an interactive, two-way dialogue going with you and your business. 

Using the latest and up-to-date B2B telemarketing data is also essential for data qualification and cleansing.

Aim of the call

Before you or your team pick up the phone, you should decide what the outcomes you want from each call are on a sliding scale, from making a sale to collecting information on a particular veterinary practice or pet store.

Call frequency

We recommend that you stay in touch with veterinarian prospects by phone at least twice a year.

Follow up the call

After you’ve spoken with a veterinarian, regardless of whether the call was particularly successful or not, you should email the person thanking them for their time. 

Your email should contain your direct contact information together with an invitation to follow you on social media or click through your website.

According to the UK Data and Marketing Association , postal marketing achieves a response rate of 4.4%. Compare that with digital marketing, of which email, paid search and social media receive around 1% each.

Direct mail marketing to veterinarians

Direct mail marketing is the most expensive type of marketing. However, where digital marketing is cheaper, being sent something tangible and high quality opens doors better than email and B2B telemarketing.

High value items of critical importance (such as medical supplies) are used in a veterinary practice, so client communication is key. Direct mail shows a level of investment that impresses decision-makers in this sector.

According to the UK Data and Marketing Association , postal marketing achieves a response rate of 4.4%. Compare that with digital marketing, of which email, paid search and social media receive around 1% each.