Are you having trouble marketing your independent community pharmacy? If so, you may want to reevaluate your pharmacy’s branding. After all, if you don’t know who you are, how can you expect anyone else to?
Building your brand is essential, as it’s the backbone of your pharmacy. It defines who you are and what differentiates your pharmacy from your competitors.
Without quality branding, your pharmacy holds little-to-no value. It’s not just about the name you choose, or the products you sell, it’s about who you are as a whole and what value you can provide to potential patients. Once you establish a brand, it’s vital that you ensure everyone and everything in your pharmacy aligns with it.
Regardless of how much time and money you spend on marketing and advertising, your efforts won’t be successful if you don’t clearly and effectively communicate your brand.
Here are a few ideas to consider when building your independent community pharmacy’s brand.
Build a brand that your employees embody
Being able to communicate who you are as a business to your employees is essential to ensuring your brand’s message is executed properly.
It also helps you measure who is performing well and who isn’t. For example, if you say you’re the friendliest pharmacy in town, your employees need to actually be the friendliest pharmacists and pharmacy techs in town.
Employees need to understand how important your brand is to you, and be ready to live up to its expectations. Aligning themselves with your brand will also give employees a sense of pride in what they do, which will allow them to perform better.
Create a brand that properly positions your pharmacy to your target audience
When you’re building a brand, you have to know how to position it to the audience you’re going after.
Think about what your target audience values, and make that the basis for your brand’s message.
For example, if you want to attract patients who are young professionals, then emphasize the speed and convenience of your pharmacy. But remember, you must be sure that your pharmacy is designed and operated in a way that allows patients to easily get in and get out quickly.
Build a brand that distinguishes your pharmacy from competitors
It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, especially in pharmacy.
Do your research and get to know your competitors, so you can build your brand in a way that distinguishes your business from other pharmacies.
Independent community pharmacies often do this by establishing closer relationships with patients. This approach is great, but try and take it a step further.
For example, say your competitor focuses more on convenience, and therefore is unable to make their staff members as accessible as some patients would prefer. To distinguish your pharmacy, you can promote the fact that all of your pharmacists truly enjoy talking to people, and will take any and all time necessary to consult with patients about their medications and health conditions.
Use your brand to determine how to spend your marketing efforts
Once you build your brand and clearly understand who you are, you can determine the best way to spend your marketing efforts.
Your brand should be evident in everything you do, whether it’s the appearance of your pharmacy, the types of employees you hire, and their behavior, or the marketing messages you send to patients.
If you brand your business as the friendliest pharmacy in town, your pharmacy should appear inviting, and patients should feel welcome and comfortable. Your employees should always have their game faces on, ready and willing to assist patients in any way possible—with a smile.
When marketing your pharmacy, touch on the friendliness of your pharmacy and tie examples of this into your marketing campaigns to be sure that potential patients see the value in your brand. Patients must understand how they would benefit from using the friendliest pharmacy in town if they’re going to choose your business over the competition.
For more insight into building a better brand, check out these seven questions to test the strength of your pharmacy’s brand.
