Pharmacy Branding & Marketing: It Begins Within Your “4 Walls”
It appears that most pharmacy businesses in the current market stay focused on and invest in getting more new customers. Have you kept track of your investment and the specific actions you take in an effort to hold onto existing customers? Because so few pharmacy owners really stop to consider these questions and often assume, incorrectly, that when a customer does business with us once, we become their vendor of choice from that point on. You can ask yourself this question — how busy would my pharmacy be today if I actually retained every customer with whom I have done business? The answer is HUGE!
No matter how much is spent on advertising or how many detailing calls are made, there is nothing that provides a better return on investment and effort, while at the same time, retaining more customers and generating continued positive, word-of-mouth advertising, than focusing within the four walls of your store. After all, where else do you have a captive audience of your most sought-after prospects? While it’s important to attract new customers, the least expensive and most effective strategy is to convince and influence people who visit your store to return again and again. Turning your physical space into a powerful advertising medium has the best overall return on investment — for customer retention and business growth.
Think of the store front-end as physical space consisting of merchandising zones designed to influence customer perceptions and buying decisions. Promotional messages and visual displays within these zones can be potent vehicles to increase revenues.
In addition to merchandising zones, every front-end has an equally important zone of persuasion — the internal customer zone. Internal customers are your employees. We call them internal customers because they are even more vital than customers themselves to your success. They are your “goodwill ambassadors,” whose every act and deed make permanent impressions on your customers. Do consumers value knowledgeable and helpful employees? Do consumers notice if employees actively practice the lost art of business etiquette? In a business where we all sell the exact same items in many cases as our counterparts, it’s important to remember that it’s not about what is sold, but how it is done. I often find independents focusing more on the delivery of the product, rather than the customer experience itself. Products rarely cause people to talk, but the experience most certainly will.
Other “merchandising” zones include current customers (the portion of the pharmacy that visible to the customer), the front-end (including all specialty departments), restrooms, parking lot, the telephone, and includes the drive-thru lane. Each of these zones provide enormous opportunities to offer your customers additional incentives to make purchases and create powerful impressions that will help build your brand, drive customer loyalty, and generate an exciting buzz about your business. By marketing in each business zone, an uncluttered medium is created that is more effective than radio, television, or print because the space is yours and yours alone.
Think of 4 walls branding and marketing as a business infomercial that runs from the time from when the store opens in the morning to when it closes at night. Every inch of physical space and everything that occurs inside the four walls of your store can be controlled. Within the four walls is an incredible opportunity to differentiate your pharmacy from the rest. This is particularly important in our industry again because we all sell the exact same products for the most part.
Remember, every solid strategic marketing plan must begin within the four walls of your business before it can extend to your property line and beyond. Before embarking on any outside advertising or promotional activity, dazzle your customers with persuasive messages within all the merchandising zones of your business.
*This article is published in the April issue of America's Pharmacist
