Have you considered building special promotions that relate to national healthcare days and months? … 

WHY NOT? Opportunity knocks all year ‘round!

Did you know, for example, that March 1 is International Wheelchair Day? … Or that October 8 is National Oxygen Awareness Day? … Or that November is COPD month? There are cool things you can do to promote many of the products you sell around these “official” days and months.

Here are eleven inexpensive marketing ideas you might want to consider…

1. Making hot chocolate or coffee available
2. Using festival lighting to illuminate products
3. Holding a “special events” sale
4. Decorating your website with event-related elements
5. Offering a prize drawing from a box on one of your best-selling products
6. Renting a “talking robot” or parrot to attract attention
7. Promoting the day, week or month with colorful posters
8. Advertising an event or sale in a local paper or on radio/TV
9. Displaying a cash saving sign
10. Giving away “something” of value to every person who enters your store
11. Thinking of your own creative promotion to fit a specific occasion

Here are upcoming national healthcare days, weeks and months scheduled for 2018. Scan the list and think of a promotion that could help boost your business!

MARCH

• National Doctor’s Month
• Patient Safety Awareness Week (11-17)
• Pulmonary Rehabilitation Week (11-17)
• Diabetes Association Alert Week (27)
• National Doctor’s Day (30)

APRIL

• National Cancer Control Month
• National Facial Protection Month
• Foot Health Awareness Month
• Defeat Diabetes Month
• Occupational Therapy Month
• World Heart Day (7)
• National Healthcare Decisions Day (16)
• Patient Experience Week (23-27)

MAY

• Arthritis Awareness Month
• Asthma Awareness Month
• Better Sleep Month
• High Blood Pressure Month
• Older Americans Month
• Asthma Day (1)
• Women’s Lung Health Week (6-12)
• Lupus Day (10)

JUNE

• Men’s Health Month
• Community Health Improvement (3-9)
• Healthcare Recruiter’s Day (5)
• Healthcare Risk Management (18-22)

SEPTEMBER

• Baby Safety Month
• Drug Free Pain Management Month
• Health Aging Month
• Pulmonary Fibrosis Awareness Month
• Pain Awareness Month
• National Nurses Day (15)
• Women’s Health Fitness Day (26)

OCTOBER

• Breast Cancer Awareness Month
• Health Literacy Month
• Patient Centered Care Awareness Month
• Physical Therapy Month
• Physician Assistants Week (6-12)
• National Oxygen Day (8)
• World Arthritis Day (12)
• Lock Your Meds Day (23)
• National Patient Care Week (21-27)

NOVEMBER

• National Alzheimer’s Disease Week
• COPD Month
• “Movember”
• Home Care and Hospice Month
• Diabetes Month
• Allied Health Professionals Week (4-10)
• Nurse Practitioner Week (11-17)

DECEMBER

• Older Driver Safety Awareness Week (3-7)