Realizing Your Marketing Plan through Online Advertising

Q: How can I use online advertising to expand my practice?

A: It’s easier than you think.

Marketing is a crucial part of any optical practice management plan, and with the Internet we have one of the most powerful tools ever created for putting our plans into action. More than with radio, television, and newspapers, you can use the Internet to harness broad-based yet extremely efficient advertising methods that will significantly enhance your practice. If you haven’t tried it yet, you should.

When optical practice management teams use traditional marketing methods—radio, television, and newspapers, as mentioned above—they miss out on a world of potential contacts. And that’s to say nothing of the cost of traditional advertising. Radio, television, and newspaper are simply more expensive. While these methods do reach customers, you can reach just as many people for a fraction of the cost with Internet advertising. That’s an opportunity to jump at.

No tool is better-suited than the Internet for reaching existing clients, past clients, and potential future clients. Online advertising is a 21st-century way of tackling a 20th-century issue—namely: I have a business, and I want clients for my business. How will I attract clients to my business?

The best way to advertise your practice on the Internet is through your own website. Make sure your patients know your URL and that your site is attractive and easily navigable. Collect patients’ e-mail addresses so you can send them updates that link back to your site, and watch as your number of daily visits increases.

Putting your marketing plan into action has never been easier. By spicing up your website, using business cards effectively, and getting patients’ e-mail contacts and communicating with them electronically, you will be well on your way to modernizing your practice and attracting new customers in the process. Who said optical management practice had to be difficult?

Your Eye Care Marketing Niche

ou know how a lot of practice management consultants will say you need to develop a specialty within that practice?

Low vision, specialty contact lenses, and vision therapy come to mind.

It’s true.

So, why don’t you just have one big practice that does it all?

As optometrists, we pride ourselves in being the general eye guy – we can take care of most problems – or at least get people to where they need to be.

So why all the fuss about developing a side-specialty?

For the very same reason why niche-focused marketing is the most
effective way to grow your patient base.

You see, today, in early 2009, we have become a very specialized
society.

For example…

Years ago if you needed legal advice you went to a general attorney.

Today, if you needed an attorney for something, you wouldn’t think of going to a general lawyer.

You’d choose an attorney that specializes in your area of need
(i.e. divorce, personal injury, trial, intellectual property, etc.)

(We’ll talk about WHY in a second.)

And, we see this kind of specialization in every area of commerce… from ultra-specialized doctors all the way to stores just for a specific type of sunglasses.

Fact is, today, people want products and services that appear to be designed for their specific, targeted needs.

They want a SPECIALIST, NOT a generalist.

If they have cardiovascular problems, they want the cardiologist. Not a general doctor.

If they have a foot injury, they want the podiatrist. Not a general doctor.

If they have chronic sinus problems, they want a sinus specialist. Not a general doctor.

Funny thing is… people will happily pay more money for a specialist than they will a generalist.

It’s why the cardiologist gets paid a heck of a lot more money than the general M.D.

Or, why a Mercedes Benz mechanic gets paid a lot more than the Goodyear mechanic.

People want SPECIALISTS, and they happily pay more for their “perceived” expertise.

**So, what does this have to do with the low vision or vision therapy and you and your practice?

Well, the reason the practice consultant recommends these specialities and doesn’t want you to have just one big general practice that they don’t want to be perceived as one big general practice!

You want to accommodate those sliced, targeted, specific groups and their needs.

In return, you are able to attract a larger share of each of those little
groups AND charge a lot more for the service.

Which is the same exact thing you should do when marketing your practice.

You NEVER want to appear as a generalist in your marketing because it totally devalues what you do and causes people
to NOT think of you as a specialist or expert.

Hence, general eye care marketing lowers the perceived value prospective patients have of the care you provide.

Instead, what you want to do is target specific niches and conditions in different marketing pieces, so you position yourself as a
specialist in that particular area.

This makes prospective patients feel you are an expert with solving their problem and INCREASES the perceived value of your care.

Remember, people want someone who is an expert with solving their needs. NOT someone who is just a generalist.

My point is this…

Specialization in marketing is key, today, because of society’s move toward specialized solutions for their specific needs.

They want stuff just for them.

Good thing is, you don’t need multiple offices to accomplish this.

You just need specialized marketing that does it for you.

Optometric Websites – Time For Enhancement

There is an art to designing optometric websites—if you do it right, you’ll see an instant boost to your practice. And while a basic website is better than no website at all, going the extra mile can really expand your patient base. This is one case where attention to detail really pays off.

Here are a few tips culled from successful optometric websites that will have your own site getting all kinds of buzz:

Keep it User-Friendly. Given that many of your visitors might have varying degrees of vision impairment, this is a given. Providing a user-friendly environment gives your patients confidence in what you do and the services you provide.

Address the Basics. It may be hard to believe, but new websites often leave out important information like hours, directions, and services. Think about what you’d definitely want to see if you were a patient, and make sure it’s included on your website. Go a step further, even, and solicit feedback before going live—just to make sure you didn’t miss anything important.

Talk about Yourself. People want to know about you, so include some general “about” information, like the history of your practice, and short, individualized biographies of key staff. This will build trust and familiarity among your patients, a key step in actually retaining them.
Make Your Site Known. If people in your area don’t know about your site, they should. Get the word out through search engine optimization so your site will appear in local searches on Google, Yahoo, and other popular search engines. Sign up with Yahoo Local and Google Maps, too, so that patients know exactly where to find you.

Give Patients a Reason to Visit. Incentives, incentives, incentives! Including special offers, coupons, an opt-in newsletter, and other services that people will find useful will be a big plus for your website.

Go the Extra Mile. What can you put on your website that will benefit your patients the most? Interactive features like a glasses suggestion tool or real-time online scheduling rank high on this list. Including features like these will help your site stand out and will ensure return visits from your patients.
Optometric websites that focus on what patients want and need are generally successful. By following the tips above, you’ll be well on your way to establishing your presence on the Internet and using it to build your patient base.

Eye Care Marketing and Email: The Doctor Will Text You Now

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000…513900382.html
(You may need a subscription, but here’s the link)

The article in this morning’s journal, “The Doctor Will Text You Now: Patients Visit With Their Physicians Online as More Insurers Begin Paying for Digital Diagnoses” gets off on to an embarrassing start by using a ‘red eye’ example, which you have to let slide (for now) in order to get to what I think really can be helpful.

This is what motivated me to share it with you:

“This year, 39% of doctors said they’d communicated with patients online, up from just 16% five years earlier, according to health-information firm Manhattan Research, a unit of Decision Resources Inc. So far, the most common digital doctor services are the simplest ones, like paying bills, sending lab results and scheduling appointments. But patients like Ms. Rust are also using computers to deal with issues that usually require a trip to the doctor’s office.”

And this where they miss the point:

The article goes on to focus on reimbursement as they describe the demand for online care growing leading to “more health insurers begin paying doctors for treating patients virtually, albeit at a lower fee scale than for traditional in-office appointments.”
***

Perhaps the Internist, overwhelmed with 40 patients per day, cringes at the idea of answering a flurry of patient emails ‘on the house’. Maybe you can’t blame the insurance provider for looking for ways of keeping patients out of the office.

But what about doctors who simply want to provide a valuable service, build solid loyalty, and GIVE patients a compelling reason to refer family and friends?

Many of you already make this service available in your practices. Its even part of your marketing strategy. You have a website and email contact form (so you don’t get spam). Some of you collect emails and regularly broadcast to your patients.

A lot of patients will email you from vacation. Some will have questions best answered by your staff. Occasionally, you’ll get a note from a prospective patient- usually with a good question – who almost always becomes your new patient soon.

Many of us immediately see the downside. What ‘can of worms’ am I opening with this? Does my response need to be formal? I don’t have time for this. Is this patient going to abuse this/me? Patient loyalty is complex and not predictable, and therefore you cannot rely on this alone to build trust (perhaps true). Is this even HIPPA compliant?

Of course, in reality, patients are simply overwhelmed by your willingness to acknowledge them (in any format) and most-often they WILL follow your advise — whether you reassure them, answer a question, call in an RX, or send them to the nearest ER.

And more often than not, you’ll get a very well-articulated question from a patient pointing out a problem or concern that many other patients might be thinking about. If you can then capitalize on this by delivering your response to the greater patient base, you have just leveraged serious value.

Okay. Now worry with the tiny reimbursement from the insurance masters.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000…513900382.html

Read more about how optometry marketing and email can transform the way you practice!

Increasing Revenue With A Modern Optometric Marketing Plan

You want to increase revenue, but how? The answer is simple, really: enhance your optometric marketing plan. Okay, but how do you do that?

A clue lies in the habits of today’s young people. They spend more time surfing the Internet than they do reading magazines, watching TV, or readings newspapers. But what does this mean for your practice, and your optometric marketing in general?

Simply put, the traditional marketing strategies employed by optometrists—reaching patients through the yellow pages and radio and television advertisements—are on their way out. If you want to reach customers in today’s day and age, you have to use the Internet. You can still use those traditional methods to connect with patients—in fact, some of them might still expect it, to some degree—but no contemporary optometric marketing plan is complete without using the Internet.

Your first stop should be Google. It’s the most popular search engine, and it’s how people will find you. Your website needs to be one of the first a prospective patient sees when he or she is looking for an optometrist in your area. Additionally, you should make sure that your website is listed in dmoz.org and Yahoo directories. Bottom line: if your patients can find you, they’re more likely to call you and make an appointment.

As far as your website goes, put up some interesting optometry-related articles that you think your patients would like to read. Send out an e-newsletter with coupons and an interesting article or two. You can then increase traffic to your website by taking your newsletters and placing them on article database sites like e-zinearticles.com.

Strategies like these are easy to implement and will make a big difference. The sooner you’re up on the web in a noticeable way, the quicker your optometric marketing plan will take flight.

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