As a business owner, you know about planning. You organized a business plan for your independent pharmacy when you started out. You’ve planned the most cost effective way to purchase prescription drugs, the most efficient computer system for your pharmacy and you’ve likely planned goals for the future. In the midst of all of this planning for a better business, have you created a marketing plan?
Not marketing your pharmacy means not capitalizing on all of that hard work you already put into your business. Marketing helps your business grow, better serve your customers and maximize profits. And it needs a solid plan behind it to work successfully.
Crafting a marketing plan requires critically thinking about your business. Use this step-by-step model to get started.
Situation
Creating a marketing plan requires first knowing where your pharmacy stands in the marketplace. Obtaining detailed demographic information about your customers and direct competitors can help you determine your business’ standing in the market.
To fully assess your situation, you’ll need to evaluate your customers, your competition and your current marketing efforts. Think about:
- What are your best customer segments?
- Are you focusing your marketing on the right type of customer?
- What are your pharmacy’s marketing advantages compared to your competition?
- Are you using the most appropriate channels of communication?
- What marketing trends can you capitalize on?
Objectives
Once you understand your pharmacy’s status in the marketplace, list your marketing goals. What do you want to achieve through marketing your pharmacy’s products and services? Choose goals that you can measure and reasonably achieve. Also, make sure to give yourself deadlines.
Maybe you want to increase your customer base? Set a timeline for how much you want to grow your customer base and establish a way for measuring the growth. Or, maybe you want to reposition how customers view your pharmacy? Perhaps you want to do away with an old-fashioned persona and come across as a modern pharmacy? Establish definable goals to achieve that status.
Strategy
Now, define how you’re going to achieve your goals! In this step, just look at the big picture. Think about what segments of the market you want to focus on. Maybe you want to focus on older patients, or families with young children. Refer to your market research from the first step.
Also, consider how you want your pharmacy to be perceived by the target markets you choose. Answer these big picture questions before going into details.
Tactics
Next, look at the details of your strategy. You need to determine the ins and outs of how you plan to implement your strategy. Think about:
- What communication tools will you use? Website, point-of-purchase materials, traditional media advertising, physician marketing? And, how will you use them?
- What messages do you plan to communicate?
- How will you maintain consistency across your communications?
- What’s your budget?
Actions
In order to have a successful marketing plan, you need to actively engage with it. Don’t just write your plan and let it gather dust. Make concrete decisions on when you’re going to implement your marketing strategies and stick with them. Write it down. And make sure to record the performance measurements of your marketing strategies with your predefined standards.
Control
Keep track of your progress. Regularly review your measurements. Check to make sure the results are aligning with your goals and adjust as necessary.
