Your patients are eager to access your knowledge to make better health choices.
When patients benefit from your knowledge and expertise, it builds a trusting relationship with you—and your business. So when you make product recommendations or suggest clinical services, they’ll be more likely to make a purchase.
The pharmacy counter isn’t the only spot to build your credibility with patients. Use these three alternative ways to share your knowledge with patients and build word-of-mouth about your business.
1. Keep a blog
When patients frequently visit your pharmacy’s website or blog to find health-related information, they’ll feel comfortable trusting your pharmacy when it’s time to choose clinical services or seek medication counseling.
Patients will visit your pharmacy’s blog to find expert advice about over-the-counter (OTC) medication use, disease states that your pharmacy specializes in, and general health and wellness information.
Maintaining your blog will also draw new patients to your website when they’re searching for information on a certain topic that you’ve written about.
Regularly updating your blog will also make it easier for patients to find your pharmacy’s website through search engines such as Google.
2. Hold a seminar
Consider offering a free seminar on health topics that prevalently affect your community. Topics could range from specific disease states, to weight loss, to understanding Medicare Part D plans.
While stand-alone seminars are beneficial, make sure to choose topics that will spark interest in clinical services or products you offer. For example, your quit smoking seminar could generate interest in your billable eight-week smoking cessation course.
Patients attending your seminar will also have the opportunity to meet other people who are facing similar challenges, which will establish your pharmacy as a community-centered business.
3. Offer informational literature
Providing your patients with easily digestible educational material that helps them understand the conditions they’re dealing with is a great way to bump up your pharmacy’s credibility.
Be sure to display your literature near the checkout for patients to take with them, or for a pharmacist to suggest during a relevant prescription fill. Your website is also an excellent home for this material.
Providing free health literature will encourage patients to ask you questions about their disease state or medication therapy. It also serves as an icebreaker for you to introduce clinical services or products that a patient would benefit from.
Offer these educational resources to generate patient interest in your pharmacy’s revenue-boosting clinical services and products.
