Marketing your pharmacy might not always be your biggest concern. Being there for your patients, stocking your front end and expanding your services probably often take priority, leaving your marketing and sales strategies to be hastily thrown together, if at all.
Perhaps the biggest misconception about marketing and sales is that they’re not fully connected to the rest of your business. Without sales and marketing, your pharmacy can’t grow. And if it can’t grow, it can’t succeed.
You need strategies for marketing and sales in place in your pharmacy. And to have a strategy, you need to know how they work. Here are 10 things pharmacists need to understand about sales and marketing.
1. They aren’t the same thing
Approaching sales and marketing as if they’re one and the same is not only incorrect, but it could lead to a strategy that hurts your business. Sales is a transaction; marketing is everything that comes before and after.
2. But they are complementary
At the same time, sales and marketing do go hand in hand. Marketing can boost your sales, and sales can guide your marketing. You can’t have one without the other.
3. They aren’t afterthoughts
It can be tempting to only focus on profits, prescriptions and patients, and then worry about a marketing strategy. But the truth is, none of those things will matter without marketing and sales. With the right marketing and sales, you can increase your profits, bump up your script count and better serve your patients.
4. Branding isn’t the same, either
Marketing isn’t branding, and neither is selling. A brand is how customers perceive your business. Building your brand requires work outside of these two realms. At the same time, branding can help them, too.
5. Social media has changed everything
It’s not enough to sign up for Facebook and continue with your old marketing strategies. Social media marketing has transformed how consumers interact with a business, and revolutionized small business marketing entirely.
6. Marketing and sales aren’t over with a transaction
What comes after the sale is just as important as what comes before. Following up with your patients can be a strong marketing tool, can help build customer loyalty and can lead to future sales.
7. You can’t ignore them
Yes, you’re busy. And yes, you need to spend time on your marketing and sales strategies.
Consider hiring a marketing expert onto your pharmacy’s staff or working with an outside firm.
8. You should be involved in your marketing
While hiring someone, either as part of your staff or from an outside firm, to handle your marketing can help you better manage your time, it’s important to not blindly hand everything over. Always make sure your pharmacy’s marketing efforts are guided by your input, and that they spread your message.
9. Word-of-mouth isn’t enough
Word-of-mouth marketing can be effective, but it’s only one strategy of many that are available to you. You can’t rely exclusively on one form of marketing, just like you can’t rely on a single wholesaler. And you can’t always expect it to happen on its own.
10. You can’t count on outside factors to drive business
There may be a need for your services, and there may be a shortage of those that are capable of providing them, but you can’t expect these factors alone to bring in new business. Especially today, with many patients surprised by the depth of services and products available in pharmacies, you can’t count on new patients finding out about them on their own.
