As an optometrist, you are an expert in your field. Patients visit you for vision-related problems, and you provide them with the proper solution based on your diagnosis and evaluation. You have been trained to perform this duty, and you take great pride in the care you offer to each of your patients.
Like you, we are experts in our field of expertise, all things digital marketing. We are here to help you grow and nurture your online presence. There are many things that we can help you with but the first step is a custom website. Once that is in place, you are ready for the next step, marketing your shinny new website to current and potential patients.
Basically, online marketing is an umbrella term which covers any number of digital marketing pursuits. Marketing your optometry practice digitally can take many different forms, including the following –
Of course, the list above is just a partial accounting of the many ways in which you can market your practice on the web. The best options for your business are the ones which will lead to the most impactful results – to determine which avenues will serve you best, testing and experimentation will likely be needed.
One of the building blocks of an optometrist’s digital marketing strategy should be adding practice information to as many relevant local directories (i.e. Yelp, Yellowpages, Google My Business, Manta, etc.) as possible. When someone searches for information on optometrists in your area, you need to be sure that the directories they use will include your contact information. Think of this as the modern equivalent of placing your business in the phone book. Few people today use a traditional phone book to find a business, but nearly everyone uses the internet.
Adding your information to online directories is only helpful if the information you add is accurate – and it remains accurate over time. Something as simple as an incorrect phone number could be enough to send a potential customer to the office of your competition. By keeping all of your online contact information current, you will be sure to capture every potential lead that comes across your listing.
Even if you know little about digital marketing, you have probably been told somewhere along the way that you should be ‘using social media’ to promote your business. What does that mean exactly? Sadly, many business owners go into their social media efforts with an approach that lacks direction or any sort of plan. In the end, they give up because they see no positive results from all of the time and effort invested.
It doesn’t have to be like that. Yes, it is true that social media can be a powerful marketing tool. However, you have to have a plan in order to make it work for your practice. Most likely, your patients are not going to seek out their optometrist on Facebook – that just isn’t something that most people would think to do. Rather, you need to be active in engaging with them by promoting your social media presence in the office and in other marketing materials. Once they know you are active on social media, your patients will be far more likely to follow your page.
Once you have an active, involved following on your social media channels, you can then use that following to drive business. You may decide to run a contest to give away a prize, or you could offer discounts during certain times of the year. Whatever the case, social media will provide you a great way to contact your customer base – as long as you use it the right way.
As an optometrist, you are a local business. Your patients are going to be drawn from a specific geographic area, meaning your marketing efforts should focus on that area. By adding content to your site which is meant to optimize the site for local search, you may be able to move up in the organic search rankings. One of the great things about content marketing is the fact that it is free, aside from the time needed to invest in creating the pages. Once those pages are live on your site, they can remain there for years while hopefully drawing in many new patients. That is the power of effective search engine optimization (SEO).
In addition to drawing traffic through content marketing and organic search, you can also choose to bring visitors to your site through paid advertising. You can run paid ads in a variety of locations, such as on the major search engines and on Facebook. By narrowing down your marketing efforts to only people located within a specific geographic region, you can be sure you aren’t wasting your money advertising to people who are too far away to visit your office. It can take some time to fine tune a paid advertising campaign, but this is one of the most powerful ways to grow your business once it is working properly.
While you work as an optometrist as your day job, you are also a consumer of many other services and products. When thinking about purchasing a new product, what do you do? Head to the web, of course. Online reviews are incredibly important today, and that applies for optometry just as it does for restaurants, barber shops, or any other kind of business.
You are not going to be able to control what people say about your business online, but you can motivate your satisfied patients to leave comments. Sometimes, all it takes is a reminder that you would appreciate it if they left a positive comment somewhere on the web regarding your service. Even if there are one or two negative reviews sprinkled in, the volume of your great reviews will encourage potential new customers to give you a call.
As you can see, there are plenty of great ways in which digital marketing can be used to promote an optometry practice. However, you already have a full plate, and you likely can’t afford to cut time out of your day for this type of task. That’s where Market Igniter comes into the picture. We can provide you with all of the services discussed above, and more, for an affordable monthly rate. With our team on the case, you can focus on running your practice while knowing that your digital marketing plan is being implemented perfectly. Contact us today to see how we can ignite your marketing efforts!
