The One Marketing Mistake You Are Probably Making

One Marketing Mistake
One Marketing Mistake

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Don’t make the same marketing mistake as many other pharmacies.

Ugh, mistakes. We all make them every day. Big ones, we have programs in place to ensure they rarely happen, but the little business ones, well, those slip through. I see this one marketing mistake time and time again. Ready?

Bag Stuffers.

Mind not blown? Stay with me. Bag stuffers are incredibly useful AND are a cheap form of marketing and advertising for your pharmacy. You can significantly increase your revenue by getting more from patients that are already your customers. I can hear you say, “They don’t work for me.” That’s probably because you are doing them wrong. Yep, that’s the mistake I see all the time. You are not alone.

It’s Obvious. Right?

Using a bag stuffer seems like a pretty simple tool that you can’t mess up. Even simple things can easily go wrong. Here’s a little story. I was recently sitting in the Phoenix airport, eating my chicken nuggets, and watching the people across me. The lady quickly pulls down her mask to sneeze in her elbow. Yes, you read that right. She pulled down her mask to sneeze in her elbow. She was wearing the mask and doing the simple thing correctly until she wasn’t. This happens with bag stuffers too.

How To Avoid The Bag Stuffer Marketing Mistake

Here are my rules for using a bag stuffer. Follow these, and you will avoid a mistake and missed opportunities.

  1. Use the same bag stuffer all month
  2. Print on bright colored paper
  3. Put them in every customer’s bag
  4. Train your team
  5. Have a call to action
  6. Attach them to the outside

Let’s dive into each one.

Use the same bag stuffer all month.

Not changing is harder than it seems. You want to promote all your services and all the great products you sell, but you can’t. Changing your bag stuffer too frequently hurts your impressions. It takes people seeing something many times before they act on it. It also reduces the number of people that will catch any specific offer. If you change weekly, approximately 25% of your patients will see your promotion, which means 75% won’t.

It’s ok to have patients get the same stuffer twice. Patients often won’t act on the first one even if they love it. They usually won’t see the bag stuffer until they are back home. When they get reminded, this will spur them into action. I recommend you plan your bag stuffers a few months at a time. Pick impactful offers that will drive repeated traffic to induce sales and then stick with it.

Print on bright colored paper.

In a world of unlimited resources, beautiful, 4-color designed bag stuffers would be my preference. However, you and I live in the real world where the money is tight. So, use black ink on bright colored paper. Also, use a copier to make them not your precious Rx Lexmark printer. I bought a used copier off of eBay for a steal.

Additionally, you want to use the same color all month. Don’t change your offer, don’t change your color. Each new month equals a new offer and a new color. A bright-colored bag stuffer will get noticed more quickly, and your patients will become trained in looking for them.

Put them in every customer’s bag.

Every bag, every customer, every time, is your motto. One of my favorite sayings is you never know someone’s sphere of influence. Just because the bag you have in front of you may not be a good fit for that month’s offer does not mean that you skip it. That patient could have a family member, friend, neighbor, or coworker that could benefit from your offer. So remember the motto, and your monthly special will get a considerable boost.

Train your team.

Your team, especially your frontline employees, need to be fully trained on each bag stuffer. They need to be able to field phone calls, answer questions at the counter, and bring it up in conversations. For each month, I recommend you create a cheat sheet for your staff. Put relevant information on there along with some FAQs. Another suggestion is to create a contest for the month to get buy-in and maximum staff engagement.

Have a call to action.

A call to action is a marketing term that prompts the consumer to take the desired action. Click HERE and Call Now are common ones you see in emails and online. With a bag stuffer, often you want them to buy something or to at least engage in conversation with your staff or pharmacist. Offering a coupon or discount with an expiration date will help entice people to action sooner rather than later.

It is tempting to write everything possible about your offer. Make sure you don’t fill the entire bag stuffer up with words. With too many words, it is harder to bring attention to the most critical parts. Allow for enough “white space” and always be clear with what you want your patient to do after reading your bag stuffer.

Attach them to the outside.

They are called bag stuffers, but that doesn’t mean we have to be pedantic about it. Attaching the bag stuffer to the outside of the bag will increase your read rate of each stuffer. If you shove it at the bottom of the bag underneath prescriptions, many stuffers won’t see the light of day. Also, while the employee is stapling it to the bag, they can be verbally talking about it to the patient to bring more attention to it.

Go forth and bag stuff.

Now you can avoid one of the most common marketing mistakes. Bag stuffers are cheap and effective. What can be better? If you would like to see some samples, go to our DiversifyRx Facebook group, we have several sizes and examples in Word and PDF that you can download. If you need help creating them check out the low-cost design services in our High-End Pharmacy Marketing Graphic On A Low-End Budget post.

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    DiversifyRx is dedicated to helping pharmacy owners kick ass and create profitable, thriving pharmacies. We strongly believe the key to success is diversifying your revenue streams and maximizing each opportunity that is right for you. DiversifyRx was created by a pharmacy owner for pharmacy owners. We offer tons of free information and our Pharmacy Badass University membership. This site contains affiliate links to products or services. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.

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