How Newdays Pharmacies increased travel clinic bookings with targeted local social media advertising
Newdays Pharmacies, operating across four locations in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, partnered with Connects for Pharmacy to increase awareness and drive bookings for their travel clinic services.
Despite offering comprehensive travel health consultations and vaccinations across all branches, the service was not being fully utilised. The primary barrier wasn’t capability or demand, but visibility.
Led by Olivier Picard, NPA Chair & Smaller Groups (Eastern England) and owner of Newdays Pharmacies, the group set out to shift away from reliance on word-of-mouth and build a more proactive, digital-first approach to patient engagement.
The objective was clear: reach local patients where they are already spending their time – online.
The Challenge: Low awareness in a digital world
Like many community pharmacies, Newdays had a strong in-store reputation but limited digital visibility for private services such as travel clinics.
Key challenges included:
- Heavy reliance on word-of-mouth referrals
- Low awareness of travel clinic services among non-regular patients
- Inconsistent visibility across four separate locations
- Difficulty reaching younger, digitally engaged audiences
At the same time, patient behaviour is changing. More people are using social media and online search to discover local healthcare services, creating a disconnect between service availability and patient awareness.
The Solution: Hyper-local social media campaigns
To address this, Newdays Pharmacies implemented a targeted digital advertising strategy through Connects for Pharmacy.
The campaign focused on driving awareness of travel clinic services through highly localised social media advertising across Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram).
The strategy included:
- Hyper-local targeting around each of the four pharmacy locations
- Seasonal travel-focused messaging aligned with demand peaks
- Mobile-first creative optimised for fast engagement
- Consistent service-led messaging across all branches
This approach enabled Newdays Pharmacies to move beyond passive visibility and build active, location-specific engagement within their communities.
The Results: Increased visibility and bookings
The campaign delivered strong reach and engagement across all locations, significantly improving awareness of travel clinic services.
Key outcomes included:
- Over 65k impressions across their 4 locations
- 430 clicks on the links in their ads
- Improved awareness of travel clinic availability across all branches from patients between the ages of 25 – 34
- Increase in bookings for travel clinic services
Audience engagement was strongest among 25 – 34-year-olds, highlighting the importance of digital channels in reaching younger, travel-active demographics.
Importantly, the campaign helped establish consistent visibility across all four pharmacy locations, ensuring services were promoted equally within each community. By tailoring messaging to specific communities and combining it with social media advertising, Newdays Pharmacies were able to bridge the gap between service availability and patient awareness.
Social media is no longer optional – it is a core part of how patients discover and interact with local healthcare services.
“Community pharmacy can no longer rely solely on word of mouth. Patients expect to discover healthcare services online and through social media, just like every other part of their lives.
The Connects for Pharmacy campaign helped us significantly increase visibility for our travel clinic services across all four of our pharmacy locations. It enabled us to reach new audiences in a way that traditional methods alone simply cannot achieve.
Social media has become an essential channel for how pharmacies connect with patients, and this campaign clearly demonstrated its value.”
Olivier Picard
NPA Chair & Smaller Groups – Eastern England
Owner, Newdays Pharmacies