Your independent community pharmacy is all about your patients. Helping them. Improving their lives. Keeping them healthy. That’s why you’re in business.
Marketing is all about helping you get those loyal patients in the first place, and helping you bring new patients into your store.
If you look at marketing like that, it becomes a crucial aspect of your business. Make it your goal to focus a little bit more on marketing. Here are five smart moves to boost your pharmacy’s marketing efforts.
1. Invest in your marketing
Like all other areas of your business, if you don’t invest in marketing, then you won’t see results. Skimping on marketing may seem like you’re saving money, but you’re probably missing out on bigger opportunities, like increasing your patient base.
It’s important to designate funds for marketing with a budget. But how do you know how much to set for your marketing budget? An easy way to think about setting a marketing budget is to allocate a certain percentage of revenues to marketing.
The average independent community pharmacy allocates 0.4 percent of its gross revenues to advertising, according to the 2013 NCPA Digest from the National Community Pharmacists Association. However, the U.S. Small Business Administration recommends setting a budget of 2-3 percent of gross revenues for upkeep marketing and up to 3-5 percent for start-up marketing. It’s important to measure and determine what works for your business.
2. Create a marketing plan
Creating a marketing plan goes along with setting a budget. When deciding how to set a budget for marketing, it helps to plan how you’ll use that budget.
To do that, first set goals for your marketing. What do you want to accomplish? Then, think about the marketing tactics you want to use to achieve those goals. Creating a marketing plan will ensure you stick to your schedule and spend your funds wisely. (Learn more about creating a marketing plan for your pharmacy.)
3. Keep track of marketing results
The results of your marketing efforts can seem hard to pin down. How do you know if that postcard you sent or that ad you put in the newspaper actually worked? Whether you use print, T.V. or radio advertising, or use social media, there are easy ways to track results.
In your TV and radio ads, ask people to mention the ad in order to get some kind of reward, like a discount off your front end. When you require people to mention the ad in-person, it’s easier to track results. Be sure to make a note any time someone comes into the pharmacy and mentions it.
Similarly, use codes in your print advertising, like direct mail or newspaper ads, to track how many people actually come into the pharmacy based on the ad. Require that they give you the code to receive the discount, free gift or special offer.
When you offer special promotions on your Facebook or Twitter pages, you can use codes or mentions to get the same results. Plus, the analytics features on Facebook will let you know how many people viewed your promotional post.
Another easy tool is to simply ask new patients how they found your pharmacy. This will give you an idea of what marketing worked the best.
4. Spend more time on marketing
Marketing is probably the last item on your to do list. But it’s how you generate new business and keep current patients coming back. Devoting time to it means keeping business coming in.
It’s not unheard of for independent pharmacies to hire a marketing company or to create an in-house marketing position. If that’s in the budget, now’s the time to consider it. If not, here are some easy marketing strategies to squeeze into your already busy schedule.
- Give loyal patients a special thank you offer
- Do a giveaway
- Support a cause
- Attend community events, like health fairs
- Post regularly on Facebook and Twitter
- Improve your waiting area
5. Look at the competition
It’s always a good idea to see how your competition is using marketing. What are independent, big box store and national chain pharmacies in your area doing, and how can you improve on their methods? What markets are they targeting and is there a new market you can target? What messages are they putting out there and how can you beat or improve on them? Staying on top of marketing—and what others are doing—will put your pharmacy ahead of the game.
With some time and preparation, you can use these smart marketing moves to increase business at your pharmacy.
