Looking to enhance your marketing efforts for your independent pharmacy in 2017?
Here are 5 free tools to get you started on the right foot:
MailChimp
Engage your patients and customers on a regular basis with email communications. MailChimp is completely free for up to 2000 subscribers and then plans start at only $20 per month. And it’s super easy to use! Create visually appealing, mobile phone-friendly messages in no time.
Email and eNewsletter topics could include weekly promotions, store events, health and wellness tips, medication reviews, customer testimonials, and nutritional advice. Placing your pharmacy’s information in your customers’ inboxes will keep your pharmacy top-of-mind. And offering special incentives, such as email-only coupon codes, will ensure your customers are reading your messages!
Canva
Want to design visually appealing flyers, presentations, thank-you cards, social media graphics, and email graphics without having to learn a complex graphic design program? Canva was designed for you, the non-designer! Canva makes it quick and easy to design and customize your own documents, social media posts, infographics, event flyers, and even internet ad graphics! It’s completely free and royalty-free images are only $1!
Canva is the perfect tool for making your email communications stand out and look professional. Design a custom branded email header, special ad promotions, and custom email graphics in no time. The professional look and feel of your communications will make your pharmacy stand out in the eyes of your target audience.
Pexels and Pixabay
Speaking of royalty-free images, check out the thousands of photographs and images available on Pexels and Pixabay! All image downloads are completely free, though donations are appreciated.
Don’t risk using a copyrighted image in your promotions. You’ll be amazed at how creative you’ll feel and how professional your pharmacy’s image will be by using the high quality images found on these sites.
Survey Monkey
Wish you had more customer feedback? Develop and deploy simple customer satisfaction surveys for free on Survey Monkey. Upgrades are available that enable additional analytics but the free version gives you the ability to create a simple 10-question survey that can be distributed on your pharmacy’s website, in your email communications, or on your social media profiles.
Take advantage of Survey Monkey’s survey templates. The Customer Satisfaction Survey template includes great questions, such as: ‘How likely are you to refer our pharmacy to a friend?’ and ‘Overall, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with our pharmacy?’. Consider offering an incentive to increase your response rate, like a special coupon or a gift card for your pharmacy.
Hootsuite
You know you should be managing a presence for your pharmacy on social media, but who has the time? Hootsuite provides a simple platform that allows you to manage up to 3 social media profiles at one time. Turn social media management into a weekly task that is more convenient for you – Hootsuite allows you to schedule posts. And take advantage of their auto-schedule feature, which schedules posts at the optimum time for your audience.
Our Marketing team (of two!) takes advantage of the following Hootsuite features: 1. Streams – set up streams that include search terms or hashtags (e.g., #IndependentPharmacy, Pharmacy in [Name of Your Town], #healthcare, #pharma) so that we can contribute to the online dialogue in our industry; 2. Mentions – see when someone mentions your pharmacy specifically; 3. Quick Search – see what’s trending online so you can be part of the conversation!
All of the above tools provide tons of free resources to help you get started, including tutorials and examples. Or, if you have neither the time nor the interest in doing your own marketing, perhaps you would consider hiring a local college student part-time? Most college students are well-versed in social media and would be able to learn the above rather quickly. Just make sure you proofread their writing!
Trxade is not affiliated in any way with the above resources and earns no compensation for referrals. (Our Marketing team is quite fond of them, however!)