Optometry Marketing Strategies: Best Ways to Attract New Patients
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Highlights
- Implementing effective optometry marketing strategies grows your practice and attracts new patients.
- Effective optometry marketing strategies include optimizing your SEO for local searches, optimizing your website, establishing a social media presence, inviting and managing online reviews, and blogging.
- Customizable optometry EHR software like RevolutionEHR supports your marketing efforts with patient engagement tools and automated intake software as well as improving patient experience.
The best way to grow your optometry practice is to use optometry marketing strategies that attract new patients. Implementing marketing techniques such as blogging, developing a social media presence, and optimizing your SEO for local searches helps you reach potential patients and get the word out about your optometry practice.
Optimize Your Website
To attract and retain patients, your optometry practice needs a modern, user-friendly website. It takes users only 10 to 20 seconds to evaluate your site and decide whether to continue reading, so having a well-designed site with a clear brand identity and a focused message is crucial.
Additional aspects to focus on when building a website for your optometry practice include an attractive website design, strong calls to action (CTAs), mobile compatibility, and a clean and modern user interface.
Attractive Website Design
Patients who visit your website stay longer if you have an attractive, professional website design. This includes using a complementary color scheme, promoting a clean, simple layout, and including navigational tools, such as a search bar or drop-down menus, that make it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for.
Strong CTAs
A CTA is a short, imperative phrase that directs the patient to take some type of action. Examples include phrases like “Book an appointment online,” or “Download our eBook.”CTAs are added to the bottom of blog posts and other strategic pages on your site. They can be tracked by your IT team or a staff member so you can learn which types of posts are getting the most attention and create more on similar topics.
Mobile-Friendly
When designing your website, ensure it is mobile-friendly by using a responsive theme. This ensures that when a new patient visits your site, it loads quickly and formats properly on any device. Failing to do so can result in fewer new patients, as 54.8% of website traffic is conducted using mobile phones.
Efficient User Interface
Your website should use an efficient user interface that enables fast load times and easy interaction between your patients and the site. Avoid using plug-ins that slow down your site’s loading speed or make it difficult for patients to use the features on the website.
Start a Blog and Post Regularly
Starting a blog for your optometry practice is an effective way to market your services. It can help you attract new patients and establish your practice as a trusted authority.
Attracting New Patients
When you publish blog posts that address eye-related issues, you increase your reach on popular search engines. Regular posting also encourages readers to share posts with friends and family who may be looking for optometric services.
Establishing Trust
Publishing informative, well-written content on your optometry blog helps to set you apart as a trusted authority. Patients who visit your blog to obtain important information about optometry news, eye health, and vision issues will come to you when they need optometry services because they recognize your expertise.
Creating a Foundation for Long-Lasting Results
Blog articles remain on your site until you take them down. By posting valuable, evergreen content (content that stays relevant), you establish a body of knowledge that can attract readers and bring in new patients for years to come.
Establish a Social Media Presence
Social media is one of the best tools for marketing your optometry practice. Over 4.48 billion people worldwide use social media, so it is vital to establish a social media presence to market your services. The best techniques for social media marketing are paid ads, daily engagement posts, and responding to followers.
Paid Advertisements
Paying for ads on sites like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat can increase your reach and get your optometry practice’s name out to new patients. With ads, you become the practice users know and recognize, which ultimately translates into appointments.
Daily Engagement Posts
Daily engagement posts allow you to get in front of potential patients every single day. If a patient subscribes to your social media channel, they will see your posts in their feed. When you put out engaging content like videos or helpful posts, they are more likely to use you as their optometrist, share your content, and recommend you to others.
Responding to Followers
One reason that social media is so effective for local marketing is that it allows you to interact with your followers, who will likely include current potential new patients. You can set up giveaways and contests to drive engagement and bring people into your practice.
You can also provide helpful answers to follower questions, another way to build trust and authority.
Optimize SEO for Local Search
Optimizing your SEO to appear in local searches is vital to marketing your optometry practice. You are a service-based business, so local discoverability allows new local patients to quickly land on your practice’s website and choose you as their provider.
Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile is a free service that Google provides to businesses. Once you’ve claimed your Google Business Profile, you are discoverable to new patients and will show up in local Google search results. You can include pictures, link to your website, list hours of operation, and see reviews through this profile.
Local SEO
Optimizing your content for local SEO can help new patients discover your practice. To drive your local SEO ranking up, include keywords and geotagged keyword phrases in content on your website and blog. Include phrases like “optometrists near me,” “optometry practices in [your city],” “eye doctor near me,” or “[your city] optometrist.”
Encourage and Manage Online Reviews
Promoting online reviews is an excellent marketing technique for optometry practices. About 75% of patients say they have looked online to find out about a provider, so maintaining a good online reputation can help you obtain referrals and grow your practice.
Testimonials
Testimonials can be a powerful marketing tool. A best practice is to request them from your most satisfied customers and post them on your website. For maximum impact, continuously invite new testimonials and frequently replace them on your site.
Online Ratings and Reviews
Asking patients to leave reviews is another great way to spread the word about your services and attract new patients.
But inviting reviews is not enough. You will also need to manage your online reputation by monitoring and responding to them. This is especially important with negative reviews; 69% of patients say they will not consider any healthcare provider who has less than a 4-star rating.
A thoughtful response to a poor review along with a sincere attempt to resolve a patient’s complaint can go a long way toward controlling damage to your practice’s reputation.
Maximize your Marketing Efforts With RevolutionEHR
Patient experience is an important part of any optometry marketing strategy. RevolutionEHR helps optometry practices improve patient experience with an EHR-centered, all-in-one software solution.
From check-in to check-out, RevolutionEHR makes all aspects of a patient’s visit seamless and efficient for all members of your practice, so visits are hassle-free for your patients.
What’s more, RevolutionEHR has two great ancillary solutions designed to help you make the most of your marketing efforts.
RevConnect
RevConnect is the patient engagement tool available within RevolutionEHR. RevConnect allows you to create email and text campaigns to communicate with your patients.
With RevConnect, you can send manual or automated messages to individual patients or groups using text or email, according to each patient’s preference.
You can use messages to remind patients of upcoming appointments, to send optical order status updates, or to showcase your newest line of frames. RevConnect’s built-in dashboard then allows you to track campaign results.
RevIntake
RevIntake, an ancillary service for RevolutionEHR’s practice management system, allows you to offer online appointment booking on your website, which not only serves as a convenience that patients love but also attracts traffic to your site.RevIntake also automates the intake process by sending patients the forms they need according to appointment type, saving them time in the office, another way to improve patient experience while allowing you to see more patients.
With RevIntake, you can send post-appointment automated patient surveys to ask for feedback. You can also invite patients to leave reviews on online platforms like Google Review. With patient permission, you can even use positive reviews as testimonials for your site or as social media posts.
With RevConnect and RevIntake, RevolutionEHR makes it easy to stay connected to your patients.
RevolutionEHR is the Leading Cloud-Based EHR Software for Optometry
To learn more about how RevolutionEHR can help you market your practice more effectively so you have more freedom to focus on your patients, request a demo today.