All pharmacies have to find ways to stand out from the competition. They can do this in various ways: unique services, high-tech offerings, and excellent customer experience. But a pharmacy’s brand practices are what truly sets it apart.
Creating a brand for your pharmacy means giving it a unique identity, helping your customers associate the services and products they buy with your store so they keep coming back.
Here are 5 best pharmacy brand practices for branding your pharmacy:
1. Learn who your target market is. Knowing your patients’ ages, genders, lifestyles, and other information can help you tailor your services to fit their needs. It can also help you figure out if there is a potential market you are missing out on. Our latest ebook takes you through the different generations of patients and how to market to them.
2. Discover your value. A value proposition is a statement about what your business stands for, how it operates, and why customers should come to you. What can you offer that will appeal to your patients? Find out what they need in a pharmacy that isn’t being offered by your competitors, such as unique services and products or special offerings, and then publicize the fact that you offer these items.
3. Create a unique brand identity. A brand identity can be a lot of things, but often includes a logo, design and color scheme, and website. It can also refer to your business’s personality, your messaging, and the language you use to engage with patients. Offline, your brand identity may include how you arrange and design your store.
4. Tell your brand story. Every good brand has a story. Whether you’re a local family-run pharmacy with a history or a franchised chain built from one person’s big idea, your brand story helps humanize your business. It also tells patients why you work the way you do and creates a sense of connection.
5. Keep the brand conversation going. Once you’ve established your target audience and brand, you have to maintain it. Make sure your online and offline brands always match and that you are using the same visuals and language for both.
Pharmacy Brand Example: Hopkins Apothecary
Hopkins Apothecary of Camden, Tennessee is a great example of a pharmacy brand done right. You can see their brand identity right away from their retro black-and-white logo with a banner underneath and handmade wooden sign that tells you you’re at an old-fashioned, small-town store. Owner Brad Hopkins, PharmD, has designed Hopkins Apothecary to have an “old, hometown feel” that takes people back to a “slow-paced life.”
Hopkins knows most of his current customers, transferred from the town’s previous pharmacy, are older Medicare patients with limited income. But in order to stay in business, he’s working on reaching a wider audience: families.
Building on the retro theme, Hopkins offers old-fashioned apothecary services including pet medication compounding, homemade bath products, men’s grooming items, and therapeutic remedies. His store also has a free coffee bar, old-fashioned candy station, toy store, and gift shop. These unique offerings draw in new customers who then transfer their prescriptions to Hopkins. It also helps the apothecary compete with the town’s local Walmart, the only other pharmacy in the area.
Hopkins Apothecary has only been open since late October, but it already has an active Facebook following of 836 customers that like, comment on, and share posts. Brad and the Hopkins Apothecary team keep the conversation going by posting sale items, COVID updates, holiday promotions, and new retro displays.
Need help working on your own brand? Read our in-depth post on pharmacy brand and marketing fundamentals to get you started.
