Quick Tips on Running Promotions in Your Pharmacy

It's the most wonderful time of year again, and that means gift shopping is in full swing. Running holiday promotions is a great way to drive sales and make that end-of-year push. Here are some quick tips for making them a success: 

Use promotions to clear out old inventory.

With 2022 coming to a close, running some promotions on inventory you have a surplus of (or hasn't been selling well) is an excellent way to clear the decks for the new year. Use your point-of-sale system to run reports on your lowest performing inventory and mark those items down to make way for new items or ones you know are top sellers. 

Use promotions to improve your marketing.

Promotions such as giveaways or raffles are an excellent way to strengthen your marketing efforts. Having customers enter by providing their name and email address or following you on social platforms and sharing your posts will grow your email list and follower counts, thus increasing the likelihood of future promotions being successful - as you will be able to reach a wider audience. The best kind of promotion is one that people know about!

Reward your loyal shoppers.

There are many types of promotions you can run that reward your most loyal shoppers. Punch cards that offer discounts or freebies after a certain number of visits are a popular option, but if you're looking to kick things up a notch, consider adding a loyalty program integrated with your point-of-sale system.

A Frequent Shopper Program is the basic "points for purchases" program that is now standard in nearly all chain stores. You can customize the name of your rewards program and issue barcoded cards for customers to present at checkout to earn points based on the dollars they spend in your store. Points are automatically generated via the point-of-sale as customers make purchases. Some other highlights of a program like this are:

• Product selection: Tie bonus points to certain products, such as your higher-margin private-label items.
  
  
• Redemption options: Customers can redeem points in real-time at the register, or you can mail them gift certificates to be redeemed later.
  
  
• Rewards levels: Create frequent shopper tiers, such as gold, silver and bronze, to reward your most loyal customers with special benefits and drive additional business.

If you're looking to build a stronger loyalty program and strengthen your brand by creating custom promotions for your front-end merchandise, an Advanced Gift with Purchase Program may be more your style.

This type of program makes it easy for you to tie rewards to promotions and proactively communicate rewards-earning opportunities to participating customers. Some key features include the ability to generate custom coupons based on items purchased, create advanced promotions, free gift with purchase functionality, and advanced reporting.

Automate your promotions using POS.

The easiest way to run promotions in your pharmacy is to set them up through your point-of-sale system. If you're an RMS user (or you're considering becoming one), check out this 15-minute video breaking down the various ways to set up promotional campaigns within an RMS system.

Check out our 12 Days of RMS holiday campaign!

In the spirit of giving, customer appreciation, and just spreading the love around, we're bringing back 12 Days of RMS this year!

Every weekday, now through Dec. 23rd, we will be posting a new giveaway or promotion on our Instagram page. Keep an eye on your email and be sure to follow us on Instagram for your chance to win! (If you're not following us yet, you can do so here.)

Happy Holidays!