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Email marketing is a great tool for community pharmacists to communicate directly with patients and customers.
If you’ve ever thought about email marketing to help promote your business but don’t know where to start, this blog is for you.
Even if you’ve never seriously considered it before, this blog will give you a better understanding of why it’s something you should think about for the future.
Why email marketing is a good idea for community pharmacies
It’s not expensive
Compared to some marketing tactics, like PPC, email marketing is relatively inexpensive.
At the most basic level all you need is an email list and an account to send emails from (although to do it properly you’ll be best investing in some email software).
And as pharmacists continue to offer more clinical services, or have data linked to registrations for 24/7 collection points or prescription apps they’ll continue to build information on patients that can prove useful for promoting future services.
You own your list
One of the best things about email marketing is, because the people on your list have signed up to receive emails, they’re already an engaged audience.
This is compared to disruptive marketing tactics, which generally go after customers who aren’t necessarily interested in you.
Plus, your email list belongs to you.
That means there’s no chance of a random algorithm suddenly impacting your account (which is what can happen with social media accounts).
You can be more targeted
The most effective way to do email marketing for your community pharmacy is to segment your audience so you can create tailored emails.
There are lots of ways to split your audience:
- Gender (for gender specific products or services)
- Previous purchases
- Prescription patients vs clinical services
Splitting your larger list into smaller segments means you can be more targeted with your content and offers, and improve your chances of getting an ROI.
It also reduces the chances of people unsubscribing from your email list for receiving content or offers that aren’t relevant to them.
For independent prescribers, apps like BeWell and Healthera allow for targeted patient campaigns, making it easier to get the right information in front of the right patients at the right time.
With these apps, patients can turn on push notifications so they’re alerted when they receive relevant communications through the app. Again, combining this functionality with highly targeted campaign content can be highly effective for promoting your products and services.
It’s easy to track results
If you’re going to put time and effort into email marketing, you’re going to want to track results to see if it’s worth it.
Email software allows you to track all your key metrics like email opens, clicks and unsubscribes.
Using this information you can constantly improve your email marketing over time to get better results.
It also allows you to test parts of your emails like the subject line; text vs visual emails; CTA buttons etc so you can see what’s working and what could be better.
Sales vs informational emails
No-one wants to be constantly sold to, and that’s where most businesses go wrong with email marketing.
If the only time your audience ever hears from you is when you’re trying to sell something, you’re not likely to be very successful.
Instead, the majority of your email marketing should be dedicated to relevant, informational, educational content that your audience can benefit from.
For example, emails with content like:
- How to reduce your chances of getting a cold
- How to protect yourself in the Sun this summer
- Tips to stop smoking
Provide your audience with real advice they can use, without selling to them.
Then when you email with a new offer (like promoting allergy medication during hayfever season) they’ll be more receptive to it.
Calls to Action
Every email you send should include a Call to Action (CTA).
A CTA is something you want your audience to do after they’ve read your email.
Whether it’s clicking through to more educational content on your website, or making a purchase, always think about what you want your audience’s next step to be.
How much is too much when sending emails?
There’s no easy answer for how many emails you should send your audience, because what might be too much for one person might not necessarily be too much for someone else.
The best way to find out the right volume of emails to send, is to test.
You could start by sending one email a month, then move to bi-weekly and move to weekly if you don’t see a sudden increase in unsubscribes or drop-off in engagement.
It’s unlikely you’ll be sending daily emails (unless someone has signed up for a particular type of email, like a best deals email) but you'll find the right frequency over time.
Dealing with data privacy for email marketing
Under rules like the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) you can’t just send marketing emails to anyone whose contact details you have.
They must opt in to receive communications.
There are lots of ways you can encourage patients and customers to opt into receiving your emails.
Ask them instore
If someone makes a purchase, uses a service or makes an enquiry in your pharmacy, ask them if they’d like to sign up to receive more information in the future.
Use a sign up feature on your website
If you have a website for your pharmacy, you could easily add a module asking people to sign up for newsletter content.
If you haven’t built a website for your pharmacy, social media can be a good alternative. You can signpost people from your accounts directly to a form where they can sign up for emails to receive future communications.
Get better at marketing your pharmacy with our guide
If you want to see better results from marketing your pharmacy then download our Ultimate Guide to Pharmacy Marketing.
In the guide you’ll get easy to use tactics that you can start using straight away along with a quick guide to which tactics can deliver the quickest results with the least amount of effort.
Download the guide and start seeing better results from your pharmacy marketing.
