Marketing is essential for pharmacy growth, but which CRM should you use to keep track of it all?
QUESTION:
Got this question from a badass in our Facebook group and I love it, a good CRM this is crucial for pharmacy growth.
I used to email every patient manually because I had so few. But now, our email list has grown so much that I can not keep up, and I want to maintain these relationships. I went from about 30 email addresses, but after COVID, it’s jumped to over 1000.
What CRM would you recommend? A popular one I have heard about is Mailchimp, but I also have heard it is challenging to use.
ANSWER:
I often get this question, which is important as technology can make our lives easier if you pick the right one!
Your CRM is the engine of your email marketing. CRM stands for customer Customer Relationship Manager. Your CRM can help nurture a potential patient, from knowing very little about you and what you do to getting to know you, understanding how you can help them, and wanting to become your patient. This relationship development is primarily done through emails; however, many can do text or voicemail drops.
It’s a vital component of your marketing engine, so you want to choose a CRM that integrates with your website, delivers a seamless experience, and is easy to use.
That’s not Mailchimp, and I’ll explain why.
Mailchimp is clunky, but it’s also notoriously unreliable.
You want a CRM with good deliverability, good features, and an excellent reputation.
These are the four marketing CRMs I’d recommend. Your choice will depend on where you are in your marketing journey because not everyone needs a complex CRM.
THE BEGINNER CRM
If you’re beginning your pharmacy marketing or have just pivoted from a freelancer or an outside marketing company, CONVERT KIT would be a great CRM to start with.
- It’s easy to set up.
- Integrates well with most CRMs (websites).
- It’s got an excellent delivery.
- It offers segmentation, tagging, and scheduling capabilities.
- You can use it to set up attractive landing pages or user-friendly sign-up forms on your website.
- And most importantly, you can automate funnels and gather vital data on your email subscribers.
Convert Kit would be an ideal CRM solution if you’re not a techie person and your database is less than 10,000 subscribers. Check it out now.
THE INTERMEDIATE CRM
If you’ve been in business for a while and have an email list of 10,000 or more subscribers, I’d look into ACTIVE CAMPAIGN.
Now I like Active Campaign because it’s really simple to use.
- It offers advanced automation capabilities.
- You can use it to SMS your list, score leads, and create landing pages for your website.
- It can double as a sales CRM which means you can view your sales and marketing data in one place, which is really handy when comparing your efforts.
- It offers quick and friendly support when you need to troubleshoot problems.
- And you pay according to the size of your email list.
Active Campaign offers more functionality than Convert Kit and is quite popular with marketers. Check it out here.
THE FLEXIBLE CRM
My favorite, and the one I recommend to pharmacies committed to growth, is HubSpot.
I like it because…
- You get email marketing, automation and segmentation capability, advanced tagging, and web forms all in one place.
- It’s excellent for diversifying into selling courses, memberships, and subscriptions.
- You can do social media posting, tracking, and analytics.
- It has marketing, CRM, sales, and tons of education to help your pharmacy growth.
- And there is excellent support.
That said, it’s not for the technically challenged. HubSpot is not quite as easy as the beginner CRM, but it isn’t hard either. Another great benefit is that hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of companies use it. It is very easy to hire someone to help you set it up and teach you to run it if you want to avoid learning on your own.
Check out HubSpot HERE. You can even use their free version to get started.
THE E-COMMERCE CRM
If you’re in e-commerce or looking to start an e-commerce business, I’d recommend Klaviyo and Drip. They are two excellent CRMs and my top choice for pharmacies that have a robust online sales revenue stream (or who want one!).
A few reasons why.
- You can uncover robust data to fuel your marketing initiatives.
- It’s straightforward to use and integrates well with many platforms.
- Offers email marketing and SMS capability.
- The automation is designed around e-commerce needs, so birthdays, thank you messages, and abandoned cart follow-ups.
- They have an excellent support team available 24/7, which is particularly helpful if you’re a global business.
- It’s built to help you improve conversions.
So those are my four recommendations. When selecting a CRM for your pharmacy growth, ask yourself these questions and tick off the following boxes:
- It must be able to collect the data you want, for example, email, phone number, mailing address, etc.
- It needs to support tagging and segmentation. This ability is crucial for sending customized information to different market segments.
- It must include triggers and automation so you can set up campaigns that run without you needing to do anything.
- It must support all types of media you want to use to reach your customers. Meaning if you want to send texts, you can. If you want to send physical mail, you can.
- It must manage legal compliance and allow your subscribers to unsubscribe.
The most important thing to remember when choosing a CRM is to pick the one you’ll use. The second most important thing to remember is you do not have to do it all yourself! I hope this helps you. If you’ve still got questions, feel free to contact us through social media or submit questions to Lisa at drlisafaast.com.
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