When it comes to marketing your independent community pharmacy, establishing a strong brand for your business will help leave a positive impression in patients’ minds.
Marketing your pharmacy requires a carefully planned approach. Putting an ad in the local newspaper once in a while or a one-time listing in the yellow pages is not a sustainable approach to marketing your pharmacy. You need to work to establish a brand for your pharmacy that keeps your patients coming back.
Definition of a brand
Growing your pharmacy as a “brand” means more than just slapping your logo on signs, brochures and your storefront. Although visual elements, such as a logo, can be part of your brand, they don’t make up your brand.
Essentially your brand is your pharmacy’s reputation in patients’ minds, such as the friendliest pharmacy in town or the most convenient pharmacy.
The parts of a brand
A brand can include many elements, but essentially certain features make up a brand. A core message, ideas and image all interrelate to create a brand.
Message
Developing a brand starts with a message. You need to take the time and do the research to develop a core message that indicates what your pharmacy stands for—and then incorporate it into all of your operations. Understanding your customers, your market and industry trends can help you develop a message that defines who you are as a business.
Ideas
A brand lives in the minds of your customers. So, the ideas you put in their heads about your business, help make up your brand. Everything from the consistently friendly way pharmacists and cashiers interact with customers to the décor in your store can influence your brand. It’s all about shaping customers’ perceptions.
Image
Well-designed representations of your pharmacy can turn current states into preferred states. Meaning, design can help make your pharmacy appear more “modern” in customers’ eyes if that’s how you want customers to view your store, or it can help your business seem more a part of your community if that’s what you’re striving to achieve. Whatever message you want your pharmacy to project, design can help.
Design can also pinpoint issues with your brand. Maybe you feel like your website just doesn’t “look good”? Or that your pharmacy’s logo looks a bit outdated? These smaller issues might represent a larger branding problem.
Discover how revitalizing your brand can improve your business. PBA Health’s marketing services can design your pharmacy logo, help craft your message, redesign your website or assist you with a full branding overhaul.
