Millions of people suffer from eye infections and other eye disorders every year. Thus, it is necessary for people to know about your practice. But how? For this, you need to walk down the path of strategic marketing with activities such as retaining patients, dealing with competition, introducing new services, recruiting new providers, entering new marketplaces and combating negative publicity for your practice to make progress.
Let’s see how to create a buzz in the market for yourself and your eye care center.
Interact with patients
Marketing gives the best results when you add a fun element to your ultimate professional personality. If you are hesitant to do this, step out of your perception of what people will think and try being friends with your patients. For this, you need to develop a presence on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, etc. and make your patients feel more valued and engaged. Post something interesting, reply to their comments, thank them for positive reviews and act on their negative feedback, if any.
Stop talking just about yourself
No campaign or marketing effort can be a success just by going gaga about yourself. Every existing patient or new one wants to know “What’s In It For Me” (WIIFM). Your email, social media posts, ads, etc. should not shout “Look at me! Look at me!” Alternatively, they should focus on consumers, their benefit and their well-being. For instance, segmenting your email marketing list and sending personalized mail based on age or gender. Subsequently, send an email to each group related to age-specific eye diseases and how to deal with them.
Have a professional optometry website
Develop an elite website for your optometric services. Today, technology has reached new heights. In such a scenario, an outdated website might disinterest a searcher and negatively affect your business. A website is the face of your business that provides information about your services and practice, contact details and your details. Just like the latest in eye frames, the design should be intuitive. And, like the clarity of an eye lens, the website should be clean and refined. Most importantly, it should be functional on mobile devices.
Have creative content forms
Present your content in a different form to avoid monotony. In addition to simple blog posts, try using video and slide shares. Use infographics in order to explain complex vision conditions. You can post these infographics on social media sites, emails, etc. Creative and distinct content is the magnet that attracts more consumers to your site, ad or other pages, making your profile more visible.
If you also sell products such as frames, contact lenses, etc. then, you can try uploading a video with details about the products. Upload such videos on your website, social media accounts, YouTube channel, etc.
Highlight the value proposition
With every day passing, you see a new competitor in town who might be offering services at a much lower price. Here comes the need for the value proposition that helps you to inform people about your specialization and offers. Communicate how you are better than your competitor and explain the method you use to solve your patients’ problems.
It is necessary to convince your prospects to choose you over others by clearly stating your value proposition through exhaustive marketing. In addition to listing your uniqueness, delve into the feedback of patients for the services they appreciate and incorporate it in your headlines or ad copy.
Get to know what people say
Today, most people check out a practice and practitioner online before making a physical visit to their office. And reviews leave a long-lasting impression on searchers about the doctor or other medical practitioners. A good review can be earned by your good services and office/clinic that offers superb customer services. Whenever you feel you have delighted your patients, ask them to post a positive review for you on Google My Business (GMB), Yelp or other review sites. Also, use emails for reminding them to review your practice. Remember not to leave a negative response unanswered. Read, respond and rectify.
Perform Market Search
You now have an amazing website, interest-generating content, active social media accounts and an amazing value proposition, but you are still missing something. What’s that? It’s to top the search chart. Unless you know how to rule the Google search list, all your efforts will be in vain.
People search for eye care centers and top optometrists in their area when they are suffering from some vision issues and ready to spend money to get it rectified. Let Google know your practice area with GMB. This will let searchers know where your work. Upload photos and the site URL. GMB is a review platform, as well, and clicks received from here are free.
Select the right keywords to optimize your website. Organic
Conclusion
In addition to the above-mentioned online marketing activities, you need to go for offline marketing also. Get your community to know more about you. Try to be a member of an event organizers group in your community or organize small eye fitness campaigns that require less investment, but leave a stronger impact. Everything is going digital today, but don’t avoid print and electronic media. Use it to blast your off-season sales like selling sunglasses in the pre-summer season. Publishing articles or ads in magazines and newspapers.
To be ahead of the game, you need to follow the above-mentioned marketing strategies and convert strangers into patients. Who knowingly or unknowingly will act as your service promoters.
