Marketing for Success

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Marketing for Success

• Douglas C. Clark, O.D.
• Pelham Eyecare
• 664-1575
• eyedr_at_sprynet.com

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Socrates said, To gain a good reputation,
endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
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Four Steps of Marketing

• Analysis
• Planning
• Implementation
• Evaluation

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Marketing is not public relations advertisement,
or selling. These are all products of a complete
marketing strategy. Rick Jones
amoeyecare.com
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Analysis

• What type of practice do you want?
• Who is your target audience?
• What are your benchmarks?
• Have you considered quality?

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Planning

• Set your goals
• 1. financial targets
• 2. patient goals
• 3. patient satisfaction
• 4. personal goals
• Determine best marketing tools
• Establish a budget

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Implementing

• Consultant
• Marketing agency
• Doctors duties
• Empower staff

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Evaluation

• Analyze practice data
• Obtain staff input
• Patient satisfaction surveys

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Techniques and Tools of Marketing

• The best kind of marketing for an independent
  optometric practice is one-on-one marketing with
  patients in your office.
• Neil
  Gailmard
• It is much more expensive to acquire new patients
  than to have established patients return again

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Internal Tools

• Office design
• Doctor and staff training
• Newsletters

• Promotions/ co-op
• Birthday cards
• Thank you cards
• Office literature

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Office Image

• Equipment reflects image
• Dispensary selections
• Services offered
• low vision
• refractive
• pediatrics
• Doctor and staff appearance
• Location

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Education and Training

• Doctor should promote latest techniques and
  procedures
• Staff should receive onsite and offsite training
• Office meetings
• Office communications

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Printed Communication

• Newsletters
• regular
• professional
• Office brochures
• Stationary and business cards reflect image
• In office promotions

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Office Events

• Trunk shows
• Refractive consult days
• Dry eye seminars
• Contact lens workshops

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Patient Referral Programs

• Satisfied patients dont refer friends,
  enthusiastic ones do. Neil Gailmard
• It is okay to ask for referral
• Promote that you accept new patients
• Ask about family members
• Implement a patient referral incentive program

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Professional Referral Network

• Develop a referral pattern among local health
  care providers
• Pediatrics
• Primary care
• Endocrinologists
• Geriatrics
• Dermatology

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Implement a Continuous Care Program

• Post cards
• Letters
• Telephone
• Email
• Preappointment system

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Post Cards

• Least expensive
• Least effective
• Easiest to maintain

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Telephone

• Very effective if you can contact patient
• Very labor intensive
• After normal work hours required

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Preappointment System

• Moderate complexity/ computers reduce difficulty
• Very effective
• Requires effort from doctor and staff

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Steps for Preappointment

• 1) Dr must determine and inform patient and
  staff of the appropriate time interval for next
  appointment
• 2) Staff must schedule appointment and reaffirm
  with patient the need for appointment
• 3) Post card reminder sent out prior to
  appointment
• 4) Telephone used to confirm appointment
• 5) Dr and staff must reaffirm patients return
  visit

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Why Preappoint?

• Best medical practice
• Control patient flow
• Demonstrates proper care and concern, must not
  assume patient knows when the appropriate time
  interval should be between appointments

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Examining External Marketing Tools

• Average for established practice is 5 of revenue
  generated from marketing generated new
  patients--must add to existing patient base to
  grow
• Newer practices will rely more heavily on
  external marketing tools

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Knowing the lingo

• Reach-- number of persons viewing or hearing a
  message
• Frequency-- number of times each person heard or
  saw message
• CPM-- costs per thousand messages
• Penetration-- percent of target audience that
  heard or saw message

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Example

• 10,000 spent on a radio announcement
• Reach was a target of 50,000 potential patients
• Each person averaged hearing message three times
• CPM- 10,000/150,000 x 1000 66.66/thousand

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Tools of External Marketing

• Print media
• Visual media
• Radio
• Outdoor
• Technology/internet
• Outside professional presentations/civic groups

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Types of print media

• Newspaper
• Direct mail
• Magazines
• Yellow pages

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Newspaper

• Good geographic distribution
• Costs reasonable
• Trackable
• Negative is that your target audience has been
  decreasing in reach over the years

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Direct Mail

• Easily targeted
• Expensive per reach
• Low response rate
• Best in new areas and new practices

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Magazines

• CPM is low but hard to get good geographic
  distribution
• Good to get to target audience
• Low response rate
• Requires more advance planning

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Telephone Directories

• Must have presence
• Try to have at least the average size display as
  well as in column listing
• Evaluate duplications
• Requires advance planning
• Professional graphic designer
• Average practice spends 1 to 1 ½ of gross

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Television

• Usually prohibitive for individual offices
• Great for multiple locations in certain markets
• Very high production costs
• Expensive due to need for high frequency to get
  gross impressions
• Cable options /sometimes trap

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Radio

• CPM is very low
• Easy to target audience
• Easy to produce
• Geographic issues make it difficult in some
  markets
• Great for awareness campaigns

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New Technology

• Website development
• Email reminders
• Email marketing

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Outside Involvement

• Professional presentations
• Vision screenings/ health fairs
• Civic involvement

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Get involved and help others

• You can anything you want in life, if you
  help enough other people get what they want.
  Zig Ziglar
• Church
• Civic groups
• Non-profits

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Professional reputation

• Warren Buffet said It takes twenty years to
  build a reputation and five minutes to lose it.

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