How Pharmacy 2U used myth-busting to drive conversions

For decades, brand and performance marketing have been uneasy bedfellows. But as most companies embrace the necessity to engage with both disciplines well, there is untapped potential in applying the principles of performance marketing to brand building. 

Here at Attest, we’ve (literally) written the book on how to bridge the divide between performance and brand marketing. In it, we unveil our handy framework, distilled into four stages, to building a true performance brand. We like to call it the ‘growth cycle’ – comprising the distinct areas of ‘learn’, ‘validate’, ‘peach’, and ‘measure’. 

The ‘reach’ stage of the growth cycle

The ‘reach’ stage is the third stage of the growth cycle, following the ‘validate’ stage. This is the stage where most major marketing investments are made, and data-driven decision-making is crucial.

Once ideas are validated using data, it’s time to give the newly validated product, ad, or brand messaging its time in the limelight. ‘reach’ is exactly what it says on the tin – it’s about reaching the right people, in the right places, and at the right time (and you’ll know who the right people are thanks to the ‘learn’ stage). 

Whether it’s developing insight-driven marketing campaigns, or using speedy insights for dynamic media planning, the reach stage is where it all comes together and you start to get your data-backed ideas out in front of your audience. 

So, how do brands use the Reach stage of the growth cycle in the real world? We asked marketing leaders across a range of industries and compiled their experience into our book – and we’ve pulled one case study for this blog post.

Want to get your hands on the complete book? Download it for free below…

How Pharmacy2U used myth-busting to drive conversions

In her CMO role at Pharmacy2U, Maya Moufarek was focused primarily on building brand awareness and driving conversions. Despite being a disruptive brand with a unique and valuable proposition, Pharmacy2U struggled with brand awareness in the early stages. 

The advantage of the brand was clear – they made it easier for people to get their prescriptions, all the while saving the NHS 15% of their medical costs – but initial interest wasn’t there. What do you do when people have no idea that your brand proposition is a viable option? You create the demand first, and then ultimately generate response (in the form of sign-ups to their prescription renewal and delivery service).

Using what they knew about their target audience, they opted to start with primetime TV ads focused on educating the market and making clear the value of Pharmacy2U. From there, they moved their efforts to the digital marketing world, thereby generating interest offline and ‘sealing the deal’ online. Once that proved successful, the team sought out more adventurous realms and began advertising directly through GPs, and reaching their audience through direct mail. 

While running these campaigns, the team closely tracked brand awareness and registrations, aiming to maintain brand building momentum alongside their acquisition campaigns. What they didn’t expect, however, is that they would be able to use their brand tracking data to make real-time changes to their acquisition campaigns – and use their discoveries to myth-bust in real-time.

As a healthcare brand, you’re dealing with something that’s pretty personal, and people are naturally more mistrusting. Couple that with growing fears around the privatisation of the NHS in the UK, and Pharmacy2U found itself coming up against some significant resistance from their target audience when convincing them to sign-up. 

Thanks to the brand sentiment analysis they included in their brand tracker, the team were able to identify where people’s reservations were coming from; when it became obvious that people thought they were stealing business from the NHS, they updated their site to feature more information about how they work closely with them (and actually save them money). When people expressed their concern that the service wasn’t available at their GP, they updated their ad messaging to let people know that they work with every GP. By updating their campaigns to reflect exactly what their target audience were querying, Pharmacy2U were able to increase brand trust alongside their brand awareness – and boost conversions along the way. 

In later brand tracking surveys, objections to signing up weakened significantly. Pharmacy2U multiplied their revenue fivefold over the five years since they implemented their initial data-driven campaigns, and have become the UK’s biggest online pharmacy. All because they knew how to reach their audience. 

Pharmacy2U aren’t the only brand who’ve used speedy insights to drive business growth. You’ll find even more examples for each stage of the Growth Cycle in our book, The Performance Brand – get a free copy below…