Marketing your new pharmacy!
We hear it a lot, I have no marketing background or experience where do I even begin. Below we have outlined 5 areas to consider when trying to get the word out about your new business or location. We would like to note however this process can be more effective and simplified by hiring a marketing firm. There are a lot of them out there and tend to be fairly inexpensive. We use one for our pharmacies and partner with one in our consulting business.
1. Public Relations – This is the art of using news media contacts to gain publicity for your venture. Often if you reach out to local TV, newspaper, bloggers, etc you can get them to cover your grand opening or any other event. As stated above using a PR or marketing firm will increase the performance of these efforts.
2. Social Media – we all hear about it but it works and it is cheap. You have a retail operation and that warrants at least a Twitter and Facebook page. It is effective because all it takes is for one person to follow you and then 200 of there friends know your there pharmacy of choice. If you do not know much about social media visit lynda.com for education classes.
3. Print Advertising – Remember much of the pharmacy clientele demographic is 60+ in age and as such they still look in phone books and newspapers.
4. In Store Marketing – This medium is sometimes overlooked but please don’t. Use the store to inform customers about what insurance you take, specials and community events. Remember people talk when they have a good experience and they need to be able to inform relatives and friends.
5. Direct Mail – Believe it or not this is still an affective way of driving business. Try sending a direct mail piece to your service area advertising your grand opening and include a coupon. Your goal is to drive foot traffic as the experience they get in your store will be better than any chain.
