Marketing and branding are about connecting with patients. And the best way to connect with your patients during the winter months is through holiday pharmacy marketing.
If you don’t market your pharmacy during the holiday season, you’ll miss out on opportunities to reach new patients and grow your relationship with current patients.
Connect with patients and promote your pharmacy using these 10 holiday pharmacy marketing ideas.
1. Merchandise your front end for the holidays
Don’t just decorate your pharmacy for the holidays. Merchandise it.
Decorating your pharmacy for the holidays humanizes your business and creates a shared experience with patients. It makes the space more inviting and festive, which encourages patients to spend more time in your front end.
But if you merchandise for the holidays, as well as decorate, you’ll kill two birds with one stone.
How to merchandise (and decorate) for the holidays:
- Hang retail products on a Christmas tree instead of ornaments
- Gift wrap some retail products, like skin care products
- Tie festive ribbon around vitamin and supplement bottles
2. Ramp up your social media engagement
Use social media to promote your pharmacy this holiday season.
Emphasize the services your pharmacy offers that relieves patients’ stress or that make their lives easier over the holidays, like medication synchronization or digital refills.
RELATED: Are You Making These Pharmacy Marketing Mistakes?
Try these holiday pharmacy marketing ideas on social media:
Create an interactive campaign
When you interact with followers, you humanize your business.
And when you encourage comments and shares, you spread your brand. Create a holiday social media campaign that engages your followers and rewards them for sharing, commenting and tagging friends.
Start your own holiday hashtag
Hashtags encourage discussion and spur sharing. Choose a new hashtag, preferably with your pharmacy’s name in it. Then, get the hashtag started by sharing a post. Then, ask your followers to share something as well.
Use live video
Live video shows the face and the personality behind the account. It’s more personable. For example, post a fun video where you go around the pharmacy and ask your staff what they want for Christmas.
A live video will showcase your good cheer and demonstrate how you care about your employees.
Announce your holiday sale and events
Use social media to advertise your special holiday sale and to stir up excitement.
3. Promote a charitable cause
Scrooge taught us long ago that the epitome of holiday spirit is giving.
Patients want to give back during the holidays and they want to support businesses that do, too.
Choose a charity you’re passionate about and promote it in your pharmacy.
Consider donating a percentage of every sale or matching a certain amount of donations.
4. Use online advertisements
Adapt your advertisements to the season.
Ads are 28 percent more effective when they emphasize the spirit of the holidays along with a deal.
Use festive colors and graphics in your ads, even if it’s just a splash of red and green.
Also, consider ramping up your advertising budget during the holiday season. Experts predict that consumers will spend more this year online than in stores for the first time ever.
That means a lot of time browsing websites for Christmas gifts. Meet them online with advertisements that stand out and are tailored to your audience.
5. Offer special holiday promotions
People expect discounts and sales during the holidays.
Although you shouldn’t offer too many coupons or discount too much, consider offering at least one special promotion for the holiday season. Otherwise, you won’t keep up with the competition.
Offer promotions that provide enough enticement to get patients in your doors where they’ll buy other products at full price.
Or, offer a big limited-time sale that draws in more people. Even if you don’t make much profit from the sale, you’ll create the opportunity to gain new patients. If you win over one new patient, his or her prescription loyalty will be worth the sale.
6. Send your patients holiday cards
You normally receive holiday cards from family and friends.
When you send a personalized card, maybe with a cheery photo of your pharmacy staff, you treat your patients like family. It’s personable and thoughtful.
Even if they throw the card away, they’ll remember that you sent it. And at the very least, you’ll leave them with a warm impression that will come up the next time they think of your pharmacy.
7. Write a seasonal blog post
Blogging is a method of marketing.
It allows you to engage with readers as if you’re speaking directly to them. And, it’s a holiday pharmacy marketing method you may not have considered.
If your pharmacy has a blog, write a holiday-themed post that captures the seasonal spirit.
If you don’t have a blog, write as a guest on another independent, local business blog.
8. Offer holiday health advice
Help your patients stay well this holiday season.
Use these 25 free resources to promote flu prevention in your pharmacy.
Here are some tips to use the resources:
- Print flyers and hand them out at the register
- Place fact sheets in prescription bags
- Post infographics on social media
- Send links to videos in an email
9. Create an attractive window display
A well-crafted window display can catch the attention of passersby. If your pharmacy is in a high-traffic area, make your window display stand out.
Put your festive activities and decorations within the sight of walkers. And make sure to place advertisements for your best deals in your front windows.
And, once you get people in your pharmacy, make sure your business welcomes them.
Make your pharmacy inviting during the holidays by:
- Offering free hot cider or hot chocolate
- Playing holiday music
- Asking your staff to dress festively
10. Stay engaged after the holidays
It’s tempting to take a break at the beginning of the new year after you’ve worked so hard during the holiday season.
But don’t let that hard work go to waste.
You probably brought in new customers through your holiday marketing. If you stop reaching out to those new customers, they may forget about your pharmacy.
Make a marketing plan that nurtures those customers and converts them into loyal patients for the rest of the year.
Don’t be a Grinch. Use these 10 holiday pharmacy marketing strategies to connect with your patients this season.
An Independently Owned Organization Serving Independent Pharmacies
PBA Health is dedicated to helping independent pharmacies reach their full potential on the buy side of their business. The company is a member-owned organization that serves independent pharmacies with group purchasing services, expert contract negotiations, proprietary purchasing tools, distribution services, and more.
PBA Health, an HDA member, operates its own VAWD-certified warehouse with more than 6,000 SKUs, including brands, generics, narcotics CII-CV, cold-storage products, and over-the-counter (OTC) products.
Want more pharmacy business tips and advice? Sign up for our e-newsletter.
