You run your pharmacy or a health care centre. You might already know that establishing a loyalty program is an effective way to attract people. And you might even know that a loyalty program also encourages additional spending. But you keep repeating to yourself: There is no way of implementing such a thing with my independent pharmacy, or my health care centre.
Pharmacists are in the first line in front of patients. I believe that pharmacist’s professional advice makes patients – customers – really attached. Loyal patients are your best advocates and this word-of-mouth marketing is very valuable. Still, a pharmacy or a health care centre of any size could also offer attractive rewards to people. Multiple pieces of research have also shown that loyal customers spend more. And last but not least, every business wants to set itself apart from the competition, right?
Mobile-Friendly Loyalty Program
How can you establish an effective loyalty program for your pharmacy or a health care centre? Let’s start by asking this question: What people find important? Obviously, just everyone considers discounts important. Also, people are still interested in points, pills, or whatever your loyalty currency is called. They are interested in premium service and status as well. An increasing number of people are willing to use digital coupons and digital customer cards to have them handy for convenient use. That’s because people use their mobile phones for almost everything that they do online. So you definitely want to have a mobile-friendly loyalty program that has digital and mobile features to appeal to people.
Well, now you might think “geez I’ve got to have a mobile app”. A pharmacy loyalty app or so … No! No, you don’t have to develop a mobile app to kick-off your mobile marketing and loyalty program.
Nowadays, everyone has a mobile wallet on his or her mobile phone. The mobile wallets count to the most popular applications people use in general. The Apple Wallet is a native application on iPhones and Apple Watches. And Android phone users can download multiple wallet apps, such as Google Pay. The mobile wallets are the service behind ever-increasing mobile payments.
But beyond transactions, the mobile wallet allows people to use digital content from brands. Such as digital coupons, digital tickets, and passes, or digital membership cards, and much more. Mobile wallets are also great for any start-up, small business, or brand to engage with their customers. They allow for deals, promotions, or discounts to appear as push notifications on the lock screen of mobile phones. By adding your digital content, people can receive your push notifications, and you can provide real-time updates. Therefore you can use your digital content in your customers’ mobile wallet as a new dynamic relationship channel.
Digital content from pharmacies or health care centres in people’s mobile wallets offer a safe and environmentally friendly solution to printing paper or plastic cards. Especially considering our today’s social distancing and contactless lives.
Pharmacy & Health Club
A customer club is an efficient mobile marketing tactic to boost your connections with people. You can offer digital membership cards for mobile wallets to your customers. The membership card identifies a person as a participant in your loyalty program. People have it on hand anytime and can access it anywhere. It can’t be lost, stolen, or left behind. The digital membership card is unique for each membership. And it displays all the important information. Such as the member’s name, membership level, expiration date, and a barcode. People simply show their digital membership card to your staff to take advantage of the membership benefits.
The membership in your pharmacy or health care centre club can be free. People can pay a membership fee in exchange for rewards, too. Remember, rewards help you keep existing customers satisfied. And this is easier and less expensive than persuading new customers to come in.
Your loyalty program needs to balance between people who are price-sensitive and those who seek convenience. Keep your loyalty program simple but versatile. Boost sales where it matters to you – beauty products, healthy lifestyle products, health check tests, or prescriptions. Provide exclusive – members-only – promotions for customers that signed up for your digital membership card. This will help people feel valuable and special. Offer them various opportunities to receive and redeem bonus points.
Dynamic And Interactive
Your digital membership card is dynamic. The clickable links on the backside allow people for instance to book their medication and e-prescription deliveries online in advance to make sure that they will be waiting for them at the pharmacy. And find details of their order. All that in a convenient way, directly from their mobile phone. People can also view monthly or weekly members-only deals. And download related discount coupons, read your blog with professional tips for a healthy lifestyle. Or people can check and update their account details. And of course, to call you or send a message to you without searching for the contact details.
Your digital membership card is also interactive. You can notify people when their medication or prescription is ready. Or you can notify them of new members-only deals and last-minute extra savings. In an extremely effective way – straight on people’s lock screen.
Appointments In The Wallet
Allow your customers to get your high-quality care on their schedule. Let them plan a visit (in-person, phone, or video visit), reschedule or cancel it on the go. You can take your customer service to the next level. By providing your patients with digital tickets for their pharmacy or health care centre appointments. Such digital appointment tickets can be seen as a kind of smart bookmarks to those appointments that people have always on hand.
They can be made available to download or can be sent to a particular digital membership card upon booking an appointment. You can notify the patient – the customer – by a reminder sent a few hours before the appointment. The push notification then remains on the lock screen of a mobile phone. When opened, your customer can directly view his or her appointment ticket.
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Ladislav Poledna inspires readers to “Become Digital” by publishing materials about digital marketing in his Prague Monitor column and aptly named blog. He has built a career around developing successful customer relationships for the past two decades. At present, Ladislav manages the Power Solutions division of a Fortune 1000 company in Central and Eastern Europe and also oversees operations of the producer’s regional office in Prague. Recently, he co-founded a B-to-B software service company making mobile marketing affordable and easy to use. Ladislav’s philanthropic contribution consists of a long-term relationship with a charity focused on funding dreams for people with muscular dystrophy.
Becomedigital.life
Mobile phones are long becoming the main “screen” in peoples’ lives. Mobile marketing is no longer an innovation but a part of important decisions. Read articles on mobile marketing to get inspired on how to connect with people where they spend a lot of their time. Become Digital.
