A pharmacy owner with two pharmacies applied the same marketing to each to grow their audience on Facebook. The marketing was identical. The results were not.

The reason? The first pharmacy gained lots of positive reviews. It clearly had a great connection with its community, who engaged with its social media adverts and really helped the campaign. The second pharmacy had appalling online reviews (averaging around two stars). The reviews reflected the poor connection this pharmacy had with its community. All the marketing did for that pharmacy was attract more bad reviews and negative comments.

That unintended consequence was valuable in its own way, as it forced the owner to confront the issue. The pharmacy now has lots of positive reviews, specifically mentioning great service. 

If you were to release a new drink, you wouldn’t want to get to the point of launching your product with a big advertising budget just to get feedback that it didn’t taste great. The product should clearly be tested with potential consumers prior to marketing. 

So, before trying to drive hundreds, even thousands, of people through your pharmacy door, get a few people you know to mystery shop your pharmacy and ask them to be honest about their experience. Because the second step in presenting your pharmacy online is to do it in a way that reflects the great service you give offline.

Coming up, you'll be asked to complete the ‘pause to reflect’ exercises in this module. I don’t think poor presentation is endemic in pharmacies, but I think this kind of challenge is important because you need to draw a parallel between your physical pharmacy and your pharmacy’s website. 

So many pharmacists put a lot of energy into creating a great patient experience in their pharmacy, but then devote none at all to the online patient experience.

I hope you feel equally confident about your online presence as your physical presence. But, if you’re like most pharmacy owners and managers, I’m guessing that you felt significantly less confident about answering the second set of questions in the second ‘pause to reflect’ exercise.

It’s understandable – pharmacy qualifications don’t include digital marketing modules. But a pharmacy business is half pharmacy, half business. As a business owner or manager, you need to consider all the ways your pharmacy can be accessed and utilised.

So, what do you need to concentrate on? How do you prepare your pharmacy for digital marketing?