With the growth in pharmacists’ provider status and the expanding roles of pharmacy technicians, your pharmacy is sure to be busy this year.
As your schedule becomes increasingly demanding, it can seem difficult to focus on marketing your business. And, although marketing may not be your specialty, it’s an essential element to keeping your pharmacy up and running.
Make sure your pharmacy is keeping up with marketing this year. Here are five marketing trends to focus on in 2017.
1. Use social media for easy marketing
Consider integrating social media into your pharmacy’s marketing plan to be more productive with less effort.
Social media is a powerful marketing method that’s free (other than the time you put into it.) So, why not use social media to market your pharmacy?
You can even save time by using a tool like Hootsuite to preschedule social media posts and manage all of your social media accounts in one place.
(Need ideas for what to post on your social media accounts? Here are 15 ideas to keep your pharmacy’s social media fresh.)
2. Focus on mobile marketing to reach more patients
Patients are using their smartphones more than ever. Is your pharmacy doing any mobile marketing?
In the next two years, 72 percent of top marketing teams will increase spending on marketing and technology tools, according to the 2016 State of Marketing research report by Salesforce, a cloud computing company.
One idea to bolster your pharmacy’s mobile marketing is to create a smartphone app. You can use a smartphone app to send text alerts, send refill notifications, promote in-store specials and send reminders for patients to take their medications.
(Want more ways to increase your pharmacy’s mobile marketing? Here are 10 mobile must-haves for any independent community pharmacy.)
RELATED: Are You Making These Pharmacy Marketing Mistakes?
3. Evaluate your pharmacy’s marketing analytics
If you’d like to take your marketing up a notch this year, take time to evaluate your analytics. When you know the numbers about your marketing efforts, it’s easier to improve them.
A free tool called Google My Business allows you to track the success of your business’s Google listing with analytics, including views, clicks and how consumers use driving directions to find your business.
To increase your pharmacy’s Google ranking, focus on improving your search engine optimization (SEO). SEO refers to how search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing, index your website, and how you can improve your ranking by using strategic keywords.
For example, if you write a blog post about heart health, then the keywords you use in the article will prompt Google’s algorithms to rank your website higher in search engine results for “heart health”. When your website is higher in search results, potential patients are more likely to find you.
You can also look at analytics on your Facebook page, called Insights. With this tool, you can track your most popular posts, your fans’ demographics, your page’s overall audience and more.
4. Improve your marketing by keeping up with what’s happening
Being in the know is key to maintaining marketing success this year.
Follow relevant industry professionals on Twitter; sign up for daily email news updates; attend a continuing education (CE) course or visit a pharmacy conference to stay informed and learn new ways to make your business’s marketing more effective this year.
5. Strengthen your marketing presence on different social platforms
Although Facebook and Twitter might be your pharmacy’s only social media accounts, consider expanding your presence to different channels in 2017.
For example, maybe a member of your pharmacy team is familiar with YouTube, a video-sharing website. Consider sharing educational videos or tutorials, such as what patients commonly do wrong with vitamins or questions to ask your pharmacist.
LinkedIn, a business and employment-oriented social networking service, is another social media platform your business might not yet be on. The website is a great way to connect with like-minded professionals, grow your network and build new partnerships.
Maintaining a presence on multiple social media platforms will ensure your pharmacy appeals to different patients. It’s also a unique opportunity to make your name known to the public.
Consider trying some of these marketing resolutions in the New Year.
