Veterinary technicians and nurses play a critical role in modern veterinary practices. Under the supervision of a veterinarian, they perform a wide variety of tasks, including recording patient history, assisting in surgery, performing tests and laboratory procedures, administering clinical care, advocating for patients, educating pet owners, and more.
Because of their integral role in the clinic, veterinary technicians influence everything from equipment purchases to workflow changes. Knowing their importance in veterinary practices, many B2B veterinary marketers are including veterinary technicians in their marketing.
If you’re moving in the same direction, we have suggestions on how to market to veterinary technicians, including what they like and how to reach them. But first, a few quick facts you might not know about vet techs.
7 Things to Know About Veterinary Technicians
- There are nearly 110,000 veterinary technicians in the US.
- More than 77% of veterinary technicians are female.
- Veterinary technicians typically earn an associate or bachelor’s degree in veterinary technology. In addition, they keep their license current with continuing education.
- The National Association of Veterinary Technicians (NAVTA) was founded in 1981 to give veterinary technicians a voice in the veterinary community.
- The job market for veterinary technicians is expected to grow at a rate of 21% between 2022-2032.
- In 2022, the median salary for veterinary technicians was $38,240 per year ($18.38 per hour).
- Clinician’s Brief can help you reach more than 30,000 US-based veterinary technicians and nurses.
Why Market to Veterinary Technicians
Veterinary technicians hold a unique role in a veterinary practice. They are essential in many tasks, including assisting, administering treatments, performing diagnostics, communicating with clients, and supporting CSRs. They are often important influencers because they have a hand in many aspects of the practice.
Here are some key points to consider:
- Hands-on: Depending on your product or service, the veterinary technician could be the primary user. If your product is a technician-driven modality, market to the buyer (typically the veterinarian) and the end user—the veterinary technician.
- Workflow understanding: Veterinary technicians see how the practice flows (or doesn’t) from start to finish. They can often identify clinical and workflow problems more readily than other teammates.
- Trusted partners: Veterinarians rely on and trust their technicians—in and out of the exam room. Technicians will often research products and services for their practice online or at events, making them a crucial point of connection with the veterinarian.
- A window to the client: Veterinarian technicians play a key role in client communication. If you’re trying to use veterinary teams to drive home an educational message to pet owners, don’t skip educating the veterinary technician.
- Team well-being: Veterinary technicians help clinics run more smoothly. They improve efficiency, profitability, and team well-being by sharing workloads and reducing veterinarian burnout.
A Note on Decision-Making in Veterinary Medicine
If you’ve noticed decision-making looks different in veterinary medicine than in any other industry, you’re seeing things clearly. And it will help your marketing efforts! Understanding the importance of collaboration and consensus in many practices will ensure you keep veterinary technicians in your sights when creating marketing messages and campaigns.
Don’t miss National Veterinary Technician Week! It offers the best opportunity of the year to celebrate the essential contributions of veterinary technicians. Partner with VetMedux to make the most of the week-long holiday this coming October.
The Content They Like
It probably won’t surprise you that veterinary technicians are just as busy as everyone else in the clinic, so they’re looking for practical content relevant to their day-to-day role.
Here are a few ideas that perform well with veterinary technicians:
- To-the-point education: Veterinary technicians need CE to maintain their certifications. Brief, relevant, and educational is a winning formula for this group. And we’ve seen team-based learning be effective for engaging the entire clinic.
- Games and quizzes: Fun, practice-focused games like VetWords effectively drive daily engagement with veterinary technicians.
- Content made just for them: General veterinary content appeals to technicians, but if you really want to win them over, create content addressing their daily pain points.
Need some support creating impactful content for veterinary technicians? Our clinical experts know how to activate this highly influential group.
How to Reach Veterinary Technicians
Digital marketing is a great way to target and reach veterinary technicians. For example, social media ads offer an inexpensive way to easily target CVTs, LVTs, RVTs, and general veterinary technician keywords for a quick win.
If you’re leveraging social media advertising as part of your veterinary technician marketing strategy, create fun, technician-appropriate content that aligns with a social approach. Heavy clinical topics, deep-dive webinars, and whitepapers will not effectively move the needle with this audience on social.
Email and SMS marketing are also effective. If you are not collecting job titles (as a drop-down) and SMS opt-ins, start doing that today. Collecting these two data points will help narrow your targeting and expand your communication channels to text messages.
Don’t have a database of veterinary technicians? Reach out to the VetMedux team—we can help.
Here are two unique VetMedux programs you can leverage to engage veterinary technicians:
Vet Tech Awards
During National Veterinary Technician Week, October
Partner with Clinician’s Brief as we celebrate vet techs nationwide during National Vet Tech Week. The VetMedux team will host a virtual awards program featuring veterinary technicians nominated for excellence by their respective clinics. One winner will be profiled each day on cliniciansbrief.com. Winners will receive a prize and be featured in Clinician’s Brief social posts, a dedicated email, and the daily newsletter. In addition, all nominees will be entered into a drawing to win a free lunch for their team and other sponsor-provided swag.
This partnership opportunity puts your brand front and center during one of the most important weeks of the year. Your name and logo will be included on Vet Tech Awards’ promotional materials, including emails, social posts, pop-ups, cliniciansbrief.com, microsite pages, award gifts, and more.
Clinical Suite
With our Clinical Suite program, the Clinician’s Brief team will overview a diagnosis and treatment protocol related to your product or service from 3 unique viewpoints: veterinarian, practice manager, and technician or nurse.
This digital tool also includes a pet owner or team handout to drive home your educational message and ensure the pet care team is on the same page.
Ready to Reach Technicians?
Contact VetMedux to get started activating veterinary technicians. Our team is available to brainstorm about technician campaigns, develop content, or deploy your communications to our extensive database of engaged veterinary technicians.