In this presentation delivered at The Pharmacy Show in 2021, Saam talks about how Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can help plant your private services on the first page of Google and drive significant revenue from them
That graph represents the most remarkable story for a particular independent pharmacy up in Scotland.
Can you see that red arrow there…that’s when I still classed the business as a pharmacy back in May 2020.
Its private service offering was doing well but like most other pharmacies, its bread and butter were prescriptions.
But fast forward to today, I can no longer call this business a pharmacy. A more accurate description would be along the lines of:
Slide 3
“Hollistic Primary Healthcare Hub”
Let that slide sink in for a second.
Look at how the private service offering today now dwarves its NHS services, and look at the variety there. Not only can you get your prescription, but this “pharmacy” can also help you:
Get your yellow fever vaccine before you travel
Remove that excess build-up of wax in your ears
Feel more energetic with a Vitamin B12 injection
Clear up your chest infection with antibiotics through its private GP offering
Access a dentist immediately to help with your persistent toothache
Help you lose weight via the most powerful POM treatment on the market
And much, much more…
It truly is a one-stop-shop for many of your healthcare needs.
Slide 4
Furthermore, this business is absolutely thriving financially. The private service side is generating more revenue than its NHS side, and much more profit. Prescriptions have become their secondary source of income. They are now working on automating more of their prescription journey so that profits can improve on that side too.
Slide 5
For me, that’s the future of Community Pharmacy. Automating the prescription journey as much as possible and focussing on the provision and growth of clinical services.
Not only will you be building more avenues of revenue, but you’re stepping away from the mundane tasks of checking prescriptions towards a more fulfilled holistic service approach, and improving access to healthcare in your area.
This kind of opportunity exists for all pharmacies around the Nation. It’s how your gonna survive and massively thrive.
Slide 6
Now, getting to this position requires that you innovate and think about your business in a different way.
There are many factors that you have to consider, such as:
Getting trained to provide these services in the first place
Making sure you have the right resource levels to deliver
You’ve developed strong SOP’s , and so on.
Essentially, you need to be in a position to be able to deliver these services well to your patients.
But aside from delivery, you will not get towards the success levels of this pharmacy without the right digital infrastructure around your services, and investing in marketing. And in terms of marketing, one of the secret weapons to driving 100’s of clinic bookings every month is Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO.
SEO is what I’m gonna talk about primarily in this session. It is the most underutilised marketing tactic in pharmacy but one that offers the biggest opportunity, and I firmly believe it can change the landscape of Clinical Community Pharmacy.
Slide 7
So just before we get into the juicy world of SEO….the rest of this content is available in The PM Academy!Sign up for free hereto download all the slides and the transcript 🙂
Emergency Contraception & Erectile Dysfunction services are such important services, providing care to people in vulnerable situations. But navigating ethics, regulations, and public perceptions when promoting these services is tricky.
Marketing Emergency Hormone Contraception and Erectile Dysfunction (EHC & ED) is important to get right. Not only does it help deliver care and change lives for the people in your community, but marketed correctly, these services help keep your business profitable and sustainable.
So let’s take a look at effectively marketing your ED & EHC services in 5 simple steps.
1. Sensitivity first
As a pharmacist, you don’t need me telling you that Erectile Dysfunction & Emergency Hormone Contraception are both sensitive services from a patient’s perspective. Discretion, judgement free delivery of these services is a must. And whilst neutrality is one thing, compassion also goes a long way.
You probably manage your services in this way – but not everyone does. Patients may have previous bad experiences, so make your pharmacy’s approach clear.
Remember: your entire pharmacy team needs to be 100% sure on how to manage these patient experiences. Semi-regular briefings help keep everyone on the same page.
2. Perfect Patient Experience
Other than your pharmacy team’s conduct, there are ways of providing a service which your community values.
The main things they value with both services are discretion, safety and effectiveness.
That’s one of the main draws of the direct online route – people ideally want complete privacy.
Whilst you might not win over every single patient who might’ve otherwise gone online, providing an environment promoting privacy gives a convenient alternative.
Consider offering at least one of the following:
A Pharmacy Messenger/WhatsApp channel for patients to communicate through.
Online booking facilities for private consultation rooms.
Video Consultations
3. Advertising Do’s & Don’t’s for EHC & ED
As per medicine advertising guidelines, you cannot directly advertise Prescription-Only Medicines (POM’s). It’s good practice to promote the service or condition you’re treating rather than the medicine itself.
You’ll also likely need LegitScript verification for advertising these services. Pharmacy Mentor can assist you with this process.
DO
DO show sensitivity in your wording of any advertising of your service
DO make use of Local SEO & Sponsored Social Media Ads to advertise your service.
DO make sure you aren’t violating terms and conditions when using Facebook & Google.
DO Ask Pharmacy Mentor for advice if you aren’t sure.
DON’T
DON’T Include ED or EHC in any discounts or special offers. This makes patients feel like you’re charging more than you could ordinarily.
DON’T Advertise POM’s directly. Always advertise the condition or service.
DON’T forget your pharmacy reputation is affected by the style of your advertising, for better or worse.
DON’T try to compete on price – compete on service and trust instead.
Making your EHC & ED Services get clicks on Google
There are two stages of getting clicks on Google.
The first is appearing on Google in the first place. But we’ll cover that in the next section.
How do you ensure your website is the one that gets clicked, instead of your competition?
Put your USP in your headline
Your opening line on anything promoting your service is like a headline of a newspaper. Grabbing your audience immediately is the name of the game, but it requires balance, so you aren’t perceived as clickbait or spammy, especially on sensitive subjects like ED & EHC.
There’s limited space for your headlines, so prioritising is key.
What is your main USP? The reason your consumers choose you over your competitors? Those should be in your headline.
The Superdrug advert below does a good job with “No Doctors Visit Required.” This addresses a concern of their target market (convenience) and therefore speaks more directly to them than other Ads.
For Community Pharmacy, your USP might be safety and professional advice in-person. Or it might be that patients can collect immediately without waiting for delivery.
For patients who don’t want to leave their home, consider offering a video consultation.
Remember, this headline is solely about getting the click. Once the patient has clicked on your headline, this can link to a webpage with much more information. You don’t have to put everything about your service in the headline.
Promoting Your Service through Social Media Adverts (Paid)
Social Media (especially paid advertising through social media) is a great place to promote private services. Especially ones that people often delay treatment for, such as Erectile Dysfunction.
However, sensitivity is once again paramount.
Avoid profiling. Social Media sites terms and conditions prohibits negative profiling in social media copy.
You can restrict EHC marketing to women and ED to men – but you can’t specify your target audience using your copy – this is profiling.
Examples of Adverts that Meta (formerly Facebook) Will & Won’t Accept:
An example of unacceptable profiling in a Meta Ad:
Are you a young, nervous woman who needs the Morning After Pill?
Middle-aged and struggling with ED?
The phrasing of “young & nervous” makes the person reading the advert feel targeted. And whilst that’s acceptable for some forms of advertising, when it comes to sensitive subjects like EHC, ED & Weight Loss, it’s prohibited.
Also avoid words like “struggling” as it paints a negative light and Meta doesn’t want their users feeling negatively whilst using their Instagram & Facebook.
Example of acceptable Meta Ad copy:
Need professional, confidential advice about the Morning After Pill?
Get professional, medical support for ED and feel your best self!
Difficulties in advertising – don’t get banned
It’s becoming increasingly difficult for pharmacies to advertise online at all without LegitScript.
Companies like Meta & Google were previously pretty lax on advertising around medicine. But since the pandemic, with an increase in illegitimate drugs being sold online, their regulations are far stricter. Pharmacies have found themselves permanently bannedfrom advertising for advertising in a way previously deemed fine.
Not sure if you need LegitScript Certification?
Talk to Pharmacy Mentor and we’ll discuss whether you need certification based on your advertising activity.
4. Providing Information & Guidance Online
As a pharmacist, you’re the most convenient source of trusted healthcare advice in your local community.
It’s this advice which is what direct online solutions cannot offer, and it’s what increases your market share, promoted correctly. One of the biggest concerns with emergency contraception, as an example, is safety. People feel reassured having a qualified professional in front of them telling them it’s safe.
However, giving guidance online is important. People typing in these questions in your local area finding you as the source of the answer means more patients. Younger people especially search for advice online before seeking it elsewhere. Creating content for your website around both EHC & ED means when your community searches these questions, you appear with answers.
Once they visit your site for the answers, you simply guide them towards your pharmacy for their treatment.
Whilst many pharmacy services are seasonal, Emergency contraception & Erectile Dysfunction demand is consistent through the year, meaning a stable source of revenue for your pharmacy.
5. A New Way to Serve Your Community
For Community Pharmacy, your competition, as usual, is Online Direct Suppliers, offering convenience (not having to leave the house) as their USP with same-day or next-day delivery.
With our Independent Prescribing Website Add-on, you can rival this service. Take orders, payments and approve online risk-assessment forms. This process saves you time by automating all the administrative processes, gives you an audit trail, and lets you focus on care.
After that, encouraging the patient to collect in the pharmacy is the best port-of-call, as you can then give them the advice they need with the meds. We even built a specific “Pay Now, Collect-In-Store” option for Community Pharmacy.
Moving towards a modern healthcare hub, service-focused model of pharmacy, setting up an Aesthetics Clinics in your pharmacy makes perfect sense. It’s a business that can completely stand on its own, being a high-end luxury service rather than the lower-end necessities.
Why should you set up an Aesthetics Clinic in your pharmacy?
They’re incredibly profitable. Successfully run, an aesthetics clinic can be more profitable than a pharmacy.
See number 1.
No, but seriously, there are many reasons to set up an aesthetics clinic. Perhaps you enjoy doing it. Perhaps you believe the industry practice could be improved with more highly qualified clinicians.
But, if done well, (which we’ll cover below) it will make you lots of money and as a business, that’s a real consideration. And as a healthcare institution, you’ve already got a great awareness of the medical side of the business. As ultimately, although it is a luxury boutique, it’s founded in healthcare.
The problem is, a lucrative business comes with lots of competition. Who doesn’t want to make lots of money? But…
Pharmacies are perfectly placed to deliver Aesthetics Clinics as a trustworthy healthcare institution
Luxury customer experience is idealised by the people seeking these treatments, but ultimately their health is their main priority. They want 100% confidence their procedure will go well.
Whilst levels of qualification are required to perform these cosmetic treatments, a pharmacist’s experience and qualifications stand head and shoulders above people whose only medical qualifications are the cosmetic ones.
Being at the heart of your local community also offers the convenience of proximity for a service where a lot of patients want repeat services every few months. Most pharmacies have a consultation space, allowing procedures to be conducted privately and comfortably.
Your Consultation room may not offer the luxury feel of other Aesthetic clinics. A great experience is often the difference between a one-time customer and a repeat customer. If necessary, invest in a facelift for your pharmacy and consultation room.
How’s your consultation room game?
Why shouldn’t you set up an Aesthetics Clinic in your pharmacy?
It’s easy to get swept away in the idea of making lots of money, but Aesthetics Clinics are a big commitment and shouldn’t be undertaken without being properly thought through.
Here are 3 reasons you shouldn’t set up an Aesthetics Clinic.
Aesthetics is, perhaps unsurprisingly, utilised by people who place a lot of emphasis on looks and a luxury experience.
If your pharmacy doesn’t look modern, this could hamstring any efforts to attract people to your clinic. If your consultation room isn’t up to scratch, again this will dent your appearance as “high-end.” People won’t spend a lot of money somewhere they don’t perceive to be high-end. Your medical and clinical experience is already high-end compared to most cosmetic clinicians. But your experience needs to match to make the very best profits.
Neither you nor your team has an interest in aesthetics and learning to be competent.
To re-iterate: the experience of aesthetics treatments should not feel like going for a vaccine, and the treatment is also more complicated. People want an experience to make them feel valued. What this entails varies from individual to individual.
But if you’re only interested in a money-making machine, people will find somewhere else that gives them the experience they seek. Either that, or you’ll have to make your model low-cost, high volume. It’s a lot harder to make a margin this way. It’s also a lot of time being spend doing aesthetics treatments if you have no real interest in it.
Superdrug offers an extremely cheap option, but with their marketing budget, their margin might come from increased footfall in their store. The hope that by attracting aesthetics patients they’ll also cross-sell make-up or other beauty products. (something you should consider doing no matter your price)
You have no marketing strategy for it.
If you don’t know how to connect your service to your paying customers, then there’s really no point investing in not just this, but any service. Our Powerful Aesthetics Marketing service is perfect if you don’t want to do this yourself.
If you’re in this position currently, consider improving these areas. It’ll massively ramp up your chances of success.
Marketing your Aesthetics Clinic – Setting yourself up for success
Let’s just make it clear what I mean by marketing – connecting your product/service to your customer. Without that, you’re not going to get anyone into your clinic. If no one knows you offer the service, how can they buy it from you?
Relying on people seeing your service in your pharmacy is going to be slow, slow going. Generally speaking, the market for your aesthetics clinic and the market for your pharmacy will have limited crossover. We’re talking about very different customers. So you need a very different marketing strategy. Your offering could be completely different from an Aesthetics Clinic down the road from you too. So you could need a very different strategy from them.
Your logo, your branding, your website, your social media, your content, even your premises will need to reflect the service you’re offering. And that might sound like a lot of work. But Aesthetics Clinics can make you lots of money. No one ever gets that without work. Set up in the right way though, you can reap handsome rewards. But it’s all dependent on the marketing.
Logo/Branding
Image is everything. For the vast majority of your customers, their first impression and their decision to visit your Aesthetics clinic will be made online. So you have to look, sound, and feel like a brand they’d expect to buy a treatment from.
Website
If you want to have your Aesthetics Clinic share a website with your pharmacy, then the bar for visual appeal needs to be set for the Aesthetics business, not the pharmacy. Your pharmacy customers won’t be put off by a website that looks excessively good for a pharmacy, but your aesthetics customers will be put off by a website that doesn’t look good.
The impression it gives? “If you can’t make your website look good, how can you make me look good?”
SEO
Let’s go back to the definition of marketing. Connecting your service to your customer. The perfect time to do this than when the prospective customer is searching for the service.
At it’s core, SEO means that your website gets found when people search for things. Want your Aesthetics Clinic to be found when people search for “Botox Injections?” You have to optimise your website for that phrase. The video below demonstrates Google searches for different key phrases “botox injections” and “aesthetics injections” and shows how different websites show up for what is a very similar phrase.
Your average ignoramus like me wouldn’t have a clue about the difference between plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery. So it’s important to be found for all the different search terms that people will use when they want your service.
Understanding what people are searching for is critical to getting your service found. If you’re trying to be found for “Aesthetics Clinic” instead of “Plastic Surgery” for instance, you’d be barking up the wrong tree. Plastic Surgery is searched for around 30x more on average and sometimes 50x more. Even though you don’t offer Plastic Surgery, you could optimise a blog post with the title “Plastic Surgery vs Cosmetic Surgery? What’s the difference and which one fits your needs?”
The same is true for “Botox Injections” – and any other service you’d offer. Just like people don’t search for a pharmacy when they want an earwax removal or a travel vaccine, people don’t search for an aesthetics clinic when they want treatments, they search for the treatments.
A Google Trends graph showing the difference in search terms between “Botox” (shown in blue) and “Aesthetics Clinic” (shown in red)
Social Media
The Social media strategy for Aesthetics Clinics differs from a pharmacy strategy in a number of ways. Aesthetics is a visual domain and needs a visual strategy to match. The primary audience for aesthetics is on Instagram, but that doesn’t mean ignoring Facebook, or even Nextdoor. There are tools to utilise on each platform that can help to not only capture new business, but also retain your existing business. This is super critical for aesthetics, as treatments like fillers require repeat visits every few months. Customer retention should be a big focus of your strategy.
You’ll also need to build and optimise your Google My Business profile and begin generating reviews on there. Social proofing is everything when it comes to Aesthetics.
Paid Ads
Paid ads combine the best of Social Media and Search Engines and hand it to you on a plate. Top of Google. Seen on Social Media. Guaranteed.
What’s the catch? You have to pay for it, naturally. But don’t let that put you off.
Digital advertisements provide better value, better analytics, and better targeting than any other form of advertising. Why does anyone advertise? Because the money it costs you to advertise is far less than the money you make by advertising. Creating and developing a successful ad campaign can be the difference between success and failure.
Ads are especially useful for getting business in the first few months while your organic strategy is growing.
Want help marketing your Aesthetics Clinic?
Our Aesthetics Marketing makes your clinic visible, accessible, and convenient to the relevant people and sets you up to capture the market and the profits which follow.
Understanding what people search for is critical in getting your service found. If you’re targetting “Aesthetics Clinic” instead of “Botox” for instance, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Plastic Surgery is searched for around 30x more on average and, in this spike,100x more.
Harnessing these trends both on Google & Social Media is fundamental to a successful Aesthetics clinic, which is a great opportunity to grow a large revenue stream.
(Taken from our current poll on LinkedIn #impartial)
Our Aesthetics Marketing makes your clinic visible, accessible, and convenient to the relevant people and sets you up to capture the market and the profits which follow.
Interested in the opportunity to run an excellent aesthetic clinic in your pharmacy? Check our Powerful Aesthetics Marketing and talk to us about how we can help you set up.
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https://www.pharmacymentor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Aesthtics-Clinic-Pharmacy-1.png10801920JP Quinnhttps://www.pharmacymentor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Pharmacy-Mentor-Logo-Header-Website-300x56.pngJP Quinn2021-04-29 11:26:482023-03-15 09:01:10How to set up a successful Aesthetics Clinics in Pharmacy
The demand for a Covid-19 Vaccine will be sky-high. How do you market the Covid-19 vaccine as a pharmacy professionally and effectively?
How and when will Community Pharmacies be able to offer the Covid-19 vaccine?
The Covid-19 vaccine is getting its first major rollout in the UK. Community pharmacy is expected to play a part in the massive vaccination drive. However, because of the specific storage requirements of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines, it’s unlikely many will play a part initially, so it might be a while until you can market the Covid-19 Vaccine for your pharmacy.
We won’t go into how to offer a Covid-19 vaccine in this article though, as that’s been covered plenty of times by the governing bodies in pharmacy.
What we’re going to cover is how to market the vaccine if you do end up offering it. The tips we’ll cover will both drive people to your Covid-19 vaccine service AND make your life easier.
How to use Facebook, including setting up auto-replies and posting.
Creating a dedicated COVID-19 vaccine page on your website
Updating your Google Business Profile
Advertising Your Service (without breaching policies)
1. How to use Facebook to generate awareness, build trust, and save you time
The vast majority of the UK will have Facebook profiles, and it’s a source of information that is widely shared. As a trusted healthcare provider, sharing accurate advice with links to the NHS or the UK Gov. site helps build trust in your community and keeps them aware of when they might be eligible for the vaccine.
An example of a Facebook post you should share with your community,
Every pharmacy gets those people who come in and want to ask you every question under the sun whilst 10 customers look at their watches in the queue behind them. Imagine being able to tell them that they can find all the information on your Facebook page, and if they still have any questions to send you a message on there. (More on this below!)
It is unclear at this early stage as to whether you will be allowed to promote a COVID-19 vaccine service on Facebook at all. During the pandemic, Facebook have been extremely strict on allowing any promotion of anything which claims to protect against COVID-19. Whether this changes with approved vaccinations remains to be seen. You should always check with your friendly neighbourhood Pharmacy Mentor before promoting via Facebook. We keep ourselves up-to-date with exactly what you are and aren’t allowed to promote on Facebook. You don’t want to end up with your Facebook page being banned.
Auto-replies on Facebook
Set Up Auto-Replies on Your Messages Inbox
This useful trick is for busy pharmacists who don’t have time to answer messages on Facebook. It also gives a channel of communication for your patients who prefer using Facebook.
Think of all the common questions you get asked about services.
Is it free?
What are your opening hours?
Do I have to book? Etc, etc.
We manage a lot of Pharmacy Pages, we know the types of questions people ask. It’s normally something they could Google, but prefer to stay on Facebook.
Instead of their message going into a black hole and making you look bad at responding, you can set up an automated response to Frequently Asked Questions.
You should always try to answer the question if possible. But you can also give them a call-to-action as well. Include links or phone numbers in this response, whatever your preference and tell them how to book or where to find out more information.
2. Create a dedicated Covid-19 Vaccine page on your website
Example page for a client of ours
Your website is your online shop window, so make sure you or your developer updates it to reflect that you’re providing the Covid-19 vaccine service. As soon as the user lands on the site, they can’t miss it. Have one button which leads to a blog post/web page about the service for the patient to learn more, and one that jumps straight to a booking calendar link for people who want to jump straight in.
Pharmacies we worked with did similar things for Covid-19 PCR Testing.
The content of this dedicated page should make both yours and your patients’ lives easier. Set expectations. Give information. Answer Frequently Asked Questions.
All of this helps streamline your processes and create more revenue.
Screening & Risk Assessment Forms
Most clinical services have elements of risk, meaning patients often need screening for pre-existing health conditions or other factors that can present risks such as age or current medications. Most recently at the time of writing, people receiving the Covid-19 vaccine appear to be at risk if they have strong allergic reactions.
Rather than waiting for the patient to come all the way into the pharmacy, or you having to phone them, why not have a form on your website that they can fill in? It saves both parties time and hassle.
Let people book their Covid-19 Vaccine online with you
Another amazing time-saver for you, and more convenience for your customer, keeping your phone lines free and your vaccinations organised automatically. Adding a booking calendar to your website allows you to take bookings not only for Covid-19 Vaccines, but for any other service you offer like Flu Jabs.
If your customer is booking at any time when your pharmacy isn’t open, the ability to book online is critical for making sure their experience with you gets off to a good start.
You aren’t just competing with other pharmacies for convenience….people can book their hair appointments online nowadays. They expect you to provide this option, and it doesn’t give the best impression of you if you don’t.
It’s worth mentioning that for most other services, it’s also a huge advantage to allow people to pay for their service when they book it. For one, it’s another major convenience for them. But it’s also a really committing action. People are a lot less likely to call up and cancel appointments when they’ve paid for them.
3. Update your Google My Business
Superb marketing tool
First things first, if you don’t already have a Google My Business profile, get one. For popular businesses like pharmacies they often get automatically generated. But if you’re not in charge of what’s on your profile, you don’t know what people are seeing when they find you online.
Presuming you’ve already got control of your account, for major pharmacy events like flu season and Covid-19, you want to make sure it’s updated so when people Google vaccines, they are reassured by your presence. Take the example above for Covid-19. People seeing this pharmacy are aware of the safety measures in place before attending. This lets your patient know what to expect and reassures them that you’re the right place to go.
If you’d like to set up your pharmacy on Google My Business, then you can take this quick course which will walk you through the whole process, step-by-step. Using instructional videos, the Drive Pharmacy Footfall with Google course will teach you how to use the tools within Google My Business to attract new customers.
4. Harness Google Ads and organic rankings
Be sure to check the Google Ads policies first
How do people who don’t know about your pharmacy find you? Heck, how does anyone find anything these days? Google, of course! (Other search engines are available.) Though being found on Google is pretty competitive.
How do you make sure you appear on Google when people are searching? Well, two ways really.
The easiest way is Google Ads
As shown in the image above. See how many ads show up before you even get a look-in with an organic page? The downside to Google Ads? Cost. The cost gets higher and higher the more competitive the search you’re trying to be top of is.
Note: It may not be possible to run Google Ads for the COVID Vaccine through your pharmacy due to the changing Google Ads policies. Stay up to date today and seek our guidance if necessary.
If you’re willing to test for a return on investment, Google Ads is a fantastic way to help you get the thousands of visitors that flow through Google every day to your website.
The most sustainable way is optimising your web page for SEO
Remember that dedicated web page we talked about earlier? Well, optimised in the right way, Google shows your article to more people. If your optimised web page is top of Google, that’s like being one of those department stores at the entrance to a shopping mall. People have to go through you first every time. Unlike those department stores, you don’t have to pay a premium rent (that’s Google Ads). With an optimised web page, Google rewards you for giving it a super relevant and optimised page to show people by showing it to people first, for free.
Interested in seeing this in action for a pharmacy? Check out this in-depth look at getting found on Google. It’s a case study of using the power of Google to promote COVID-19 PCR tests for a pharmacy, back when no one else was really doing it.
Avoiding Facebook Advertising
We won’t go into this in too much detail, but Facebook’s Ads Policy, which you won’t (and that’s fine), prevents you from promoting almost everything to do with COVID-19 right now. Recently you couldn’t promote so much as a face mask without facing a suspension of your Ads account. But this may change in the future.
You should also avoid posting too much on your Facebook page about any COVID-19 service, as we have seen pharmacies have their entire pages banned for such activity. Again, this may change, and we’ll update this article if it does.
But for now, avoid Facebook for directly promoting the COVID-19 Vaccine.
https://www.pharmacymentor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/How-to-market-the-covid19-vaccine-1.png10801920JP Quinnhttps://www.pharmacymentor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Pharmacy-Mentor-Logo-Header-Website-300x56.pngJP Quinn2020-12-16 09:42:162020-12-28 09:52:32How to Market the Covid-19 Vaccine for your Pharmacy
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a massive period of uncertainty for pretty much everyone. But where there is chaos, there is also opportunity. In this particular case, for pharmacies, the opportunity was marketing PCR Tests.
The Opportunity
The demand for PCR tests quickly picked up when lockdown was lifted and people were allowed to travel again.
This graph shows the popularity of the search on Google over the past 12 months.
The Results
Pharmacy Mentor harnessed this demand for our clients who offered PCR testing. We also recommended that other pharmacies begin to offer PCR testing through their pharmacy as a result of the trend analysis.
Here are the stats for one of them:
Off the wall statistics for an independent pharmacy website.
This reads like a marketing symphony. Imagine for a second that this was a physical pharmacy…
New users: – 28,702 people have walked into your pharmacy off the street. 28,702 people.
Sessions: – Those people came into the pharmacy on average 1.54 times.
Page Views: – Of the 90k page views, the consultation form page had 18.5k views. So, of those 28,000 people who walked into your pharmacy to ask about PCR tests, 18,500 signed up for a consultation.
Good Problems
It’s really been a bit of a problem. Because it’s not easy to cope with such demand.
Fortunately, the fact we have Telegram & WhatsApp support for our clients means they get instant support whenever they need it. And this did need quite a bit of support!
A separate phone-line and email had to be created for PCR requests and all other requests on their website. Fortunately, having created their website too, so we could do this immediately.
On-site consultations needed to become online consultations to make room for flu jab appointments. I’ll say that again. To make room for flu jab appointments. The pharmacy was wall-to-wall booked with PCR consultations.
Then online consultations booked up. We had to turn the form off temporarily because there was too much demand and people couldn’t book appointments.
We’ve had to evolve the website to be able to accept online payments to streamline the money coming into the business. Not a bad problem to have.
“Please help, I have so many calls and requests per day, I can’t process it all.” At its peak, marketing PCR tests was making this pharmacy £5k/day.
How we did it
You’ll likely want to understand how this happens, to get similar results for your pharmacy.
Two words. Keyword Optimisation.
Understanding how Google works, we created and optimised two articles for their website (yes, you need a website for this to work). Our keyword research found the terms that people mostly used to search. We published each article – making it both user-friendly (easy to read, easy to use) and Google-friendly (clearly optimised for keywords and formatted well).
A couple of weeks later, due to the lack of competition, the articles topped Google for the relevant keywords, beating the Government websites.
We created a digital form on the site for people to fill in so they could book everything online, as well as a payment mechanism. Two reasons for this:
It’s easier for you as a pharmacist to manage.
It’s better for the customer/patient – because when people are searching the internet:
They aren’t always in a position to pick up the phone
Phone lines might be busy
Your pharmacy might be closed when they’re searching for the service (in the evening!)
You lose customers by not allowing them to do everything online.
Able to act with our finger on the pulse
There was obviously the matter of timing, too. That’s why we’re the perfect healthcare partner. We know the heartbeat of healthcare when it comes to marketing throughout the year.
Overall, the investment on this project from the pharmacy was around £500. This resulted in making £1,000’s/day.
When the opportunity knocked, we answered.
Our monthly marketing packs give you access to what is essentially a remote marketing department. With constant dialogues from our team, you’ve got instant access to the trends and the tactics that maximise impact – from those trends, for your pharmacy.
PCR testing is an exceptional bubble, for sure. If you do offer PCR tests, get in touch nowbecause we can maximise your impact.
But this strategy works for all the PGDs and on-site services you offer, as well as eCommerce. There’s a massive vacuum on Google in the world of healthcare. Waiting for pharmacies like yours to fill it – and fulfil the demand of all the thousands of searches happening every day.
Looking for help in marketing your services better and building an online presence? Please get in touch with us. We’ll be glad to help.
I want to give you some statistics from the Social Media giant, Facebook, that I’m sure you will agree, are completely absurd.
1.9 billion people use Facebook every month, which is an increase of 17% from the year before, and is more than Twitter, Whatsapp and Instagram combined.
1.2 billion people log onto Facebook every day.
And every 60 seconds, 510,000 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are updated, and 126,000 photos are uploaded.
Facebook cannot be ignored. In fact, we can’t get away from the damn thing, and in this video, I’m gonna give you 5 reasons why you, as an Independent Pharmacy, should start using Facebook for your business.
Popularity
Firstly, Facebook is the most popular Social Media platform by a long, long way. More and more people continue to use Facebook and if you think the elderly don’t use it, think again. According to a report by SproutSocial, 56% of adults aged 65 and over, use Facebook. If your patients and customers are on their, it’s ideal for you to be there too.
Free and Powerful Marketing Tool
Secondly, it’s a free and very powerful marketing tool that will improve your sales and strengthen your brand. Organising in-store events, creating promotional offers and targeting a specific demographic of your local area are just a fraction of the tools Facebook offer which can really help boost your revenue.
Deliver Better Healthcare
Healthcare isn’t bound by the walls of your pharmacy any longer. Facebook is an extremely effective channel for delivering health advice and can be used to help more and more people stay healthy.
Build Stronger Relationships in the Community
Building relationships has never been faster and more effective. Through Facebook, we can communicate with local businesses and the community with ease, and as every business knows, better relationships mean better business.
Push Forward the Profession
And finally, by harnessing the power of Facebook, you’ll be pushing forward our profession. The more we use Social Media in general, the more we will establish ourselves as primary care in the community.
We can use Facebook to help the NHS Crisis
Facebook is undeniably important, and not just for your business and our profession, for the healthcare system as a whole. I fully believe that if every pharmacy in the UK learns to implement a solid Social Media strategy, it will help with the NHS crisis. Medicines wastage, unnecessary A&E referrals and GP waiting times could all be indirectly improved.
If you’d like to implement a Social Media Strategy within your Pharmacy, check out the Pharmacy and Social Media Mastery Course where you and your team can learn how to drive sales, improve your brand and build a stronger community.
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