Empower your Pharmaceutical business with a nurture marketing strategy for Pharmaceutical

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Lisa Faast: Hi, everyone, welcome to today's session, I have got a wonderful guest with me a fellow pharmacy owner, Frank Tant, and I'll let him introduce himself. But I've known him for a couple years, and he owns a couple of pharmacies. So Frank, go ahead and tell everybody a little bit about your pharmacies and where you're at. Frank Tant: So, I guess I've really been in this industry for about 20 years started out as a tech, at 19 years old, I'm 38. So not quite 20, eventually went to pharmacy school got out, I bought my first one, about five years ago, we took it from about two and a half million in revenue up to almost five in less than three years. And then we have the opportunity to buy a second one, we did that about two and a half years into that five year journey. We've had it now for about three years, and, and is rocking and rolling. But to get from 1.1. It's almost caught up with the other store. So it's about 4.5 million right now in revenue. And we're building a third location, I like building we grabbed this bank building that was set up perfect for what we wanted to do. Got it got a steal on that. And so it's currently being renovated, should have a third pharmacy open the next three to six months. also going to hire a nurse practitioner to put in there as well. Three clinical rooms for that person. And yeah, so a lot of stuff going on. Lisa Faast: Yeah, so you've been very successful for many reasons. But I think one of those is that you're not, you're not afraid to try something new. And so we're here today talking about marketing. I had posted a question in one of the Facebook groups and you popped in with what had been working for you. So kind of tell me a little bit about your relationship with just marketing in general? How do you approach it? What's your What's your opinion on it? Frank Tant: Yeah, so I'm like everybody else, I hate it, right? You, especially when you first get into the business, you know, you need to do it, it's something that's you're being fed, every time you go to a conference, every time you're, maybe your sales rep comes around, you're buying group rep, whatever, they're always telling you, hey, you should be doing this, do this. And, and you don't do it. You know, you should have an active Facebook page, and a good website, stuff like that. And, and I did like most people, I went with the minimalist approach. To begin with, I hooked up with digital pharmacists, and we still are with them. But I real quickly didn't like it, I don't want to really talk negative about them, because we still use them. We like some stuff about them. But there's some things they do that I don't care for. They kind of like put out this information, weekly, daily, whatever, this so generic that it's not applicable to anybody. And I noticed that nobody was looking at it. And so I quickly just turned it off, as I'd rather I'd rather not have that have nothing didn't have what I was getting. Until we turn it off. I stayed in that mode for probably, for about four years, we would do little mail outs, these like large, almost cardboard size metal outs that we get great attention on. And so I knew we needed to do something more because it worked every time. I was amazed at how many people came in the door, we have a pretty expensive dollar wall. And we did like a two for a dollar losing a quarter every time we sold something we didn't care because all the new faces that were coming in the new customers we were grabbing was just tremendous. And so we we would we would dabble in it, but I still I still to this day don't like where we got to where we are today. So and we can go to that story as much as you want to. But I came across a a college person who's about to graduate in end of summer. And, and she wanted some exposure and marketing. And I was like well let's just hire her. like it'd be great to like someone who's studying this stuff. We're probably have to like, push around like the direction we wanted to go. That'd be great, because you'll be doing exactly what we wanted. And so we did that she had a super flexible schedule, she loved it, we were able to pay her $10 an hour. So I was like work the Facebook page, do this little bit of marketing and we'll also like plug you in with like some OTC stuff like keeping that organized, keeping that you know looking fresh and good. And she did a tremendous job. And so we've now have brought her own full time. And now it's incredible. I mean the marketing stuff, I don't have to fool with it. I tell her put her in the right direction and she takes it and runs and she's so high energy and focus. I actually picked up Diversify. You mentioned Canva Canvas I forget. Frank Tant: So I'm internationalist. Yeah, oh yeah, Lisa Faast: Canva we use that in class and stuff is like take that around. Like I've never used it but I see her work that she does with it. And she you can look at our Facebook page. She does good stuff now. You go back six months ago, it doesn't look that great. But you see what we're doing now. She's doing a great job. She's pre scheduling posts on there. You know looking out for holidays, town's going to be closed like that, and just scheduling so they automatically posts doing everything I don't. I don't want to do but I know we need to do it. Lisa Faast: Yeah, that's the thing with marketing is it doesn't have to be the pharmacist, most of us, most people, I would actually say no don't have the pharmacist market because in general, we suck at it, like pharmacists are not the marketing type, and go find somebody who that is there they're passionate about. And, you know, you mentioned something earlier about, you know, you were okay, losing a quarter per sale, to get that traffic in. And I think that's a very important point is that that pharmacy owners don't really realize the value of getting foot traffic in the door, because once you get people in the door, you get to sell them, not just on prescriptions, but you can sell them into supplements, you can sell them into programs, and the important thing is, is to have something to sell to those people. Because really acquiring a new patient for a quarter you know, cost or dollar cost is super cheap, most brick and mortar stores pay anywhere from 30 to hundreds of dollars to acquire a new patient. So if you can come up with a program that practically is breaking even in terms of marketing dollars, like man, turn that turn that marketing on and let it let it go, because it's gonna generate you generate your cash. And so today, we wanted to talk a little bit about the mailers because I do think that mailers can work and some people are gonna say, Oh my gosh, I've tried mailers, and they never worked. Well, that might have been five years ago that might have been, you know, maybe it just wasn't a good fit. marketing tactics work different in different areas. But I think there's a lot of reasons why mailers work now when they might not have worked before. And that's because a lot of people have gone to electronic bills, automatic payments, you know, nobody gets mail, that's really super important that much anymore. And so when when they do get mail, and it is attractive, and it is valuable, they tend to take action on it because there's just less distraction now in the mailbox than there used to be. It's kind of taken this topsy turvy event whereas maybe a few years ago, man everybody was sending stuff in so you it was hard to get attention. So tell me a little bit about the mailer program that you started to do. Frank Tant: Sure, and I'll touch on what you just said to, I mean, I think most people would notice that the amount of junk mail they get has decreased drastically. And I was actually talking to a local grocery store owner, he owns three or four grocery stores in the local area. And he turned he stopped doing it. And that's something that actually the elderly people got a little angry with him. He said, because they still loved it. I wanted that tangible, you know, sales item, and they still, you know, go from one grocery store to the next looking for a cheaper deal. And, and so that made me think that this would work. Well, we were going to dig and but he went all digital, and I guess he's happy with it a little bit. But yeah, that's true. So now when you do send it, there's something there. Whereas most of that's been turned off. So so what we're doing is it's actually through our buying group. With apci. They offer it, it's a super easy program because you don't think less in a sense. They put the complete ad together. So you don't care about the pricing. You don't worry about which product you're going to carry. And by doing so that they you pick the mailing routes, they say hey, here's the mailing routes in your area, just pick the ones you want to go. And they show you know, here's your store. These are the ones we recommend based off the population. You can pick, you know, those go fewer go more whatever we hit everybody we can. We're in a county, actually the only there's two independents in the entire county. And so we hit the entire county at one location and the other one, we hit about two thirds of the county. And it's super cheap, too. It runs about $500 a month per store. So to hit everybody in your county for $500 I think it's very reasonable. And so they also come with, you know that it gives us access to different products that we typically have access to through, with or apci McKesson and so McKesson carries a certain line of products just for that ad program. And I think you have to be part of the ad program in order to get you know sounds like I'm pitching something here for AP sound but Lisa Faast: No, it's just what works you're sharing you're sharing. And apci isn't the only one with this type of program I actually met with my apci rep a few few months ago and there they talked about this so I mean, but no, you're you're just sharing what works. So Frank Tant: yeah, so I mean works super well. And they so we actually just got the ad today. And so we get a digital copy of what it's gonna look like the products that are that are going to be available. And so we go in order those you can't at this point, I think we've got it set up on auto shipment, so they just will come with the next day or two. And so we're Why two weeks, more than two weeks out before the next ad will be which will be for November and typically runs for two weeks. We run it for the entire month. That comes saying it's only good for two weeks we publicize on Facebook and in the store hey that we're actually going to honor these prices all month. And people just come in all month grabbing those items and some of those items you do really well so we'll buy a sippy cup for like 25 cents and sell it for $6 and even even in the end I'll say hey just mark it down 50% off put it by the register and they fly at that point you're still making a crazy huge you know margin and and some things you don't do as well um but it still is bringing that person in store. Absolutely. And that's a metric you actually touched on this and you were the first person that I've actually heard say people need to be measuring this and I started measuring it the day I bought the store because I was like how can you not how can you not know you're growing unless you're doing this and that is how many new customers are you adding to your system everyone and to give that number we were at about 25 or 30 and we were stagnant so that was like a base level will stay where we are we're not growing we're not shrinking now we're hitting 65 to 90 new customers per month. Wow, just May I tell that to people and they're shocked by but I don't think most of them even know what they've got. But But yeah, we're hitting crazy hard numbers for a lot of new people we're adding in our system and what we need to be able to do is take that information and do you mentioned this as well is having some kind of like hey this is the first person first time they're in your store how are you going to like keep them as a or or what what's your I forget the term you use like your first interaction with them or whatever like Lisa Faast: yeah first impression the new patient process Yeah, yeah, Frank Tant: so we need to we need to step it up and add that to in my my marketer would do that I'm just got to get get her on that task. Yeah, so the whole thing is so easy. The product will come in we price it and our system I think most pharmacy PMS can do this to where you say hey I want this product to be a certain price during this time period and after that it reverts back to the full retail price. And so she goes in knocks all that out put all the product on that day and she's done it's super super super easy. Lisa Faast: That's fantastic no i i love these kinds of success stories because pharmacies you can win and you buy by winning foot traffic you know all of that coming in this is cash revenue you know you're not waiting for the money to come in you might have to wait for a credit card you know the next day or something but this is really cash based revenue, it's margin that you control and then now you have this willing population that knows about you and even that purchase even if it's something over the counter, they now trust you more than they did before you came in and now the next time that you go to recommend something or the next offer that you have there they're going to be more inclined to take out their wallet and purchase from you because they already know you now So you talked a little bit about the follow up so kind of what are those goals for the follow up but when these people come in Are you asking them to transfer prescriptions are you getting their email addresses? are you texting them what what is kind of that follow up what do you think is next in the plans for you for how to hit Frank Tant: Right now we're not really doing anything I do teach all of my employees when whenever someone says something about transferring prescriptions, I hate it when they their first response is yeah just let us know when you need something and we'll we'll transpose it no no no. But you go ahead and grab that right now and we're going to transfer the entire profile over because anytime you ask the customer to do something you've lost them and if you whenever you do everything you can for them and so what I'd love to do is build on what you just said is I get their email you know we could target specifically then their address and you know and send them messages and stuff getting their stuff transferred. And or even like you know they come in what pharmacy Do you want start using us and just go ahead and get all that information get our family you know anything like that is where we want it to go next we just have to build that says I'm all about systems it's got to work easy and yeah, absolutely. And so we just have to develop that and get it going. Lisa Faast: So what do you think your ROI is on this particular program, you know, you mentioned is about a $500 cost for each pharmacy. What what what are some of your numbers? Frank Tant: Yeah, so I'll go through that. I'll use the store we started it out first, and I'll just give you our total This is just a report I'm going to I'm looking at files here I'm looking at a report. This is our total taxable dollars we were doing month to month we'll start in January. So we were doing 7200 February went to 5700 March 75. This is when we started the AP program is either March or April. I forget the exact month. We jumped to 10,000 in May, we were at 9000 June not 9500 and Most things, you know, six months into is when you really start seeing the fruition of it 8700 will be caught up to today so August 13,000. Wow. And last month 15,000 Whoo, we more than we doubled it. Lisa Faast: Yeah, you more you, you more than doubled it. And I will say, in a pandemic, heard he said that, you know, you couldn't grow and you couldn't get people to come in and you couldn't, you know, you couldn't, you couldn't, you couldn't? Well, you can. And you you just showed it that, you know, just a simple little thing. So I was, you know, your ROI is probably like 3,000%. Frank Tant: And you're making 30, sometimes 40%, sometimes more than that, on all this OTC stuff. And that's better margins than you're getting in the pharmacy. No, you're not gonna move as much in revenue, but it allows you to do some things you weren't able to do before. If you've used that revenue, you know, that new profit, which is what we're doing, I didn't see it as like new profit that hey, I've got this extra money, I saw it as a new resource for you to grow the business investing Lisa Faast: Reinvested in your business. So yeah. So what's your advice for someone like this? Like, you know, just just do it, just try it? I mean, if you lose 500, it's not much but like you said, I think you got to stick with it for a few months and get people in that, that that rhythm there, but what recommendations you might you have for someone? Frank Tant: Yeah, so actually try it. I mean, three to, I'd say at least six months, at least three, but I'd say go six months, and just see, we are in a small rural area. People still like that stuff in the middle. So I might be different in a larger city. I don't I don't know. But it was worked really well for us. And so just Just do it. Just give it a try. It's not gonna there's so many other things. I mean, y'all were just I wasn't able to be there. But ncpa conference, which I think is great, what you did like going around, because you can get so distracted, if that thing was awesome. It sounds it sounds like an awesome idea. I wasn't there to experience it. But um, but yeah, give it a shot. And, and there's so many things that you can easily spend $1,000 and you're talking about $500 for six months, you can spend that in a day. We know what some of these, you know, we'll call them gimmicks or add ons, whatever to farm the pharmacy world. Yeah. So So yeah, give it a shot and you're talking about three six months of exposure to the entire community. It's it I mean, it's done wonders for us. And now I can go over to with what what we're doing with that revenue. Lisa Faast: Yeah, absolutely. Because that's what it's all about is is what what's next? Frank Tant: Yeah, so we so once we hired the the college marketer for $10 an hour, we saw what she was able to do and we had competence on her so we've now brought her on full time. So I did the math I was like this she's more than paying for itself with everything she's doing and I don't have to touch it all I have to do is I hate give it the tools pointer in the right direction. And so now we're using her as like our OTC looks great all the time, she goes down, she goes to each store once a week puts it off we've actually got it all in perpetual inventory now. It wasn't the pharmacy always was but now though T section has to, she touches it once a week so we don't do an everyday OTC order, she does it, she gets a big load once a week and you know one maybe one Monday at one store Tuesday the next door she has it broken down in sections as she goes through all the out of dates you know a section of town where within like three months she's hit the entire store and she does all of our marketing on Facebook she's putting together other marketing ideas for she's actually breeding was it seven page marketing, I forget. Lisa Faast: Oh the one page marketing plan? Frank Tant: Yeah that's right so so she and I both are reading that so I was like just the first few chapters I've gotten because I this is so simple easy like this is what we're doing and and she's actually because she has enough free time. She's going to use this marketing not just for the pharmacies but also for the nurse practitioner clinic. And so her I mean like I said her OTC cells are paying her salary but now we're using her for like other business ventures which is Lisa Faast: Now it's going to multiply Yeah, yeah. Frank Tant: And I don't have to do anything. Like I started this it's I hate it. I love the idea. It looks pretty you want to see great marketing to do that. But uh, you know, we it's not that creative. Mine maybe isn't always with the pharmacist, though we're so analytical. We like things to go one to one plus one is to every time not always that way. So yeah, so it's we're just reinvesting it back into it and it's going to multiply the more Lisa Faast: Awesome. Well thank you so much for sharing your story with this Frank. I think you have going to inspire many pharmacy owners. I'd love to. We'll keep in touch and maybe do one of these again after a couple more months with your with your marketer and she gets through that one page marketing plan. That's a phenomenal book. It's my it's my most favorite marketing book for pharmacy owners. So just thank you so much for being transparent opening and sharing your success because that's what it's all about is helping each other and helping us make sure we all succeed and thrive. Frank Tant: Yeah, you're welcome.