UK Pharmacies Offered Hyperlocal Insights

Marketing agency Brand Champions is offering hyperlocal market insights to UK pharmacies, promising a clearer picture of the communities they serve, and helping them to target their promotion.

Founded by Fiona Wylie (pictured), Brand Champions brings together marketers with extensive client-side experience across strategy, brand management and execution. Its SOS (Service on Stand-by) offering embeds experienced marketers within client teams to fill resource and capability gaps, both short- and long-term.

The launch comes as the country adopts a 'Pharmacy First' model, under which participating pharmacies will diagnose and treat more conditions directly. The new postcode-level analysis builds on a location-led approach developed by the company to help brands understand and respond to the distinct characteristics of individual communities, and opportunities within them. The analysis is based on publicly available sources including local authority, Census and NHS data, alongside insight into local search behaviour.

Pharmacies enter their postcode online and receive a snapshot of the marketing and engagement opportunities in their local area within a fortnight. The analysis includes local demographics and health needs; top searches both for services sought and health concerns more generally; and the visibility of the pharmacy to those seeking support.

'Pharmacies have something incredibly powerful that most brands would spend years trying to build,' says Wylie, '- trust, a physical presence in the heart of their communities and customers living within walking distance. But proximity alone doesn't make you top of mind. Every postcode is different. A pharmacy serving young families will have different opportunities from one serving an older population; people will be looking for different services, asking different questions and using different channels to find answers.

'The postcode check is about making that local opportunity visible. We take publicly available information and look at it through a marketing lens to show pharmacies who is around them, what matters to those people, where the pharmacy is - and isn't - showing up, and where there may be an opportunity to act.'

The company is online at www.thebrandchampions.co.uk .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.