“Before, [pharmacy marketing] was very much about giving leaflets to your customer base. Everything’s going a lot more digital now.”
Those are the words of community pharmacist Gurminder Singh, speaking in an episode of our new docuseries, The Game Changers of Community Pharmacy.
Moving to a more digital form of marketing is a challenge community pharmacists now face as they begin to take on more services beyond just prescriptions.
With national services like those associated with Pharmacy First, pharmacists need to improve how they market to customers to take full advantage of their new opportunities.
Digital Displays are a key part of digital pharmacy marketing, allowing community pharmacists to transform their in-store marketing into a more dynamic model, rather than relying on stacks of leaflets or static posters.
In this blog we look at the main benefits of Digital Displays for community pharmacies and how they should be a central part of your pharmacy’s marketing plans.
In-store displays are a proven way of increasing initial and repeat sales.
According to the latest research, using digital displays to promote products and services in a retail setting can:
Whether you’re looking to promote medications, national services or general health advice, Digital Displays can help your pharmacy earn more money.
Although community pharmacies offer a much wider range of services, research suggests a barrier to uptake is that many patients don’t know these new services exist.
In one set of research, nearly half of patients (46%) said they weren’t aware of the Pharmacy First scheme or the services now available through their community pharmacy.
Digital Displays enable community pharmacists to promote multiple services in a more visible, noticeable way than using posters and leaflets.
Using bright digital displays around a pharmacy store, and in the window, can raise awareness of new services to more patients and ultimately improve sales and enquiries.
Used strategically, for example using a digital display to promote flu vaccinations above cold and flu medications in store, or promoting smoking cessation services above the relevant products, can give patients a nudge to enquire.
One of the most obvious disadvantages of using static posters and leaflets is that they’re limited to promoting one service at a time, and it takes effort to replace them when new products come out (not to mention additional costs to print and distribute them).
Digital Displays overcome this, because they can be programmed to change what appears on the displays throughout the day.
This means you as a pharmacist can promote multiple products and services without extra effort, and even use good advertising to promote multiple products and services on a single screen.
If creating content isn’t your thing, you can use the services of an agency or other provider to help with your content marketing with your displays.
Digital Displays also provide an opportunity to introduce video advertising into your pharmacy.
This has huge potential to improve revenue, because research suggests video ads deliver 48% more sales than static ads.
It’s strange to think of “customer experience” in a pharmacy setting, because pharmacies have traditionally been where you go to pick up a prescription, and nothing more.
But pharmacies now need to operate more like a retail setting.
And that involves thinking about how customers interact with the space and find what they need.
Digital Displays provide a more engaging and interactive environment for customers.
They can be used to signpost products so customers can easily find them (or to upsell and cross-sell products).
The displays can also be used to provide general health information (for example, 5 ways to avoid a cold during the Winter) or tips for improving general health.
You can also use them to provide patient testimonials and reviews of your services.
As well as increasing revenue by increasing sales, Digital Displays provide another, less obvious, way of increasing revenue for your pharmacy,
And that’s by selling advertising space on your digital display to other health organisations.
You could allow partners to use your Digital Displays to promote their own services or promote joint health campaigns with GP surgeries or other parts of the NHS.
By engaging with local partners you can create more potential opportunities to create an ROI from your Digital Displays, beyond just promoting your own services.
If you want more practical tips to help improve your pharmacy marketing, download our Ultimate Guide to Pharmacy Marketing.
The guide provides in-depth information on the different types of marketing you could use (from SEO, PPC and content marketing, to running local events and creating partnerships with other organisations).
Plus, as well as showing you how to start using each tactic, we break everything down so you know which tactic will deliver the quickest results for the least amount of time or effort.
Download the guide now.