As an independent practice, you need to develop strategies that align with your target audience’s growth. There’s a lot of “marketing” advice out there. Some say “do more social media” while others are all about email or Youtube videos…all pulling practices towards one medium or another for campaigns and marketing in general.
What Makes a Great Campaign?
Firstly, what are you trying to achieve and who are you trying to reach? More importantly, why? As an independent practice, the barometer of success is new patient appointments and the improved revenue that comes with it.
Even if you’re mainly focused on filling your schedule with any kind of appointment type, as opposed to targeting higher revenue patients, you can still break it all down with a specific message to a target audience based on your objectives.
The media you choose for your campaign should be selected based on the type of campaign you’re running. Therefore, an optical launch will do better on Facebook and Instagram, while the online store announcement would be the most effective through email.
Generally, the basic channels for the most messaging campaigns are:
- Social media
- Your website
- Print for your practice ( interior or exterior, wherever it gets the most eyes on it )
Your patient email list is a powerful marketing tool. So, if you don’t have one, start collecting those addresses from every patient you see. Patients are very likely to open and engage with an email coming from their local practice. But you have to avoid bombarding them with emails. Strategize on how many email campaigns will be spent per month on your patient.
Again, it comes down to nurturing the right practice brand. Many Electronic Health Record and Patient Communication Tools have built-in email functionality. If you don’t have that option or functionality, you can always manually export your email list to a spreadsheet or CSV file. Use the email list to create an account with an email marketing platform. Platforms such as Mailchimp or Constant Contact will help with email marketing.
Website and In-House Print
Your website is an easy win, and there’s no reason not to put your important messaging on there for the right audience to see. After all, your website content is hopefully already drawing your target audience to it, and this applies to existing and prospective patients alike.
This is true for optical sales or services like scleral lenses or myopia management. Naturally, in house printouts can get that message across to the patients coming in and out of your office, while street-level or exterior signage can also be a relatively inexpensive way to get that exposure.
Marketing banners, images, informational pages, and the like on your website puts that information in front of potential new and existing patients interested in your practice.
Creating Creative Campaigns
Once you have a campaign schedule or initiative conceptualized you can turn the idea into something tangible that your patients and community can interact with. The creatives you make depends entirely on the media you choose to make them for. So a clear idea of what works and what doesn’t is essential. The basic building blocks of any campaign creative portfolio always come down to copy and design.
Book a 1-on-1 FREE consultation appointment with our Optical Social Media Experts to see how we can make your practice flourish on social media.
Social Media
Playing a social media game well takes practice and effort. Social media is a powerful tool to get the word out and build an engaged audience socially. Whether your message is channeled towards a campaign or a focused message about sports vision for aspiring athletes, social media is a great choice.
Your limiting factor is always going to be time. Therefore, focus your efforts on the platforms that will yield the most bang for your efforts bucks. So think about which platform is used by your target audience more regularly.
So, for our clients whose goal is general care appointments, we tend to focus on Facebook. This platform appeals broadly to folks of every age. While Instagram as a highly visual medium is a strong second but takes on greater importance for optical campaigns focused on fashion-savvy patients.