How to make your mark with marketing

When it comes to marketing, pharmacists are at a disadvantage. That’s because they are, by and large, science driven, not business driven, and much more comfortable behind the counter than in the spotlight. They are healthcare professionals first, merchandisers a distant second. They have spent years studying adverse drug reactions, not advertising; and the particulars of running the business side of a drugstore are barely touched on in pharmacy school. But while patient care is always the top priority, marketing your drugstore, the services you offer and yes, even yourself, is essential to attracting and retaining customers, driving sales and ensuring job satisfaction for your team. Here’s advice from three independent pharmacists on what they’ve learned about how to market effectively. Kyrollos Maseh Lawlor Pharmasave, Toronto: When you care, it shows It was his darkest hour and the single experience that would forever impact how Kryollos Maseh would choose to practise pharmacy. He was 21 and in hospital for brain surgery. He felt scared and alone until a nursing student came to his room, hugged him and cried with him. “That single act breathed new life into me. Just by her acknowledging my struggles on a personal level, I felt human. It’s the way I treat my patients today.” The owner of Toronto’s Lawlor Pharmacy, Maseh is outspoken about the “objectification” of patients by a healthcare system that too often puts a priority on efficiency over empathy. “You can easily fix someone’s physical symptoms only to have them kill themselves afterwards, if you overlook the depressed state they are in. I always say people aren’t upset because they are sick, people are upset because they feel abandoned. There are plenty of people I care for who are sick but when they walk in my pharmacy they get a good laugh, they smile and maybe even forget they’re sick for a few minutes.” Maseh has been outspoken on other subjects as well, which has garnered him generous media attention, especially during the early days of COVID-19 when he tweeted about the need for priority vaccines for essential workers as well as school teachers and daycare workers. When he held day-long clinics (with no appointment required) exclusively for these groups when the vaccine was in short supply, there were long lineups outside his pharmacy. “What I saw with the frontline workers and teachers was a tremendous amount of fear, then gratefulness,” he said in an interview with a local newspaper back then. “They did not feel safe going to work. They were grateful and now they feel protected.” When his store administered its 1,000th vaccine with a celebration of bell ringing and confetti cannons, the news was picked up by major TV networks including CTV and CNN. He also landed on the front page of the Toronto Star as one of the city’s 20 “vaccine heroes,” one of the people who “helped get more than 25 million doses into arms.” Since then, he has been the go-to pharmacist for Toronto media looking for a comment on everything from the rise in pharmacy robberies to the effect of wildfires on the health of Canadians. He promotes his media appearances, and makes frequent posts commending his staff and celebrating the pharmacy students he mentors, on his social media channels where he has a total of about 10,000 connections. Most of his marketing efforts have been organic, he says. “When we picked up a tremendous amount of media attention because of calling for priority vaccinations for teachers, it didn’t stem from me sitting down and considering our marketing plan and how do I get publicity. The publicity was a by-product of speaking out on behalf of teachers who were feeling unsafe in the classroom, especially those who had existing health conditions.” “All it takes is a smile, a fist bump, a shared laugh and you can do your part to alleviate the sense of anxiety that has become rampant in the western world.” — Kyrollos Maseh Despite all the media recognition, Maseh says what really keeps his customers coming back is the fact that he and his staff make them feel special and give them the attention they need. His primary objective, he says, is for his patients to feel good when they walk into his pharmacy, and he achieves this by ensuring each one is greeted personally at the door, by creating an upbeat ambiance with curated Spotify playlists of pop or Latin music (he’s also hired musicians to play in front of the store) and bright chalkboard art that features inspirational quotes from the likes of Mother Teresa. He adds a note of levity in the pharmacy by ringing a bell for every 10th customer who is vaccinated. (That’s a whole lot of bell ringing since his pharmacy has administered more than 12,000 vaccines.) “Practitioners are always talking about time constraints, but I don’t buy that. It’s just an excuse. All it takes is a smile, a fist bump, a shared laugh and you can do your part to alleviate the sense of anxiety that has become rampant in the western world,” says Maseh. “People are sick and tired of doom and gloom and want to be lifted up and cared for on a personal level when they are at their lowest point.” “The entire reason I created the culture we have is because of a four-minute interaction I had with that nursing student when I was in hospital 12 years ago,” he says. “I only remember her first name. It was Sarah.” Teresa Isabel Dias MenopausED: Learning to love social media Teresa Isabel Dias makes no secret about how she feels about marketing: “I hate it. It takes a lot of time. I prefer to be doing something else.” But she knows that it’s essential to the success of the menopause consulting business, MenopauseED, she launched almost a decade ago after working for 25 years as a community pharmacist. Dias was in her late 40s and experiencing dramatic mood swings when her son asked her if she was bipolar. It was perimenopause, not a mental illness—and it was her wake up call to launch a business to help women deal with the physical, cognitive and emotional issues caused by hormone fluctuations, from memory lapses to crying spells, difficulty sleeping and hot flashes. “I realized that if I wasn’t fully aware of the changes of the menopause transition then there must be a lot of other women who didn’t know either.” Dias earned her certification from the North American Menopause Society and began providing education and support on symptom management for women, initially in the community pharmacy setting and, when she realized clients wanted more privacy than the pharmacy could afford, she took her business online. “Marketing is one of the hardest parts of my business,” she says. “I never even had a Facebook account until I started my business. I never liked social media.” Now, Facebook, Instagram and, especially, LinkedIn, are her greatest assets in spreading the word about her menopause coaching services. Her free monthly Zoom workshops on a variety of menopause topics have helped her build an e-mail list of 700 subscribers. Dias also worked with a coach over a period of two years who helped her identify that the most profitable and rewarding aspect of her coaching was working with groups of women in leadership in the C-suite whose careers were being affected by menopause, a transition that can span a decade. She recalls working with one of her first clients, a senior employee at a large firm who struggled with her menopause symptoms, felt unable to cope and quit her job. “I made a vow that I would help women not quit,” she says. “That’s when I started doing ‘lunch and learns’ and health and wellness sessions in the workplace.” She reaches out to human resources and health and wellness department leaders via LinkedIn and presents to groups of senior women at businesses and organizations such as Maple Leaf Foods and the University of Toronto. Often these employees will become individual clients. Next February she will be hosting her first menopause retreat in Bali for 14 women at a cost of $2,500 each. Raising awareness on this issue has also put her in the media spotlight with numerous interviews on podcasts and, recently, with the CBC. “Menopause is the glass ceiling no one talks about,” says Dias. Thanks to her outreach efforts to individuals, corporations and the media, she’s getting people talking. Amy Oliver Amy Oliver & Co.: Focus on strategic networking and peer-to-peer mentorship “The core message I would give to pharmacists looking to grow their business is that traditional advertising and marketing is not going to do it,” says Amy Oliver, a leadership coach based in Winnipeg, MB, who, after working as a director of pharmacy operations for Shoppers Drug Mart for six years, struck out on her own to work with practice owners and leadership teams in the health care sector. “One of the most effective marketing strategies I’ve seen in pharmacies across the country is not stereotypical mailers and ads but strategic networking in the community.” The emphasis, she says, should be on “strategic,” not “random.” This means first aligning your practice with areas of interest that most excite you. “For example, someone who is passionate about athletics or fitness might want to focus on preventative health care or how to maintain good cardiac health,” says Oliver, who is also the Strategy columnist for Pharmacy Practice + Business. “Consider what lights you up and what sucks your energy. When I used to practise I didn’t always like working with diabetic patients, but if I got to work with a patient with mental health or postpartum issues, I was in my glory.” She points to the example of a small-town pharmacist who developed a highly successful niche as a travel health practice by promoting its services to local travel agents, religious organizations that conducted missionary trips, and a local women’s group that arranged annual trips for its members. “Talk to the people in your community who are related to the area of practice and patient population you are interested in —it could be seniors, women, the LGBTQ+ community—find out where these people gather, and who are the other businesses and services that reach that target and work with them to create partnerships.” She also encourages pharmacists to engage in peer-to-peer networking. “We need far more attention put on best practice sharing. For example, if you are in a province that’s just beginning to do prescribing, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We have pharmacists in Alberta and Saskatchewan who have been doing this for 10 years. Other pharmacists are usually flattered when you reach out to them.” For those pharmacists who feel overwhelmed by an already full workload, hiring a consultant or coach can be another way to strengthen their marketing efforts. “You don’t need to learn everything on your own—you can surround yourself with others who have these strengths,” says Oliver, whose coaching practice includes a 10-week Healthy Business virtual workshop series for healthcare practice owners, as well as on-site pharmacy assessment operations. Finding ways to attract new patients is much more expensive than keeping the ones you’ve already got. “When we focus all our attention on acquisition instead of retention, we lose our ability to get the free word-of-mouth advertising that comes from our existing patient base,” she says. “Loyalty marketing means not taking for granted how important the patient experience is. A good patient experience, keeps patients coming back, has a positive impact on health outcomes and employee engagement. Gaining that loyalty can be done through what she calls “quick wins,” actions as simple as taking a few seconds to ask a patient how they are really doing and using their names. “Acknowledge that their overall wellbeing is important and see them as people, not just patients,” says Oliver. “Every patient you serve has the ability to bring you more business and also the business of the people around them. This is more effective than blind advertising to a huge market of people who may not be interested.” Read: Part 2 in this series: How to make your mark with marketing: Part 2

How to make your mark with marketing

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