Smart Ways to Market Your Pharmacy's Flavoring Service During Back to School

From flu shots to allergy medicine, plenty of your pharmacy’s products and services are seasonal, so much of your advertising is probably focused around the time of year these things are most needed. Flavoring is no exception! Kids heading back to school marks the beginning of an uptick in liquid prescriptions that continues to rise into winter and cough, cold, and flu season. As these prescription volumes rise, it's important to make sure your patients and community are aware that your pharmacy is ready to help kids take their liquid medicine. To help your pharmacy effectively get the word out to families about your flavoring service, we're sharing our favorite tips for FLAVORx success.

Just ask!

Our number 1 tip for FLAVORx success is also the easiest: just let parents know that flavoring is available! Asking the question "How would you like this medicine to taste?" can be the key to solving a stressful problem for parents. Even though FLAVORx has been around for over 25 years, we still frequently hear from parents who had no idea that flavoring was an option and are grateful that their pharmacist let them know it was available. What makes your community pharmacy special is the excellent service patients receive, and helping them get rid of medicine-time stress is a great way to show them that you care.

There's no better time to introduce parents to your flavoring service than when they're dropping off a prescription for a liquid medication that they'll be giving to their child that same day. Whether they've already experienced difficulty giving their child medicine or not, they're likely to appreciate your help avoiding this stress in the future. Make sure the pharmacy staff knows to offer to flavor all liquid prescriptions, especially commonly dispensed antibiotics like Amoxicillin, Amox-Clav, and Clindamycin. 

Embrace the fun side of pharmacy

We know that pharmacists and pharmacy techs already have plenty on their plate when they're behind the counter, so we provide you with tools that make it easy to talk to families about flavoring. Materials like lollipops and flavor wheels get the child involved in the process and make their visit to the pharmacy fun and memorable. For a colorful, eye-catching way to advertise your flavoring service, we also offer materials to display in the pharmacy, like counter signs and window clings. As a FLAVORx pharmacy, these materials are available to you at no charge, so simply give us a call at 800-884-5771 to request more when you run out, or log in to your Recipe Generator account to place an online order. 

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• Reach new customers
• Since you have a knowledgeable pharmacy staff equipped with the tools they need to help kids take their medicine, it's important to make sure your community knows that you have this service available. If parents who were filling their prescriptions at another pharmacy find out that you're offering a solution for their kids' medicine-time struggle, it's likely they'll be willing to come give your pharmacy a try.
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• To reach these potential new customers, social media can be the key. If you want to make sure your posts are reaching the right people, it's worth looking into Facebook advertising. Facebook makes it easy to get your ads in front of the people you actually want to see them, including parents in your area who might be interested in having their kids' medicine flavored. Facebook gives you a ton of flexibility when creating your ad; you can spend as much or as little works for your budget. Facebook Ads Manager, available through your pharmacy's Facebook page, walks you through the process from start to finish.
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• Add some flavor to your feed 
• Even if paid social advertising isn't in your pharmacy's budget at the moment, social media can still help you spread the word organically about your flavoring service to your current followers. If you're working on building up your pharmacy's online presence, make sure your patients know where to find you. On your pharmacy's website, add prominent links to your pharmacy's social media pages and hang signs in the pharmacy letting customers know where to follow you on social media. You can also incentivize patients by offering a discount or free gift at their next visit if they follow you or leave an online review.
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• Social media is a great way to introduce your followers to valuable services you offer while also showing your pharmacy's fun side. We're seeing more and more pharmacies getting creative with Instagram reels and TikTok, so when you have a little downtime, grab a flavor wheel or do a flavoring demo with your pharmacy's Auto and film a quick video on flavoring. Even if your pharmacy doesn't have time to regularly take pictures and videos promoting your FLAVORx service, we've got you covered! We provide you with seasonal social media posts that make it easy as can be to promote your flavoring service. 
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FLAVORx is proud to partner with pharmacies committed to improving health outcomes for their patients. If there is anything we can do to help you succeed with your flavoring program, please get in touch! You can reach us at info@flavorx.com or 800-884-5771.