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Rethinking Your Human Health Care Products for the Animal Health Industry

By Renee Simovart | September 6th, 2019

Bringing your human health product to the animal health industry is one feat. It will involve navigating a new world of regulations, potentially proving success and viability to your larger company, and learning all there is to know about your new furry, fuzzy, scaly, fluffy customers.

Transfiguring your product with efficiency, strategy, and innovation is another feat. Any product you want to reconfigure for animal use will have to go through clinical testing and relabeling. Some might be good to go after that, but some will require a little more imagination.

To truly succeed in this niche (but rapidly growing) market, you may need to make changes to your product (depending on what it is). Chances are you already know this. But these six tips might help you determine how to go about it.

Here are six steps to innovating your human health product for use in the animal health industry.

1. Shift Your Mindset

Leave behind your accolades in human health and turn over a new leaf. To be a disruptor in this space, you’ll need to shift your thinking and invest in your new end customer: pets of all species and sizes. This investment will include time and resources dedicated to product development, clinical testing, and rebranding.

You know you’ll have to meet new regulations and prove clinical viability. But you’ll also have to think much more broadly about your venture.

That means thinking about how you’ll improve the lives of vets, pet owners, and pets — and how to communicate that to each of them.

Think of the pets your products will help as family members — because that’s how pet owners think of them. They expect the same level of care and treatment for their pets as they would for a person. Give them the confidence of knowing your products are truly designed with the animal in mind.

2. Change Your Human Health Care Product

What features of your product work great for humans but may need to be rethought for animals? What about different kinds of animals?

Most humans look like, well, humans. Arms, legs — human stuff.

Some pets don’t have arms and legs. Like snakes. Will your product work on snakes? If it’s intended for dogs, will it work equally well in different species of dogs, of different sizes? What about cats? Parakeets? Chinchillas? Will you narrow your audience to one type of animal? All things for your product development team to consider, before you even initiate testing.

3. Be Competitive

You’ll want to understand and capitalize on your products’ capabilities. Often, this will take market research and a competitive analysis of the existing market leader (this is something we at EPiQ Animal Health do for our manufacturer partners). Use this research as leverage to offer what your competitors can’t, haven’t, or won’t.

Learning about your competitors can give you a step up by allowing you to incorporate advancements or improvements before your product even hits the market.

4. Rebrand Your Product

True rebranding entails more than simply switching out labels. Your name, product name, packaging, content, and marketing should reflect the new customers you need to win over.

The right content strategy and digital presence can help establish your brand as a thought leader in the animal health industry while educating potential consumers about your product’s ingenuity.

5. Show That You Care

Potential customers want to see that you’re as passionate about animals as they are. Specifically, veterinarians want to know that you’ve invested time and resources in exploring how the product will work for the animals they treat.

Use your marketing materials to highlight a specific product characteristic that will make vets’ lives easier and improve the animal’s experience and overall wellbeing. Display images of veterinarians using your product with a specific animal on your website, and put time into training collateral for the people who sell your product. Bottom line: Showcase content that will resonate with your potential customers.

6. Partner Up

No matter how thoroughly thought-out, an idea is static until you have a game plan for action.

The right master distributor can help you create that game plan and seamlessly put it into action, managing regulations and logistics, incorporating a marketing strategy, and tracking your success.

Contact EPiQ Animal Health to discuss aligning your resources to bring your product into the animal health industry.


About the Author

Renee Simovart is director and general manager at EPiQ Animal Health. Over the course of her 24-year career, Renee has held multiple roles in sales, customer service, and supply chain for manufacturers and distributors in a variety of industries. Her strategic yet hands-on approach to business is leading EPiQ to be an innovator in the animal health care space. Renee has an MBA from the University of Dayton and a BA from Otterbein University. Outside of EPiQ, Renee is busy with her family and enjoys exercising, skiing, and paddleboarding.
Renee Simovart
Director and General Manager

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