Using E-Mail for Effective Eyecare Marketing

If you’re using e-mail to connect with your patients and grow your optometry practice, congratulations! E-mail is an essential piece of contemporary eyecare marketing, and using it effectively can help you maintain the patients you’ve had for years and also acquire new ones.

Remember, though, that some uses of e-mail are better than others. Read the following examples, and, in each case, consider whether e-mail is being utilized properly.

• One optometry practice uses e-mail to send regular reminders for annual exams. These e-mails include links back to the practice’s main website for real-time scheduling.

• Another optometry practice uses e-mail to send a weekly newsletter to patients.

• This optometry practice uses e-mail to track clicks over to its website from e-mails that offer special deals on products and services.

• Our final optometry practice uses e-mail to solicit potential new customers, sending communication to a large number of unfamiliar addresses.

Can you tell which practices are using e-mail effectively? How about which ones aren’t? Of the four examples shown above, the first and third represent intelligent eyecare marketing. The second and fourth, conversely, represent approaches that should be avoided.

As with all business endeavors, eyecare marketing clearly has its own list of do’s and don’ts. If you use e-mail judiciously, though, you’ll build trust and loyalty among your patients, and greatly increase the chances of return visits.

Eye Care Marketing: The Power of Email And Website Analytics

Just wanted to share a marketing observation that I’ve found to be extremely effective and motivating – especially in the midst of these uncertain times.

I cover this in my free guide, but most people have not read it yet.
I’ve found that sending a regular email broadcast to my patient database containing useful and interesting information is a very powerful marketing tool.

Not only are you educating patients with your unique voice and style, but you get immediate feedback about your efforts, enabling you to learn and test what works with your group and according to your goals.

Again, I cover this in my guide, but power of ‘analytics’ applies (on a broader basis) to your website as well, arming you with the power to control your marketing direction.

Here’s an article you may find helpful with regard to email and building your practice.

Best regards,
Jeff Lewis, OD

Optometry Marketing and Email – How To Use Links

Using links in your optometry marketing email campaigns is an excellent way of demonstrating your good intentions and essential to getting the most out of this powerful and inexpensive marketing tool.
Your patients like to know what you recommend or find interesting.

Not only are giving them valuable information, but the link is also perceived as an added benefit and testament to your sincerity.
This fits with good optometry marketing ethics, plus you have the unique ability to test and measure the effectiveness of your broadcast(s) and links.

Here are a few guidelines on how to incorporate links into your weekly or monthly broadcasts:

• Plan to distribute the link once or twice in the body of the message.
• Only use trustworthy sources – especially when citing news content.
• The ‘PS’ should repeat the main link, but also include a link to your appointment scheduler, blog, and an email link to you or staff for questions.

For specials, have a link to a ‘landing page that goes into more detail’ and finally, make sure to describe the link or at least make it work with the rest of the email context.

Here’s an article you might find helpful for your optometry marketing email endeavors.

http://www.tlcpracticebuilder.com/archives/AnOptometristsGuidetoEmailMarketing.pdf

Eyecare Marketing and Email: What Do Your Patients Want to Know About?

Whether you’ve been broadcasting to your patient base for years or just getting started, figuring out what information to share with your patients can pose an interesting challenge.

As professionals, we spend a lot of energy on describing conditions and treatment plans in layman’s terms – for a live audience who generally need to know what we have to say – in the moment.
But what do you talk with your patient about when they are away? In other words, what do they want to hear?

Here are a few ways of ‘re-focusing’ on what people want to hear about from you…

1. Forums – Do a google search on ‘eye care forums’ and see what comes up. (Warning: Try not to get caught up in the debates you’ll invariably find regarding fees, policies, etc.)

2. Do a general google search on ‘eye problems’ – the most popular are a reflection of the most traffic…

3. Brainstorm/Reflect on the most common general questions people have for you or ask your staff what they often hear people ask…

4. Try the google ‘adwords’ tool below. Type in the name of a condition or simply, type ‘eye problems’ and see what comes up. Pay special to average monthly search volume.

Here’s the link:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal (Estimates total searches and AdWords clicks & CPC)

Once you’ve found a topic that you like, remember that effective eye care marketing and email starts with the ‘conversation’.

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