Pharmacist-Led Education is the Most Effective Supplement Marketing Strategy | NCPA 2025

For community pharmacies looking to increase their profitability through the sale of over-the counter, front-end supplements, creating a grand marketing scheme to drive patients toward their stores may not be necessary. According to pharmacist and consultant Emlah Tubuo, PharmD, MS, owner of Powell Pharmacy, the best marketing approaches in the supplement space and beyond are through proper patient education.

“There's no patient that walks into a pharmacy who wants to jeopardize their health,” she told Drug Topics in part 3 of our interview with her on-site at the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) 2025 Annual Convention & Expo. “Every patient wants to feel better, so just a single question to a patient can discover what supplement will be most beneficial for their health at that time. I usually ask the simple question: What could you change about your health today?”

While Tubuo has garnered continued success as a business owner and well-established pharmacy consultant, she still does not fail at centering the care she provides toward her patients first. To her, marketing approaches to sell more supplements and over-the-counter products is nothing without properly connecting with patients and educating them on the products they are consuming.

In this part of our interview with Tubuo, she delved into these essential questions that pharmacists should be asking everyday patients. She also explored how the rise in social media use has impeded the pharmacist’s ability to provide the proper supplement counseling. From her perspective, Tubuo wants to see pharmacists constantly asking patients these questions and circulating social media to debunk supplement misinformation and educate the public.

Tubuo explains just how she has successfully approached simple marketing tactics for increasingly popular pharmacy products.

Read more of our coverage from NCPA 2025.

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