Here in marketing land, we like to throw around a lot of industry terms that to us make perfect sense. But I see blank stares from my pharmacy clients. A term which seems to always puzzle is, organic marketing strategy. What does organic have to do with digital marketing? Well, just like your tomatoes our social media marketing can sometimes benefit from some extra help to grow.
Organic marketing strategies are quite simply any digital strategy we use that does not cost us. One of the reasons why digital marketing through social media is so popular is that it is very cost effective. It is free to set up an account on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Tiktok. It is also free to communicate as much as you like to your audience through photos, videos, graphics, text, posts, stories, reels and messages.
However, when we stop talking about all the free features of social media and start looking at the stuff we pay for, this is where we are no longer discussing organic marketing. This is where we look at paid advertising and the numbers start to look a little different.
Your organic strategy should be consistent and engage people across their whole customer lifecycle. For our clients we break this down into inspire, educate, entertain and convince posts. We do this to ensure your organic strategy is strong and we can measure the success of each pillar. It also makes content planning a lot easier!
In social media marketing there are a few main metrics we like to measure. These are reach, engagement, impressions and CTR (click through rate). Just to name a few.
This is why paid advertising can really give you an edge. Even with the best hashtags and most amazing content it is difficult to reach people outside your followers. Using organic strategies such as hashtags, location tags, collaborative tags and trending audio we can only receive a few extra hundred or thousand views- if we are lucky. If you choose to use paid advertising, your post is guaranteed to reach tens of thousands of people or more (depending on your budget).
The Customer Journey
This process you would have heard us discuss at one point or another. It is referred to as the customer journey or life cycle. We also like to look at this journey in relation to our marketing funnel. At the top we have awareness. This is the first stage of our customers journey. Depending on your marketing strategy people may discover your pharmacy in different ways. Social media can be referred to as an awareness tool, as often this is how people find a new brand online.
The next stage is consideration. In this stage our customer may decide to make an action towards the brand. This may be subscribing, following, liking or commenting on a post. This means they are actively involved in your brand. And as we mentioned earlier, it may take someone up to 10 times of seeing your content before they move into this stage.
The third stage is evaluation. In this stage your customer moves from one platform to another to learn more about your brand. This movement will depend on your marketing funnel and what your call to action may be. In most cases with pharmacy we try to funnel our customers from social media to the website.
The reason we suggest funneling your customers to your website is because this is the perfect place to learn more about your products and services. On your website you should have direct links to shop online, book services, call the store, get directions or join the mailing list.
Another perfect example of how to maintain customer loyalty is through a loyalty program. The magic of loyalty programs isn't the $5 off vouchers and birthday rewards which are the dangling carrot to hook your customer. It is the power of information. Once you have your customer in your database you are able to track their habits.
This means you can market directly to your customer and give them exactly what they want. Unlike social media where you are another voice screaming into the abyss. Email marketing allows you to knock directly on your customers door and deliver them a deal they can't refuse. ( We have a blog all about loyalty programs if you're interested see here)
The final stage, which I alluded to before is purchase. We are business owners at the end of the day and the name of the game is to make a profit. In all actions we make on social media our end goal is to convert these people to customers.
However, remember that someone in the awareness stage does not want to be sold to. This is why your organic and paid content needs to be planned and strategic. It is something we discuss more in our Marketing Module.
Facebook & Instagram Ads
If we look at this customer journey this is also how Facebook ads are set up. When creating a Facebook ad you can choose to create an ad for awareness, consideration or purchase. It is not always effective to run ads all the time. An ad should be developed for a purpose.
Paid advertising should be used when you want to create an increased demand for a product, service or drive traffic to an event. If you are using Facebook ads, the basic system is you pay for how many people see your ad. Depending on how many people you want to reach this can be as little as $2 per day the ad is running. As we discussed earlier we want to increase our reach, impressions, engagement and CTR. However, the best strategy isn't always to spend more to reach more people.
The trick here is your ad is not relevant for everyone on Facebook and Instagram. Not everyone is interested in sleep apnoea or flu vaccinations. Facebook allows you to use specific targeting metrics such as age, demographic and interests to ensure your ad is being seen by those who are most likely to engage with it. A very basic rule of thumb here is ALWAYS use location tags. There is no point as a brick and mortar store to target people living in a different state.
You may not see amazing results right away. There is a lot of tweaking involved in this process. Facebook knows this though and is designed to help you make a successful ad. Often advertising takes at least 3 months to start showing results.
It is also important to understand that there's a lot of rules when it comes to advertising in pharmacies and on Facebook. Your ad will have to be deemed appropriate by Facebook before it is published. To learn more about what is acceptable by Facebook and The Pharmacy Guild see below:
https://www.facebook.com/policies/ads/
How to use paid advertising as part of your marketing strategy is a huge topic to cover in one blog so I will save the rest of it for next time. I hope you have learnt a little more about social media marketing and how you can better understand your organic strategy vs. paid strategy.
If you think your pharmacy is ready to go full throttle into digital marketing, check out our online Pharmacy Marketing Module available here.
This course is designed for beginners so your pharmacy team can go from 0- marketing hero in just 12 weeks. Your job as an owner is to give them an hour per week to focus on the lessons. It is not the owners job to do the marketing, simply to oversee. Put your pharmacy team in the driver's seat and take a load off your shoulders. This is where we see the best results!