Consumer vs Employer Marketing

Julie South [00:00:02]: Last week we talked about the recruitment cycle that keeps you stuck starting from zero every time you need to hire.

This week we're looking at one of the biggest reasons why you're using the wrong tools for the job. Your clinic's website, social media and team page were all built to attract pet owners, your clients. When you need to recruit and send job seekers to that same content, you're asking consumer marketing to do employer brand marketing's job and it simply can't.

Welcome to Veterinary Voices employer brand conversations that help veterinary clinics hire great people. I'm Julie South and this is episode 243.

Veterinary Voices is brought to you by Vet Clinic Jobs. Build your employer brand, do your own recruitment better.

Today we're talking about the difference between consumer marketing and employer brand marketing and why your client-facing content can't do the work of recruitment.

Julie South [00:01:10]: We'll go through three fundamental differences between marketing to pet owners and marketing to veterinary professionals considering their next move.

And please stay to the end because you'll get an action plan for auditing whether your content is actually serving recruitment or just serving your clients.

The person visiting your website to book an appointment is looking for completely different information from the veterinary nurse deciding whether to apply for your position. Your consumer marketing answers questions like: is this vet competent? Will they care about my pet?

But when a veterinary professional considers their next clinical career move, they're asking entirely different questions your consumer content wasn't designed to answer.

This is employer brand marketing—the marketing that attracts veterinary professionals who want to work with you and get excited about going to work on Monday mornings at your clinic.

There are three fundamental differences that matter for recruitment.

The first: the questions being asked are completely different.

When pet owners look at your team page, they want to know: do these people seem qualified? Will they be gentle with my anxious dog? Do they look professional and trustworthy?

So your consumer marketing answers these questions. Professional headshots, credentials prominently displayed, bios that mention Dr Sarah's passion for exotic animals and how Nurse Tom has worked with rescue dogs for years. Perfect for pet owners.

But this is fluffy and irrelevant for veterinary professionals trying to evaluate whether they'd actually want to work at your clinic.

Julie South [00:02:54]: Because when someone's considering their next career move, they're asking: what's the actual workload like? How does this team handle conflict? What are consult times? Who am I going to be working with? What are they actually like? What's the culture day to day? What clinical skills can I develop here? Will I work alongside people who mentor?

Your beautiful headshots and "passionate about animal welfare" bios answer none of those questions.

I'm sure you can guess what happens in the absence of information. People fill in the blanks themselves. Because you haven't said otherwise, they'll assume you're like every other clinic that claims to be supportive, but really just expects people to figure it out whilst covering every third weekend.

If you want veterinary professionals to apply to your clinic, then you need content that answers their actual questions about workload, about culture, about professional development.

Julie South [00:04:20]: Because without those answers they'll assume you're like every other clinic and keep scrolling.

The second is: trust is built through different evidence.

For pet owners, trust comes from credentials. Dr Sarah graduated from Massey University and has 15 years of experience—that builds trust with a client.

For veterinary professionals evaluating your clinic as a potential employer, trust comes from entirely different evidence. They want to hear what actually happened when Emma needed to leave mid-shift. They want specific examples like how the clinic funded someone's certificate course and adjusted rosters. They want to know what clinical areas your team is developing, who's mentoring whom, what skills people are mastering.

Consumer marketing says "we're trustworthy."

Employer brand marketing says "here's the evidence of how we're trustworthy" through specific stories and professional details that matter when deciding where to work.

Julie South [00:05:02]: If you want job seekers to believe your culture claims, then you need ongoing specific stories that prove these claims over time.

Because "we're supportive" means nothing when everyone says it. But something like "here's what happened when Emma needed emergency time off"—that is what builds trust.

And you can't just add this career-focused information to your consumer-facing website. Each audience needs different content.

Some clinics have careers pages on their websites, but these usually only do part of the job. They might list open positions or talk about your culture in generic terms, but they rarely provide the specific professional context and the ongoing team stories that build trust over time with future employees.

Julie South [00:05:54]: Most clinics think: either put everything on one website, confusing both audiences, or create a separate careers page but without ongoing content that builds trust.

There's a third option. Maintain separate continuous employer brand marketing that builds trust over time—that's not expensive and not just when you're hiring.

This is why most clinic websites fail at recruitment. They've got credibility with pet owners sorted, which is what they're meant to have, but very little credibility with veterinary professionals who need evidence of professional environment and culture, not just clinical competence.

The third is: the time frame and the decision processes are completely opposite each other.

Consumer marketing is designed for a relatively quick decision-making process. Someone's got a dog, needs a vet. They look at your website. It reassures them. They book an appointment.

Maybe that process takes a few days or maybe a couple of weeks, depending on how sick the animal is. The goal is conversion. Turn a stranger into a client as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Julie South [00:07:25]: Employer brand marketing works on a completely different time frame. Changing jobs is a massive decision—maybe relocating even, definitely disrupting your routine. People make that decision based on whether they've come to trust your clinic over time.

And here's the irony. The longer a clinic has worked on its employer brand marketing, the faster a job seeker can actually decide about fit. They can decide quickly, but only because the clinic has built up the currency—and I'm using air quotes here—the currency in the employer brand marketing bank.

Julie South [00:08:11]: First, without that foundation, you're asking for fast decisions based on nothing.

If you want to recruit efficiently when you have a vacancy, then you need to build employer brand marketing continuously whilst you're fully staffed. Because trust takes time to build, but you can't build it in the two weeks after someone resigns.

The best time to start building employer brand marketing was last year. The second best time is now. Even if—and even when—you are fully staffed.

When you need to recruit and you're relying on consumer-facing content to communicate with potential applicants, you're missing the critical information that job seekers need to make informed career decisions.

This is why rewriting your job ad repeatedly doesn't solve the problem. If the supporting content is still just consumer marketing, you haven't changed anything that matters for recruitment.

Julie South [00:09:22]: Look, if you're listening to this and you're thinking "we don't have any employer brand marketing content at all, it's all consumer-focused and I don't know where to start," you don't have to wait for this entire podcast series to play out and finish.

If you want to start building your employer brand marketing now rather than waiting, then please email me julie@vetclinicjobs.com and let's chat about what this looks like for your clinic specifically.

This is exactly why we built professional team member profiles into the Vet Clinic Jobs platform. Content that sits separate from your consumer-facing team pages and gives job seekers the professional context they need. Clinical specialisations, skills and development, mentoring relationships, professional interests.

The platform gives you the tools to differentiate your employer brand marketing from your consumer brand without huge cost and without confusing your pet owner messaging.

Julie South [00:10:35]: I promised you an action plan. Here it is.

Go to your team page on your website and take a screenshot. Send it to someone on your team—or to everyone on your team, vets and nurses—someone who's been with you for at least a year.

And ask: "If you were job hunting and landed on this page, what questions would you still have about what it's actually like to work here?"

Better yet, make it a team meeting topic. You'll get a much fuller picture of the gap between your consumer content and what matters for recruitment.

And then get in touch with me and we can tell you what to do with that information.

Remember, the best time to start building employer brand marketing was last year, regardless of whether you were fully staffed or not. The second best time is right now, today.

Julie South [00:11:24]: Thank you for listening.

Tune in for next week because we're going to be going deeper into another fundamental confusion that costs clinics quality applicants—the difference between advertising and marketing. Because posting job ads, even really good ones, isn't employer brand marketing, no matter how well-written those ads are.

Thank you for listening to Veterinary Voices brought to you by Vet Clinic Jobs. This is Julie South signing off and reminding you that your consumer marketing and your employer brand marketing need to be two different things. Because pet owners and potential employees are asking completely different questions and one piece of content can't answer both.

Go be your most fantabulous self this week because you now know the difference between marketing to clients and marketing to future team members. And that awareness is the first step towards recruitment that actually works.