Educating a New Audience

Our role as animal health representatives is to learn as much as we can about the emerging companies and products associated with digital marketing and communications for our millennial veterinary customers.

While prevention is the best medicine, recent trends in the veterinary industry indicate that it is still not the norm for many pet owners. I was surprised to hear that greater than 40% of millennial pet owners do not have a primary veterinarian, nor do they take their animals to the veterinarian. This makes me wonder if these folks know much about the preventative measures needed to keep their fur babies healthy and protected from parasites and disease?

In an interesting twist, the veterinarian is still considered to be the most trusted source for information concerning their pet’s health, with the internet coming in second. Are these folks doing their own homework and purchasing all of their preventative products online, or are they ignoring preventative measures and only dealing with veterinarians when the situation dictates that treatment is necessary?

Watching the trends

As we watch more and more business being done in the virtual and e-commerce realms, we are starting to see the effects on veterinary practices in more ways than just selling animal health products. Many industry experts and statisticians are reporting that veterinary visits are down, and the acquisition of new customers by veterinary clinics is also declining.

These numbers are in direct conflict with the fact that pet ownership is up. According to some of the most recent data presented by David Sprinkle of Packaged Facts, millennials have moved into the No. 1 spot as the largest pet-owning demographic. I don’t believe that veterinarians will ever be obsolete, but I do believe that the perception of the need for the veterinarian and the value that the veterinarians deliver is being directly challenged. Veterinarians and the veterinary industry must focus on becoming more relevant to the new pet-owning population.

Understanding the buyer

How does the veterinarian leverage
his expertise and rank as the most influential source of information for pet health? How does the veterinary community start to become more relevant to the millennial generation? How can you help your customers tackle these issues?

The first step is understanding who the millennials actually are. The widely accepted definition of the millennial generation includes people that were born between 1981 and 1996. This group is in tune with its carbon footprint. Thanks to technology, they are both social and reclusive at the same time. This group has grown up in the information age and uses technology to navigate their way through life. It is important that we, as a profession, understand what makes these folks tick.  We need to know what motivates them, what interests them, how do they communicate, what are their fears, how do we connect with them?

The baby boomer generation values personal relationships, trust, and value. Baby boomers were the most prominent pet-owning demographic prior to the millennials recently taking over the top spot. Boomers are still loyal clients for their veterinarians; they understand the value of preventative medicine and care for their pets as a part of the family. They are often empty nesters and have replaced the void that their millennial children left with pets. The old hierarchy for making spending decisions was: price first, value second, and ease/convenience third.

There are differences in how the millennials choose to do business with a person or a company.  Millennials are interested in an experience. They expect value for what they spend, but they are a little less price-sensitive than the boomers. Millennials will pay more for something that gives them the experience that they are looking for. The new hierarchy for spending decisions is: ease/convenience, price, value, but they all are very close to equal and interchangeable. Where millennials spend their money and what they spend it on is more a reflection of self than it is a decision based on a single driver.

An example of this shift in behavior is the rapidly growing trend in grocery. The trend of ordering groceries online and picking them up at the store or having them delivered is outpacing most other online retail categories. This is all about ease, convenience, and control. Time is money, and convenience that we can control is even worth paying a little more for the experience the way that we want it. It does not seem that pet health is excluded from that decision-making process.

Leveraging expertise

Veterinarians need to leverage their spot as the leading resource for pet health information by discovering the methods that the millennials use to gather their information, and then communicate and apply those directly to the outreach methods of the practice. It’s important now for a practice to apply resources to social media and web-based communications. Consumers are in control.

The days of being the local animal health expert and attracting customers by being in a good location are disappearing. Every practice now has competition that they are unaware of, and the choices are all at the fingertips of the web-surfing pet owner world. The reality is here. Veterinarians must compete for their place as the experts. Proactively marketing themselves as the experts that provide the experience that the millennials are looking for is paramount. Ease and convenience are equally important, so communication tools should also be employed that make it simpler for the millennial clients to interact with the practice. Digitally go where the new customers are. We cannot allow our veterinary customers to become a service that is only thought of when “Dr. Google,” social media, and information from friends isn’t solving the pet’s health issue.

Our role as animal health representatives is to learn as much as we can about the emerging companies and products associated with digital marketing and communications for our veterinary customers. What tools can we offer that might be applicable for our customers? Learn what you can about online appointment systems, web-based communication tools that go straight to the smartphones, social media exposure, and convenience models for product deliveries and/or prescription refills.

If our customers become relegated to only treatments when the situation is bad enough, our industry is going to shrink at a rapid pace. Veterinarians are relevant and needed for both animal health and client education. Work with your customers to keep them abreast of the changing consumer/pet owner landscape. Help to educate them on emerging technologies that can assist them with remaining relevant and visible. Those customers that choose to adapt to the changing trends will be successful for quite some time to come.

Tools of the trade

What tools can we offer that might be applicable for our customers? Learn what you can about online appointment systems, web-based communication tools that go straight to the smartphones, social media exposure, and convenience models for product deliveries and/or prescription refills.

Shift in consumer behavior

The trend of ordering groceries online and picking them up at the store or having them delivered is outpacing most other online retail categories. This is all about ease, convenience, and control. Time is money, and convenience that we can control is even worth paying a little more for the experience the way that we want it. It does not seem that pet health is excluded from that decision-making process.

Photo credit:  istockphoto.com/Capuski