Digital, whether it be via a smartphone, laptop, desktop, or tablet, is here to stay. This means online advertising for your pharmacy is crucial to its growth and success in the New Year. We are here to help you with your pharmacy’s digital marketing and more in today’s blog.

Where to Start with Advertising Your Pharmacy?

Pharmacies that previously focused on more traditional channels now find that digital marketing offers unprecedented targeting opportunities and increased reach. Digital marketing means any advertising or marketing conducted through digital channels, from websites and mobile apps to search engines and social media networks. 

By shifting your focus, you can meet your patient base on the devices and platforms they use every day, establish an online presence, and market yourself on multiple channels.

How Can Pharmacies Attract Customers?

Customers today are looking for a seamless digital experience, but also want to connect personally with the companies they are interested in online.

Here are a few ways you can draw in digital customers:

• Maintain a human connection by being responsive to questions and inquiries
• Sharing photos of your staff and store
• Share new content consistently to engage customers
• Highlight your unique value and promote special offerings
• Make it easy for them to find and connect with you online (ie: create recognizable and easy-to-remember usernames)

What Makes a Pharmacy Unique?

Branding helps you create a memorable identity for your pharmacy business, including a mission and vision statement and brand story. Pharmacies that stand out also have a unique selling point or value proposition. For example, this could be cost, convenience, location, or specialty products and services.

While a strong brand and problem-solving solutions can help you stand out from the crowd, you still need a solid plan for advertising your pharmacy.

9 Ideas for Advertising Your Pharmacy

Build your patient base with these pharmacy advertising ideas:

1. Refresh Your Pharmacy Website

Having an up-to-date and informative pharmacy website is crucial for search engine optimization (SEO) and helping potential patients find you online, but it is also imperative to the success of your digital marketing campaigns. Great social media campaigns can immensely boost your website traffic (which we will get to in the next step) but for those campaigns to convert traffic into customers, it’s crucial to make sure your website lays that foundation for success.

Here are a few tips to help your website convert…

• Think about your audience and how to create webpages that answer the questions that brought them to your website in the first place.
• Use strong call-to-action buttons in prominent places, like a “Contact Us” button on your home page.
• Display testimonials and reviews from current customers around your site.
  • Add landing pages for specific offerings and seasonal products that you can link to from social media posts and pages.

2. Keep Your Directory Listings Updated

Google My Business (GMB) offers brick-and-mortar businesses a free online profile to attract local foot traffic, which is an important part of local search engine optimization (SEO). The profile is added to Google Maps and search results pages so that anyone looking for local pharmacies can find you. Also, encourage patients to review your pharmacy on Google so their referrals show up on your profile.  

Aside from Google, there are hundreds of directory sites for local businesses. These include search engines Yahoo and Bing, Facebook, and business listing sites like YellowPages and Better Business Bureau. 

Add your pharmacy to as many of these as possible. For an annual fee, sites like Moz Local and Yext can help you manage and update your listings in all major directories from a single platform. The more directories you show up on, especially high-traffic ones, the more it will improve your local SEO.

Each listing should include your:

• Website
• Products and services
• Storefront photo

3. Use Social Media to Advertise Your Pharmacy

Facebook is one of the top 10 most-visited websites in the world along with YouTube, X, and Instagram. Therefore, creating and maintaining active social media accounts can help you build a following and engage your patient base. 

Make the most of your social media presence by:

• Creating accounts on all major platforms to claim your business name and direct people to your website
• Becoming active on one or two platforms where your patients are most likely to spend time
• Focusing on quality and consistency with regular posts, useful health content, images, and videos
• Letting patients know when you have upcoming sales or events
• Use Facebook Ads Manager to advertise your pharmacy to potential patients with highly targeted ads

 Creating effective ads for your pharmacy does take practice, but Facebook’s paid campaigns are an effective way of reaching a much larger audience online.

Each ad campaign can be created for and shared with a pre-selected audience. On Facebook’s Ads Manager platform, you can select from a range of parameters including age, gender, location, relationship, and age of children. For example, Facebook’s ad network also extends to Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and Audience Network, allowing you to expand your reach.

4. Craft Texting Campaigns

Reach your customers where they are…on their phones! Texting campaigns can be the most effective form of communicating messages to your patients if you use them correctly. Your patients can receive real-time text alerts about medications, closures, pick-up reminders, refill reminders, etc. This saves time at your pharmacy that you can allocate to other tasks that require more attention.

Texting campaigns can be programmed and set up ahead of time to be sent to either specific groups of patients or specific messages chosen by you through our Patient Engagement Platform. 

5. Host Virtual Events 

• Educating patients about common health conditions and treatments
• Promoting new and seasonal offerings to patients and healthcare professionals
• Connecting you with local businesses through community events and collaborations

6. Cross-promote With Local Businesses

Fellow healthcare businesses and practitioners can provide opportunities for trade agreements and mutual referral programs. You can also work with local small businesses, sharing product samples and service announcements. In return, you can offer to stock their products. 

7. Reach Customers via Direct Mail

While your pharmacy should focus on digital marketing, it’s also important to remember that some patients, especially the homebound ones, welcome a different approach. 

Target your local community with colorful self-mailers like postcards, leaflets, or letters that introduce your pharmacy and services. Be sure to include a limited-time offer or coupon with each one to get people to come to you. 

8. Provide Free Health Screenings

A few types of free screenings you could offer:

• Wellness exams
• Full cholesterol panels
• Blood pressure and glucose screenings

To help spread the word, consider launching a Facebook ad campaign or adding a Local Post event to your Google My Business profile.

9. Send Your Patients Email Newsletters

Email marketing allows you to stay connected with and build on your current patient base. By sending regular email newsletters, you can keep your audience informed about what’s going on at your pharmacy, promote special offers, and share relevant health content.

Start building that all-important email list by getting patients to sign up for virtual events, free health screenings, digital tools like a pharmacy mobile app, or updates on upcoming promotions.

More Pharmacy Marketing Resources

Still need ideas? Get more tips on how to market your pharmacy on our blog, or Request a free demo to learn more about how the Digital Pharmacist product suite can help you build your patient base.