Contributed by SME: Richard Waithe, PharmD, COO, Pyrls
Why pharmacies should pair operational efficiency with local marketing, community trust, and a modern content strategy.
Right now, it feels like every conversation in pharmacy starts and ends with AI. The tools are improving quickly, and many of them are genuinely useful. AI can help you streamline workflow, reduce busywork, and handle documentation. It can even help with inventory management. Pharmacy owners who are not at least exploring where these tools fit are probably leaving some efficiency on the table.
But there is something that does not get talked about nearly as much. Getting more efficient is not the same thing as growing. A pharmacy can be the leanest, smartest, most well-oiled operation in its area and still struggle. Why? Because efficiency is an inside game. It makes what a pharmacy already does cheaper and faster. It does not, by itself, bring a single new patient through the door.
AI may help pharmacies operate more efficiently, but brand and marketing are what help communities know, trust, and choose them.
The service nobody knows about does not grow anything
Many pharmacies are asking the right question: what new service should be added? Offerings such as point-of-care testing, adherence programs, chronic care support, compounding, and long-term care are great moves and exactly the kind of clinical expansion the pharmacy profession needs.
But there is a second question that gets asked way less often, and it might matter more. How will the community actually find out that a service exists?
It happens plenty of times. A pharmacy builds out a fantastic clinical service. The team is trained, the workflow is dialed in, and the quality is there. And then it just sits. Not because it’s bad, but because nobody outside the building knows about it. “Build it, and they will come” is a nice idea, but it’s not a strategy. The best clinical service in town is worthless if the community has no idea it’s there.
When a pharmacy adds a service, awareness should be treated as part of the project, not an afterthought. That means consistent messaging, showing up in local search, building referral relationships with nearby providers, and ensuring staff can clearly explain what is offered and why it matters.
Think like the town’s local health newspaper
Every pharmacy knows it needs a social presence. The question is whether its content strategy is actually doing anything. Most pharmacy social media is run like a bulletin board: holiday hours, a manufacturer graphic, a “happy Fourth of July” post. Nothing wrong with any of it, but it does not give people a reason to follow.
More pharmacies should be rethinking their approach. Instead of posting like a business, they should post like the town’s local newspaper. That includes health content only they can share: flu shots are available in town this week, what parents should know about back-to-school vaccines, what to do if a medication is on shortage, and so on. That information is valuable.
But the real differentiator is going beyond health topics. Shouting out the new pizza shop that just opened down the street, congratulating the local high school on winning the district championship, and mentioning the community event happening this weekend — that is what transforms a pharmacy from “the one that posts ads” into a genuine part of the neighborhood. People follow because they can see that the pharmacy clearly cares about the place they live, and that trust carries straight back over to the health side of what it does.
That is the whole game. A modern pharmacy content strategy should look a lot less like advertising and a lot more like being the local voice the community wants to hear from.
A good starting point is to pick a few simple themes and rotate through them: local health alerts, awareness of available services, plain-language medication education, behind-the-scenes looks at the team, friendly myth-busting, community shout-outs and local events, updates for referring providers, and seasonal campaigns. Not all of them are needed every week. Pick a few, stay consistent, and let it build.
The bottom line
Use the new tools. Get faster, leaner, and smarter about how the pharmacy runs. That part is genuinely worth doing. Just don’t let the AI conversation drown out the one that actually grows the business.
Efficiency protects a pharmacy. Brand grows it. The most efficient pharmacy in town still loses if nobody knows it’s there. The good news is that being known, trusted, and chosen by a community has never required the latest technology. It just requires a decision that it matters.
