10+ ideas for heart-healthy front-end products
Business and Operations
Utilize your front end to promote heart health
In brief:
- February is American Heart Month, making it a perfect time to highlight ways your pharmacy helps patients protect their hearts.
- Your pharmacy’s front end has products that offer heart-health benefits, from lowering cholesterol to easing stress.
- Signs and promotions will increase awareness and sales of heart-healthy items.
Focus on heart health in February
On Valentine’s Day, shoppers are bombarded with red and pink hearts, candy hearts, and chocolate hearts. In your pharmacy, you can utilize this holiday to turn their attention to their heart health.
Before American Heart Month (February) kicks off, look at your store’s front end with an eye on heart-healthy products. Plan signs and promotions to highlight the many products that support American Heart Month. Make your end cap planograms pertinent to heart health. You can reference the complete heart health end cap planograms on McKesson Connect™ for assistance!
Promote monitoring
Offer free or discounted screenings in your pharmacy, and show how patients can track their numbers at home with:
- Blood pressure monitors
- Cholesterol tests
Remind patients that their health insurance may cover some products, and offer services they won’t receive when ordering online. It is important to discuss why monitoring is important, how to use devices properly, and how to interpret the results. This will help ensure that your patients will continue to monitor their heart health on a regular basis.
Supplement care with supplements
Many pharmacies are already checking whether patients taking statins can benefit from Coenzyme Q10 to combat drug-induced nutrient depletion. But patients not on prescriptions may also be interested in improving their cholesterol levels or lowering their blood pressure with products such as:1
Check medicine cabinet staples
Highlight the product your pharmacy recommends for aspirin therapy, such as a preferred brand that can save patients money while boosting your bottom line.
OTC products that families commonly have on hand can raise blood pressure or interfere with medications. Make sure you educate patients about OTC products they may need to avoid, such as:
Be ready to suggest alternatives, such as acetaminophen for pain relief and nasal sprays to help with congestion. Flag heart-healthy products on your shelves.
Help them kick the smoking habit
In addition to patches and pills that are available by prescription, other products can help people who want to quit smoking.2
Be sure to talk with patients about pre-existing conditions and possible side effects.
Pump up exercise routines
You don’t have to stock equipment like treadmills to give your patients useful exercise options. Consider stocking and highlighting products such as:
- Peddlers
- Squeeze balls and exercise putty
- Resistance bands
Point patients who may be sore to products such as wraps, braces and topical pain relief ointments.
Stress ways to de-stress
Plan an eye-catching end cap with products that can promote calm, such as:
Don’t forget Valentine’s Day
Give patients heart-healthy choices in gift-giving like dark chocolate treats or gourmet baskets of heart-healthy snacks, including fruits and nuts.
Highlight products with signage saying “Our Pharmacist Recommends …” and mark heart-healthy products with a shelf sticker to make them easy for shoppers to spot.
Create a significant front-end
presence for heart-healthy products. By doing so you will get customers’
attention, help them improve their heart health and achieve healthy sales.