The holidays are right around the corner, and we’re here to help ensure you have the best marketing plan in place for your business. We know it’s difficult preparing your pharmacy for the holidays while also properly promoting your services, so we are here to help. 

Below we are sharing five tips for creating a successful holiday marketing plan this season.

1. Develop an Email Schedule

Creating a plan for your promotional emails during the holiday season will help get the word out about deals. What happens when you don’t have an email schedule is that you can run into one of two problems. Either you’re sending out way too many emails and irritating your audience, or your promotion is going unnoticed because you’re not emailing frequently enough.

We’ve learned that three is the magic number when it comes to promoting items. Try to not send more than three emails a week to your audience. If you’re running a limited-time deal, send an email with the details no earlier than three weeks out from its expiration date. This keeps your pharmacy top of mind with your customers and encourages foot traffic.

Additionally, utilize your weekly or monthly newsletter to share pertinent information about your pharmacy and the holidays. What will your store hours be? What services or immunizations should patients receive before traveling? Should your patients pack a first aid kit for their travels and what should be in it? All of these are great items to include in your newsletter.

Lastly, be sure your emails have great subject lines. Eye catching subject lines will lead to more customers opening your emails and absorbing the content.

2. Be Strategic with your Promotions

When developing a seasonal promotion, it’s important to create a sense of urgency. When people feel like they’ll miss out if they don’t take advantage of a promotion, they take action quickly.

One thing to keep in mind is that you need to be clear about the rules and/or deadline of your promotion. Make sure your customers know exactly what to expect so you can avoid any unwanted confusion.

In addition, make redemption easy. Let patients redeem the offer by showing your staff the ad from their mobile phone or a printout from the website or email newsletter. And don’t forget to track your results. Create a sale code for your point of sale to easily track how many new and existing customers take advantage of the promotion.

3. Utilize Social Media to Share Promotions

Social Media, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to name a few, come in extra handy during the holidays because they are an easy way to get a message across to a wide audience. Snap a photo of your holiday-specific item and post it to one of your channels. This gives you an opportunity to explain the details of your promotions and encourage followers to come to your pharmacy to take advantage of them.

Additionally, create a special discount code for your social media followers. This increases your engagement online and gives your followers an incentive to not only continue to follow but to come visit your store.

4. Update your Website

It’s great to promote items via email and social media, but it’s also important to also utilize your website. Be sure your website is updated for the holidays to include any pertinent information your customers may need.

You can add a banner at the top with a promotion or a link to the deal from your homepage – there’s lots of options when it comes to customizing your website to meet your customers needs.

5. IVR/On Hold Greeting

Utilize your IVR or On Hold message to share information about promotions or deals going on in your pharmacy. This allows your customers to hear about the deals each time they call into the pharmacy.

We hope these marketing tips lead to a fantastic holiday season for you and your customers.

For help creating and evaluating your pharmacy’s digital marketing strategy, give us a call at 877-959-7550 or email us at connect@digitalpharmacist.com.