To stand out from the crowd, provide quality content that’s not solely focused on selling a product and turn to industry resources to expand your reach, Dr. David Anderson suggests.
Telling your practice’s story is a key part of growing a business. Whether you want to share information about a new specialty at your practice, promote education about myopia, or promote a manufacturer’s contact lens rebate, CooperVision Best Practice’s honoree alum Dr. Dave Anderson shares his top six tips on how to successfully market your practice.
How to successfully market your practice?
1. Find the Right Balance Between Selling and Educating
When marketing on social media, Dr. Anderson says it’s essential to adopt a good balance between promotional and educational content.
“People look to social media for their news and learning. While from a business standpoint, we try to use social media to sell our products and services, it’s just as valuable to become a trusted resource for your audience. By providing free education or advice, when a person needs your products or help, they’ll have greater trust if you’ve already provided them something of value,” he says.
2. Create E-mail Marketing Campaigns that Get Noticed, Not Deleted
E-mail marketing works well when it includes a call to action and provides a benefit to the reader, Dr. Anderson explains. One universal example that tends to work for every office is when practices advertise a trunk show and provide financial incentives to attend, such as, “Bring this flyer for 20% off new frames,” he says.
The right subject line and the correct frequency of emails are another important part of email marketing, he continues. If an ECP sends an email every week, it will likely become white noise and get deleted along with all the other sales ads people receive in their inboxes, he says.
“If an ECP is smart and uses email for a very specific event, and at most around 4-5 times a year, the efforts won’t be tossed in the trash folder,” Dr. Anderson suggests.
3. Don’t be Afraid to be Different
One of the most effective marketing efforts in Dr. Anderson’s office was the addition of a live “elf on the shelf” campaign, in which members of his staff dressed up as an elf and took pictures in different locations in the practice.
“We used this to highlight some new technology, new frames, and a newly renovated room for vision therapy,” Dr. Anderson says. “Since we incorporated both the human and fun element, the audience fully engaged and seemed to be waiting each day for the next post.”
4. Mirror Your Marketing’s Look and Feel to Your Practice
Consider what your internal marketing—and your practice—looks like before you start your external marketing efforts, Dr. Anderson says.
Specifically, consider your office’s venue and focus. Do you practice in a small, boutique office? Is your practice more medically focused? Or does your office exude a more “comfortable, smalltown” vibe? All marketing efforts should be consistent with your practice’s internal look and feel, he says. If the ECP’s office is small with a boutique feel, marketing frame lines and fashion-related posts could be a good fit for this environment. Better yet, have staff and the doctors model the new frames, which can give your marketing a more personal touch, Dr. Anderson says.
It's always good to include a human element in your practice’s marketing outreach, which can resonate on an emotional level with the audience, he adds. Any marketing that hits this part of the brain is significantly more effective in moving the audience to act, Dr. Anderson notes.
5. Tailor Your Campaign to Your Audience
In successful marketing, you need to first understand your current patient demographics as well as your desired marketing goal. If your patient base is mostly computer engineers and tech workers, a marketing strategy centered around computer eye strain, work environment adaptations, and blue light could be highly effective, Dr. Anderson adds.
Second, for ECPs who want to increase a specific patient base or add a new service to their practice, marketing can be a great way to draw interest. If a new doctor hopes to focus their efforts on pediatric vision therapy, the practice’s marketing should still focus on current patients while also introducing the new ideas to the social media audience.
Third, ECPs should be consistent on when they share content, Dr. Anderson says. Timing, such as posting on a specific day of the week, once mattered a great deal, but with the fast pace of social media, the number one goal is to be top of mind and consistent with an audience, he says. The small amount of effort it takes to post on a regular basis allows the message to be seen over a broader arena and makes it more credible, he notes.
6. Turn to Industry Resources to Expand Your Marketing Reach
One of the great assets available to ECPs is marketing material from industry, Dr. Anderson says.
These materials can be used as part of a practice’s consistent messaging, and with very little work, he adds. For example, over a week’s time, an ECP could post personal images from the practice supplemented with industry marketing material.
In this scenario, on Monday, the ECP could post an image of a staff member showing off a new frame; on Wednesday, the ECP could then post a picture of the entire team during an office meeting; and on Friday, the ECP could post a message from CooperVision about clariti® 1 day and daily disposables or MiSight® 1 day*, along with information about how to help slow myopia in age-appropriate children.†1
If you’re looking for ideas and resources to help market and grow your optometric practice, CooperVision is here to help. Be sure to tap into these CooperVision marketing resources to help you connect with more patients. You can also discover more practice management resources and learnings at CooperVision’s Online Success Center.
Dr. Dave Anderson practices at Miamisburg Vision Care in Ohio. He is a 2004 graduate of The Ohio State University College of Optometry. He is a past president of the Ohio Optometric Association (OOA) and continues to serve on many committees at the state and national levels. He is currently a preceptor for an Advanced Practice Extern site for OSU College of Optometry and has been an investigator in clinical trials for contact lenses and ocular pharmaceuticals.
* Indications for Use: MiSight® 1 day (omafilcon A) soft (hydrophilic) contact lenses for daily wear are indicated for the correction of myopic ametropia and for slowing the progression of myopia in children with non-diseased eyes, who at the initiation of treatment are 8-12 years of age and have a refraction of -0.75 to -4.00 diopters (spherical equivalent) with ≤ 0.75 diopters of astigmatism. The lens is to be discarded after each removal.
†Compared to a single vision 1 day lens over a 3-year period.
1. Chamberlain P et al. A 3-year Randomized Clinical Trial of MiSight Lenses for Myopia Control. Optom Vis Sci 2019;96:556–567.
