Tariff-Proof Marketing Tactics for B2B Veterinary Companies
Are tariffs impacting your business (or are you afraid they will)? Use these tips to keep your marketing engine running on a tighter budget.
Before we dive in, this is not a political article. If that’s what you’re looking for, click away! Click away now!
Here’s who this post is for:
B2B veterinary marketers who are wrestling with an unexpectedly reduced marketing budget
Business owners who are looking for scrappy marketing ideas while they navigate the unknowns of recent tariffs
Marketers who have not had their marketing budgets impacted but are always looking for new ways to stretch a dollar
During Times of Turmoil, We Keep Marketing…Right?
When economics looks uncertain, all eyes seem to go quickly to marketing–we don’t need to spend money on that….right? According to McKinsey & Company, this is a short-sighted approach (we agree, by the way), with many companies cutting marketing budgets by 10-20% during economic downturns.
While everyone else is quiet…don’t you think it might be the best (and easiest) time to make your brand’s voice heard? We aren’t suggesting that when markets are down, the reality of budgets doesn’t exist. Of course, we all have to adapt and respond to business needs that can quickly arise due to short-term market conditions.
What we are saying, though, is don’t go dark. Ceasing marketing activities or massively slashing them will certainly not help drive revenue. You’re smart, you do the math:
Increased COGS + Decreased Revenue from Decreased Sales & Marketing Efforts = Bad
Compared to
Increased COGS + Sales Revenue from Smart Sales & Marketing Efforts = Good
Sure, decreasing marketing budgets isn’t going to win you any double-digit revenue growth in 2025 (though many of us may need to re-calibrate our financial expectations this year). However, you can still win in the marketplace by working on a tighter marketing budget.
Are you convinced that you should keep marketing in the face of tariffs? Awesome. Us, too, let’s continue on our journey.
The Answer Lies Within…Your Database
This one is super scrappy; no advertising dollars required. Here are some scrappy ways to sniff around for revenue that might be hiding in plain sight in your CRM:
Spend time understanding your newest customers. See what marketing touchpoints your 2025 customers had before they bought from you, check out their job titles, and see if there are any geographic, behavioral, or demographic trends that you can identify. You may uncover a niche group of people who are super interested in your product right now, and then you can be more intentional about your targeting. And don’t forget to analyze what they bought. You may see a surge in lower-priced product lines that present an opportunity.
Raise your hand if 100% of the leads in your CRM have been converted into deals that have resulted in sales. If your hand is up in the air right now…then you probably should be writing this blog, not us, because you know a GOOD SECRET. Chances are, like the rest of us, you’ve got a CRM that is a mixed bag of leads, deals that closed, deals that got stuck in the pipeline, and deals that have been lost. We’re all guilty of it; we abandon old business to pursue new (and often easier-to-close) deals. This is all fine and dandy when the marketing dollars are flowing. But when we tighten the marketing belt, the old sales pipeline is a great place to hunt for deals that can be re-activated. These re-activation campaigns should be a team effort between sales and marketing for best results.
If you don’t score leads in your CRM, now is a great time to start doing that. Lead scoring can help uncover good prospects your sales team may be unaware of.
Use this time to improve your internal database segmentation practices so you can tailor messages more appropriately based on consumer behavior and demographic data.
Don’t Forget About Your Biggest Fans, Your Existing Customers
Current customers are often overlooked, especially in times of increased pressure to attract new revenue. We’re not saying run to your neglected customers out of left field and ask them for favors. Ideally, you’ve treated your customers well after purchasing your product or service and treated them like the valued family they are. If you’ve kept them in the circle of trust, they might be able to assist you during this time of uncertainty.
Ask them how they’re doing. Novel right? You might be surprised by what they tell you and how your brand can join the conversation. This can either be informal calls from team members or a structured survey. Just remember they’re going through this period, too, so don’t ask too much of them; do not ask them anything you could figure out yourself through your own data analysis. Find out if there is anything you can do to make your product more accessible; you might find out that there are more things than price that matter.
Consider customer-exclusive offers. These don’t have to be pricing discounts. You may be able to bundle additional service, warranty, or implementation support tools to add value without decreasing the price.
Double, No, Triple-Down on Lead Nurturing
We really can’t say enough about the value of narrowly targeted lead nurturing programs. Marketing automation programs like HubSpot make this super easy. Of course, the big lift is understanding your customers so you can develop relevant nurturing programs, but the juice is worth the squeeze (especially if it can help you overcome that reduced marketing budget).
Don’t get overwhelmed by the idea of creating these sequences; you already have the building blocks you need to put them together:
Case studies
Testimonials
ROI calculators
Blog articles
eBooks
Webinars
Consider creating nurture sequences for these key prospect groups:
Gated content engagers
If they were willing to share their contact information to watch your webinar or download your eBook, then you should absolutely nurture them.Based on the buying stage
If you use the lifecycle stage to monitor your buyer’s journey, you can nurture them at each stage to improve conversion rates at each stage of the funnel.Buying signaling behavior
Prospects visiting product, pricing, and contact pages are giving all the signals. If you know who they are, nurture them.
The point here is simple: regardless of market conditions, you want your brand to be top of mind. Email, SMS, and retargeting tactics can help (and don't break the bank).
Pro Tip
Ensure you have easy conversion points on your website (like pop-ups inviting them to subscribe to newsletters or engage in campaigns). Audit your website for user experience to ensure you aren’t leaving any leads on the table.
Keep Those Dollars in Paid Social
If you want to talk about how to use paid social to support your current campaigns, we’ve got you. For the purpose of this article, here are the reasons paid social should earn a spot in your current tactical line-up:
You can test messaging with small budgets.
You can get results with relatively small budgets.
Paid social can be used for top-of-funnel lead gen or middle-of-funnel retargeting.
Demographic-based, retarget, and lookalike audience options give you a lot of control over targeting.
Low risk: if the campaign isn’t working, you can turn it off before overspending.
ADD Value, Don’t REDUCE Price
If your margin has already taken a haircut, the last thing you want to do is reduce your price. Use the findings from your customer survey to capitalize on the things most valuable to your prospects. Some common value-adders are:
Getting-started implementation tools
Installation training (bonus points if you can award them CE for it)
On-going marketing support (if you don’t have the resources to provide it, contact us; we might be able to help)
Additional training
Rework your purchase orders to show the additional value you’re providing with their purchase. Make sure you assign the value-adding items a monetary amount.
Pro Tip
Your customers are experiencing the same uncertainty. Consider re-tooling messaging if you are relying heavily on messages that may be less relevant as consumers tighten their purse strings. For example, you may focus on messaging around making veterinary care affordable or improving compliance.
A PSA on Collaboration
The worst thing your team can do right now is become internally competitive. Enough stuff going on in the world–be united internally. We’ve seen time and time again that revenue pressure can drive a wedge between sales and marketing organizations. The result is poor results and wasted time on in-fighting. Use this time to come together and get scrappy together. You’ll generate rapport and systems that will continue to serve you long past these challenging times.
Let’s Get Scrappy Together
Are you new to the scrappy marketing game? The Red Brick team is here to help! We’ve been doing the tight-budget thing since way before it was cool. Reach out to us today for a brainstorming session. We can advise you on where to place your marketing spend based on your company’s goals and our many years of experience overcoming the odds. We were here marketing B2B veterinary products (including capital equipment) when the economy took a nose-dive in 2008 and during the chaos of 2020. We’re uniquely qualified to help you navigate whatever 2025 throws your way!