Guest Blog: Why to treat marketing as an investment

Our partners at GRX Marketing said it best - “Marketing is like exercising. You can do it once, and you may feel pretty good about it – or you may feel terrible – but either way, you probably won’t get the results you want. If you want to make an impact, marketing is something you must actively work on, every day. You also need to mix up what exercises (marketing) you do, to achieve your overall goal.” 

Let’s break down what marketing does for your pharmacy on a fundamental level. 

At its core, marketing is about getting a person to do a thing. The key aspects that you need to find out are who the people you are targeting, what do you want them to do, and how do you get them to do it.

In pharmacy, finding what people you want to target is oftentimes the easiest piece of the puzzle. Are you looking to increase patients over a certain age? Do you want to target those taking a certain kind of medication or over-the-counter supplement? Do you want to serve more individuals with a particular insurance? Defining your target audience is the first crucial step. 

Next, focus on what actions you want your target audience to do. Filling prescriptions is oftentimes the priority for pharmacies. However, it’s not the only action a pharmacy may want. You may want to your audience to enroll into specific a pharmacy service or purchase more of a particular front-end product. Even something as simple as encouraging your audience to follow you on Facebook is an action you may want to achieve. 

The final, and arguable the most difficult part of the process, is how do we get our target audience to perform our desired action. Ask yourself and your marketer - What avenues do we need to utilize in order to reach our target audience? What messaging is going to be the most effective to get our audience to act? Referring back to our analogy earlier - this is where the consistent and various exercising comes in to play! Businesses all need to try a mix of avenues and messages to find that which resonates best with the specific target audience. 

Now that the strategic foundation has been formed, let’s dive into the second half of the equation – investing. Investing simply means inputting money to try and achieve profit. However, what you are investing in can generate different results. Looking at different types of financial investments, you can take the riskier option for the potential to achieve a higher reward, or you can take the safer option, which may yield less stellar results but comes with less risk. Additionally, you can put in money with the goal of making more money, but you can also put in money and end up achieving a goal you didn’t realize was possible. 

Investing with marketing works the same way. If you choose to invest your marketing dollars into social media, for example, you can gain awareness and engagement within your community, as well as drive traffic to your website. Should you decide to invest your marketing dollars into traditional marketing, you take a greater risk at potentially hitting an unresponsive target audience, however that audience will be significantly bigger than other avenues so you may end up hitting more of your desired market than anticipated. Take that money and put it into email campaigns to your current patient database and you will likely grow the pharmacy services and/or front-end products you want to push. Looking to increase patient retention and loyalty? Take your marketing dollars and invest in a customer appreciation event and loyalty program.

There are numerous marketing avenues you can pursue to achieve your pharmacy’s marketing goals. Some are riskier to invest in and some will end up getting you nowhere. Just like our exercise metaphor at the start, if your goal is to increase your core strength, but you choose to only exercise your legs, you won’t achieve your desired outcome. If you spend all your marketing money on exercise equipment, but then never use it – you will also come away disappointed. All businesses need to make a significant, and conscious effort to invest in marketing. Determine who it is you want to target, and what you want them to do, then talk with a marketing expert to determine the best way to achieve your goals. Sometimes all we need to succeed is the right coach. Want the perfect physique – hire a physical trainer. Want to expand your financial portfolio – higher an investor. Want to grow your pharmacy – hire a marketer. Can you do it on your own? Absolutely, but it usually goes faster, easier, and requires less from you to have an expert manage it for you.

Every pharmacy, big or small, single location or multi-store, retail or specialty or combination – needs to take a step back and consider how they can best invest their marketing dollars to support their pharmacy’s overall marketing goals. 

If you’re looking for assistance, our partners at GRX Marketing are here to help! They have spent over a decade working exclusively in the independent pharmacy industry, helping their over 300+ clients grow and achieve their marketing goals. For questions, or to schedule a free marketing consultation for your pharmacy, visit www.grxmarketing.com or give them a call at 515-280-2914.