Servicing Retail Customer Accounts with Promotional Content

By Alissa Gould, Boiron USA Director of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs 

Typically, we think of customer service as caring for our end users — the consumers of our medicines. But don’t forget about servicing your retailer or healthcare practitioner customer accounts. Over the past decade, demand for communication materials has shifted from traditional media to other media. Social media, of course, demands much content, but this article focuses on developing content and self-service systems for online retail and retail media. Benefits include freeing up writer and graphic design staff for other projects; providing quick service for your accounts; and ensuring that your products are presented in a consistent and compliant manner. 

Explosion of Requests 

Online retail has exploded the need for content. At this point, we all know the importance of using certain words for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). During my two decades in communications at Boiron, I look back on the start-up of retailers’ online stores as a busy period when my company’s sales reps were requesting a large amount of new content per the demand of the webmaster at the retailer and healthcare practitioner account. 

These accounts wanted product descriptions and product photos for obscure products for which we did not have material developed. Furthermore, for search engine reasons, these accounts wanted the material to differ from that provided to their competitors, which was challenging to do while staying within the narrow regulatory limits for advertising drug products! 

Today’s Retail Media 

Between feeding the content beast for online stores and now staff creating retail media, having a systematic approach to self-help content, images, and specifications is more important than ever. Retail media is a form of advertising where brands pay a retailer to place ads on the retailer’s digital and in-store properties, leveraging the retailer's customer data to target shoppers at the point of purchase. This includes online formats, such as sponsored product listings and banner ads on a retailer's website or app, as well as in-store options, like digital screens. 

Database of Assets 

Investing in developing a systematic approach to content eliminates the continual disruption of one-off requests. Internally, staff can draw from a master set of information. This can be as simple as an Excel spreadsheet and designated digital folders with a person assigned to update information. Manufacturers can build portals for either their staff or to be accessed by retailer and healthcare practitioner accounts. External services such as Salsify are used by some retailers. Larger retailers have their own system for which your staff feed information from the internal master database. Gather the following types of information: 

• Product descriptions: Develop these in various forms (e.g., bullet points and paragraphs) so people can use the text in the required length. Start with the product name and therapeutic claim, including a clear statement that the product is homeopathic. Follow this with features and benefits. End with a statement giving confidence in your company and cross-sell another product. Don’t forget the asterisk and AAHP disclaimer developed per FTC for the therapeutic claim so that any user of the text remains compliant. Last, keep a list of words that may cause issues to avoid future problems. 

• Product images: Create a library that includes for each product front-, right-, and left-facing pictures. Capture the drug fact box too. Your sales staff and retailers may also need “flats” of the entire box. Company or product logos are useful too. Offer these images in a variety of formats (.jpg, .png, etc.) and in low- and high-resolution levels. Eventually go to the next level with lifestyle images with or without showing a product. 

• Specifications: An Excel spreadsheet is all you need for grab-and-go answers on UPCs, NDCs, box dimensions, box weight for retailers with scales at self-checkout, unit quantity by case, duration of expiration, storage temperatures, and many other specifications. 

• Other: The natural product retailers often want information such as vegetarian-friendly, vegan-friendly, dairy-free, cruelty-free, and any certifications. Add these and more to your Excel spreadsheet per product.

Aim to develop these types of materials to work more efficiently. While the information may be obvious to some staff, these resources help more remote staff, brokers, and external audiences like retailers stay within regulatory boundaries and stylistically strengthen your brand. And if it feels overwhelming, remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day.