Optometrists who talk to me or work with the team at Optometry Marketing Services often share that they have a goal to create awareness, interest, and ultimately scheduled appointments for their dry eye evaluation and treatments in their offices. Have you recently invested in diagnostic and treatment technology to provide IPL, radiofrequency, LLLT, or other solutions to treat dry eye and now you’re in need of patients? Here are a few tips!
Develop a marketing strategy
You already know there’s a need for these treatments, that’s why you invested in the technology to deliver them. The next step is to identify the groups of people in your community most likely to need and be interested in your dry eye treatments. Here are some examples:
- Women in perimenopause and menopause
- People who work from home or have desk jobs which require them to spend hours in front of a computer every day
- People with autoimmune diseases like lupus, Sjögren’s syndrome, or rheumatoid arthritis
- People over 50
The next step in developing your marketing strategy is to identify why these people should choose YOU to provide treatments for their dry eye. What unique benefits do you offer? It’s tempting to focus on clinical details or technical details about the equipment, but here is where you’ll want to drive awareness of the outcome instead. What do these groups of people want? Relief, aesthetic benefits, increased sense of well-being, better vision, improved focus while working.
Digital marketing essentials
Here are a few digital marketing essentials to help you increase your local reach.
Website
If you’re going to engage or invest in offline marketing, people are going to check out your website for more information if they’re interested. Your current patients also visit your website to schedule an appointment, so this presents an opportunity to get in front of the people who already know you with information about the new treatments you offer to create awareness.
Develop at least a web page or better yet, a dry eye center, for your website which outlines the treatments and benefits for the groups of people in your community who you are targeting. Make sure your digital office is well-represented with updated information about the treatments you offer and the benefits!
FAQ for dry eye on your website
Add an FAQ section to your website on the dry eye page(s) answering top searched questions to increase visits to your website from people who are researching their symptoms. Here are a few questions with good online search volume:
- Can dry eye cause blurry vision?
- Can dry eye cause headaches?
- Can dry eye cause blindness?
- Can dry eye cause floaters?
- Can dry eye cause eye pain?
- Can dry eye cause light sensitivity?
Blog on your website
Update your website with articles which answer questions people have about dry eye and the associated symptoms. Many people use the internet to learn more about their health-related conditions and the goal here is to introduce your practice to them when they’re in research mode, increase awareness of your practice as a place to get the relief they need.
Social media
Consider running an ad on social media to target the groups of people you’re trying to reach and focus on communicating the benefits your treatments offer them. You can of course post about the treatments for the people who already follow your practice on social media, just be aware that you may need to pay to “boost” a post to make sure the people who follow you get the message!
Email marketing to existing patients
If you own or work at an established practice, you already have patients who trust you because they return to you for their eye exams. Let them know about your new capabilities to help them get the relief they need!
Offline marketing
Referrals
Work on building relationships with other doctors and health care professionals in the area to increase referrals to your practice. You could develop a print “leave behind” piece which outlines the diagnostic technologies and the treatments you offer, and here is where you can finally focus on the technical details because those will matter when you’re interested in referrals from other doctors.
In office materials
Create or source materials for your office waiting area, screens, or other areas where your patients can see them to pique their interest in your new treatments. Your vendors may have materials to help you market your treatments. The team at Optometry Marketing Services provides graphic design support through our GROW and DOMINATE packages to support practices which need marketing materials!
Summary
There are so many ways to market your dry eye services! The most important takeaway is to remember when marketing to the groups of people most likely to need treatments for dry eye, remember to focus on the outcome – not the clinical or technical details. If this seems like a lot of work, there’s no need to go it alone! Contact us to learn how we can support you and partner with you to market your dry eye services.
