peer perspectives
Bayshore Pharmacy
As Bayshore Pharmacy enters its sixtieth year in business, owner Rich Stryker recognizes how a personalized experience can make all the difference to serving his community.
Case in point: Rich and his partner are available 24 hours a day via an emergency number routed through the local police station. In one particular instance, a nurse in the community had had knee surgery but chose not to fill her prescription as she felt fine.
Fast forward to Mother’s Day and she “woke up screaming in pain” and called the emergency number. Soon, Rich arrived with pain medication and a Mother’s Day card in tow.
It’s this kind of community thinking that sets Bayshore Pharmacy apart – and it’s a throughline in how Rich promotes his store amidst the changing face of retail.
Opportunity
For Bayshore Pharmacy, being available to the community is a key tenet of its success. The 24-hour phone line is one example, but it feeds into product availability and its marketing strategy, especially as Bayshore serves a range of different consumers.
While it’s mainly a pharmacy, it also has a large gift shop and it stocks sundries due to its proximity to the beach. This means days are busy and marketing is tough – especially when many of the consumers are so familiar.
“I like the panicky stress – the busy to slow, the slow to busy. It’s absolutely fantastic. When I was small, it was my father and his friends and the people who knew my dad [who would come in]. Now it’s my friends and the people I grew up with. It’s such a tight-knit community!”
Rich Stryker, Owner and Pharmacist, Bayshore Pharmacy
Of course, as a business entering its sixtieth year, change is necessary - especially as local retail itself evolves post-pandemic to embrace a multi-channel, digital experience.
Solution
Bayshore uses a range of marketing activities to reach its local community, including the Good Neighbor Pharmacy marketing program alongside direct mail marketing and a local magazine which Rich writes for every quarter.
Social media advertising is important, while a Google presence has been key to tailored, direct messaging to the community. Whether it’s geofencing or targeting certain demographics, Bayshore is particularly smart about how it spends its advertising dollars.
Rich uses Google AdWords and has run Shopping Ads, now available through Good Neighbor Pharmacy in partnership with Pointy from Google and Location3. Setting up Google Shopping Ads can be a multi-step process, but with the partnership it’s relatively simple. Pointy provides the product information and then the budget and location is set in LOCALACT, an advertising dashboard available to Good Neighbor Pharmacy members.
“In the past, we’ve been limited when running product ads, due to the number of items and because of inventory levels. If I’m running an ad or I run out, it gets so onerous to try and maintain it on a daily basis. I don’t have to worry about it anymore as it takes care of the hard work.”
Rich Stryker, Owner and Pharmacist, Bayshore Pharmacy
Outcome
“Running ads is now hands-off which is fantastic,” Rich says. All Rich needed to do to get up and running is to set the budget and location in LOCALACT, meaning he didn’t have to worry about complex feeds or bidding strategies.
“When people reach out [and search on Google],” he says, “the ad comes to them as a tailored individual thing. They reach out to us as if we had reached out to them!”
As with the card on Mother’s Day, it’s the personal touch that is key. With many types of online advertising, it’s a case of advertising to many and hoping a consumer bites. These ads are triggered by people searching for specific products near them - for example, someone typing “pain medication near me”, which can be a key indicator of intent to purchase.
“At least weekly, we have people who come in and say that they saw the ad on Google and they want to get the item,” Rich says. “We also get calls from people outside of the area, where people are trying to get hard-to-find items. We would have never had that exposure otherwise.”
Results: (April 1 - August 31, 2021)
Impressions: 649,195
Clicks: 5,773
Store visits: 450
“At least weekly, we have people who come in and say that they saw the ad on Google and they want to get the item. We also get calls from people outside of the area, where people are trying to get hard-to-find items. We would have never had that exposure otherwise.”
Rich Stryker, Owner and Pharmacist, Bayshore Pharmacy