We asked digital health specialists and pharmacists with an online business to tell us their top tips for getting online. Here’s what they said:
1. Set some clear objectives
It’s a good idea to have short- and long-term objectives in mind that going online will help you achieve, and then you can work towards those. Your ultimate objective might just be to have an online presence where people can find you, get directions and so on, but this is a fundamental question to ask yourself before you start. And if you have longer-term, more ambitious objectives, make sure you break these down into smaller steps to make it manageable.
2. Don’t try to do too much at once
Jumping in headfirst to everything digital will be overwhelming, so learn gradually and build up your online presence over time. Consider the minimum you need to do online to meet your business requirements and then launch as soon as you can. Start small with an informative online presence and build up into offering other things that patients can interact with and could encourage them to visit your store.
3. Put yourself in the user’s mindset
When you are deciding what information and services to provide online, don’t think about what you want to offer, focus on what your customers want. Look at the people coming into the shop and put yourself in their mindset. What could you offer them online? If you’re trying to increase footfall – what is going to do that? What is going to persuade someone to walk another 100 yards down the road past your competitors and into your shop?
4. Fight for every customer
In an increasingly competitive pharmacy sector, it’s important to take the attitude of ‘these are our patients, we’re keeping them’. “I would probably say our biggest problem as independent pharmacies is we are so used to people walking in with prescriptions, dispensing them and giving them out, we don’t actually have to fight for these patients. We need to consider how we can do better for them’.”
Amir Bhogal, Pyramid Pharmacy
5. Build it around your brand
Don’t try to be like the national multiples. If you’re trying to grow an online presence or even just a small social presence, you don’t need to be like the big brands because you have your own appeal – it’s what already brings your patients and customers to your door. Independent pharmacies have unique appeal in their local community because some people prefer seeing those friendly same faces every month when they need their medication. So try to build your online presence around that, rather than forcing it to have a large-scale corporate feel.
6. Give online a go
Just do it. Just try. Experiment with the different approaches in this toolkit, throw ideas and content away and re-do it if necessary. Don’t be scared of online. You might make mistakes, but you can’t go too far wrong.
