Digital marketing tips from the frontlines

1. Remember, marketing is storytelling: What story are you telling as a pharmacist/pharmacy owner about yourself or your business? What do you want to be known for? Who are you trying to serve? What problem are you trying to solve? “Strategic marketing is an opportunity to re-train the patient on what to expect from us when they come to our pharmacy—just as we did with vaccinations and now minor ailments,” says Dixon. “A clear narrative informs your ideal customers as to what you do and what problem you help them solve. 2. Accept that it’s a digital world: In today’s digital landscape, we are competing with everyone from Amazon to virtual health clinics. “Your marketing strategy may need to evolve even with your elderly patients because they are more tech savvy than we might think; they are online consuming information and developing trust with other brands and other companies every single day.” On the other hand, contrary to the type of personalized service pharmacists prided themselves on in the past, younger patients might not care if you know their name, nor want to come into the physical drugstore to pick up their medications. “So how will you reach them and differentiate yourself from the competition? Strategic digital marketing allows you to meet them where they are searching for answers to their problems—and that’s usually online.” 3. Decide what you are going to be great at online: When creating content for any brand, you can’t be everything to everybody. “The more we ‘niche down’ and speak to a specific group of people who are looking to solve a specific problem, the more impact we’ll have,” says Dixon. Consider Dr. Andrea Furlan, a Toronto-based pain specialist who has almost 600,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel, which has grown at a phenomenal rate. “She knows exactly who she is talking to and the problems she is helping people solve.” 4. Get your staff involved: As a pharmacy owner or pharmacy manager, you’ll quickly burn out if you try to take on all digital marketing responsibilities yourself. Consider the strengths, interests and skills of your team and whether they could help developing a marketing strategy or even create content in-store for your business. Encourage them to develop and execute their ideas—and pay them for the extra work they do. If this is not possible, consider hiring an agency or virtual assistant to help you do this—this can often cost less than you expect, and be very effective. 5. Just do it: Having trouble getting started? There are so many ways you can reach out to current and potential customers; here are just a few ideas: You could collect emails from your customers (with their consent!) and create a digital newsletter for them. Make sure your website is easy to navigate and up to date. Use bag stuffers with QR codes to direct customers to your website for more information on particular topics or services. Create posts on social media that answer the questions your patients ask most often, or even run Facebook ads promoting your products and services. You could also consider creating content addressing current issues in health care and tag local media outlets to get their attention. The possibilities are endless. 6. Utilize digital tools: Familiarize yourself with the marketing and social media tools that will help you create winning content. Some of Dixon’s favourites include: Descript for video editing and transcribing, Answer The Public to discover the questions your customers are asking online, Capcut to create short form videos, Canva for graphic design and ChatGPT for idea generation.

Digital marketing tips from the frontlines

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