Archive : Practice Managment

Thanksgiving was last week and it had me thinking about just how important it is to say thank you to your customers.  Giving your patients the recognition that they CHOSE YOU, when they could have chosen any other optometrist out there reinforces that they made the right decision. It builds trust, loyalty and goodwill and they will certainly remember it when it’s time for their next eye exam. Also, creating a culture of gratitude leads to more overall success in any business. Research shows that customers spend more, employees accomplish more and vendors are more likely to pay in a timely manner when they feel appreciated by being thanked regularly. When giving thanks be sure to: Be specific: Focus on exactly what you are thankful for. Be personal: Recognize that you are singling them out. Add value: Even a small favor will elicit an instinct of reciprocity where your patients will want to “pay you back” by spending more and returning for their optometric needs. Here are some easy ways to show gratitude using digital marketing: Create a nice thank you graphic that can be sent by email or as a postcard after a visit. Run a Facebook thank you campaign.  Publically thank patients...

    Ever hosted a big event… without a caterer?  You know exactly what you want the big event to look like and what you want your guests to eat… but beyond that, you need some real expertise to pull it all together.   Good caterers not only provide an excellent meal, but they bring their expertise to make the whole event successful.  Timing, decor, layout… they make it happen. Your Web Manager is your web marketing caterer.  Not only do we look after all the cooking, but we look after the entire event. Your monthly meeting with your Web Manager is the key to making it all happen.  So, what exactly do you need to tell your Web Manager to start bringing in new patients for your practice? Your Web Manager is your practice’s personal Marketing Chef.  He knows your likes and dislikes, your strengths and weakness and what you wish to serve to your community. Like a well planned meal, your web managers ensures all of your marketing is coordinated, timely and most of all, effective at giving your prospective patients the full flavor of what your practice has to offer. But what are the 4 guidelines you want to convey to ensure your success? What...

          No Reviews! I know, it’s hard to ask your patients to post reviews for your practice.  It’s uncomfortable, your front desk staff always forgets, and you’re already maxed out with information you need to provide your patients post exam.  Even more so, you’re concerned this could invite negative reviews and you certainly would rather have no reviews than bad ones. Plus you are already asking patients to review your practice on your patient communication software – you don’t want to email them again to ask them to put that same review on Google or Yelp. That is simply asking too much! Well, you are right. It probably will be too much for most people, but here is why you should ask anyway and let them decide that.  The bottom line is that 70% of people out there do some kind of online research before making a purchase or trying a new service and the SEO value of reviews is indisputable. If your prospects look on Google Local search results and see one practice has 17 mixed reviews (good and bad), and you have none, they are going to go with the one that at least has some good comments over the one they know nothing about. They will...

Is Facebook Really Worth the Effort? Hey Facebook users – I’ve got a question for you. Anybody found a good way to measure the returns of your practice’s Facebook efforts? Like so many businesses out there, we’ve been investing time, money and resources into Facebook marketing for our clients for years. We know how to get likes and engagement, but we think we are missing something. We’re measuring, but we aren’t finding website traffic as a result of this engagement. And we are asking, but we don’t hear from any practices that patients came to them because of Facebook. In other words, in pursuit of all of these likes, shares and comments, we don’t see that it is actually amounting to much in terms of practice revenue. And it seems we are onto something…In a survey conducted last April by Manta which asked small business owners for insights on their social media return on investment (ROI), 59% reported that they did not see ROI from their social media activities. Similarly, in it’s 2015 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, Social Media Examiner found that only 45% of marketers interviewed reported that their Facebook marketing is effective. Further,...

Will the Recent Google Update Affect Your Optometry Web Traffic? There have been a lot of changes in Google local search over the past couple of weeks. The change that is most immediately relevant for your optometry Practice is the 3-pack. Google 3-Packs Prior to this update, the first page of Google’s local search results displayed seven of the top local results along with a local area map with pins at the location of those results. This is called the 7-pack. This most recent change has turned those results into 3-packs. What does this mean? It means that any Practices that were ranking D through G (#s 4-7) in the maps are no longer on the first page in the local maps search results. They may rank organically on the first page (under these results), but not in the Local section. If this is the case for your Practice, you can expect a drop in organic traffic. Business Information Changed In addition to the fact that fewer Practices will now be included in the prominent local maps section, the business information provided in the results has changed. In these 3-packs, exact business addresses and phone numbers have been removed (street names are listed) and store hours including...

  Uncover Insights that Will Improve Your Online Presence and Turn Website Visitors into New Patients Measurement is best viewed against standards.  You know you are fast if you can run a 4 minute mile. You know you are tall if you are over 6’4″. Values are relative and this is also true when you are evaluating the success of your online marketing.  How successful is my online marketing compared with the best in optometry.  Only EyeCarePro because of the vast number of practices we serve, can truly answer that question.   PowerData is a unique service of EyeCarePro that matches your online marketing outcomes against 1400 optometric practices across the US and Canada. We can benchmark your data against other Practices of your size, by the number of OD’s Practices, against other Practices in your State and five additional parameters. You need not be an EyeCarePro customer to receive a monthly PowerData report.  Read more here and register to receive insights into your online marketing program like you’ve never seen before.

Google pay-per-click advertising can be one of the most effective forms of local marketing for your Practice. The basics include writing various ads, specifying who sees those and what keywords trigger those ads, and choosing how much to spend. Granted, that’s an oversimplification of the process, but here are 5 key benefits to using Google pay-per-click advertising for your Practice: 1. Set your own budget: PPC is based on a pre-set budget, so once the spending amount that you selected is reached, the ad simply stops being shown. Therefore, PPC is low risk and has a controllable spending outcome. 2. Target using the most relevant keywords: With keyword-based campaigns, your ad will attract visitors that are genuinely interested in the product or service you are trying to promote (e.g. optometrist, eye exam, eye doctor, vision therapy, etc.). 3. Target specific geographic locations and demographics: You choose the geographic and demographic populations you want to target with the ad (such as radius around your office, or city, zip code, age, gender and parental status). So you won’t be wasting your time and money advertising to individuals out of your service area; your ad will...

Something is brewing over at Google. They are keeping their lips shut tight so there isn’t a lot of information available right now, but it seems as though they are testing out a bunch of changes with their local rankings, specifically how the local search results are appearing on mobile devices. We have noticed changes in how the search results appear for local businesses on mobile as well as some traffic fluctuation for a number of our clients. Firstly, we have seen instances where Google has reduced the number of results shown on the first page of a local mobile search from 5 to 2-3 results. This could reduce the amount of visitors to sites in the 3-5 spots that are now relocated to page two of the search results. Secondly, we have noticed that in some cases Google has listed a Practice’s Google My Business Page in the results with no link to the actual Practice website. That means patients on mobile devices may be coming to you directly from your Google My Business page and not through your website. Ultimately, as long as your business page is up to date this shouldn’t affect conversions since the users are being brought to your Practice’s online property and contact information,...

As much as we speak to Practices about verifying all their business listings out there, it often seems to be a task that is put on their back burner and rarely completed. What these well-meaning ODs don’t understand is that claiming your businesses’ online listings is an essential part of establishing and controlling your online presence. Claiming and verifying an online business listing is critical for a few reasons. Why claim your business listings? Each time you claim and verify a business listing, you create a ‘citation’ for your practice. This is Google speak for ‘a mention of your business name and address on a webpage’. This is not the same as a link; it’s a mere mention of your business name and address. A citation can come from a variety of sources such as a local business directory (Google, Yelp, Craigslist), online yellow pages, or a local chamber of commerce. Citations are key components to SEO as they are an integral part of the ranking algorithms used by Google and Bing. Citations help the search engines by adding a degree of authenticity to the information you have provided on your website, allowing them to better understand and categorize your business....

Looking for a way to save more money in your practice and reduce time spent in the back office? Currently the industry is seeing a 22% return rate on average which means that 22% of everything bought is shipped back to the vendor. Compare this to other industries and you would be shocked to see that many industries now accept returns only if the product is defective, was ordered incorrectly or if the product has been recalled. Vendors in our industry have started to factor return rates into their day to day operations such as decreased discounts, processing / restocking fees and even excluding you from their customer rebates. While buying in bulk to save a few dollars may seem like a good idea it can certainly cuts into your bottom line. Besides the above mentioned, think about what your practice goes through every time frame(s) are returned. Between inventory management, boxing up “old” product, cost of shipping, following up with the vendors and even having to place an order to make up for the return you will often spend in upwards of 40% or more when returning product even if you get back the exact amount you paid the vendor originally. 1. Use discretion when taking advantage...

A critical oversight by one of our clients nearly cost them their website domain. Don’t let this happen to you. Here is the story of what happened and five important lessons your practice can learn from it… This Practice contacted us after as soon as their domain, website and email were all down. After some investigation, our Support Team determined what had happened…and it was not pretty. It turned out that the Practice had registered their domain two years earlier with GoDaddy under the email address of an employee who no longer works at the Practice. When the domain came up for renewal, GoDaddy sent expiry notices to the email address they had on file, but since the email hadn’t been forwarded to anybody else, they never received the notices. The domain expired and after 30 days, the domain was offered to the public for sale. Now here is where this situation turned unpleasant. There are unscrupulous companies that troll for recently expired domain names that they purchase. This particular company then forwarded the domain to a landing page with distinctly inappropriate content designed to ensure that the Practice would really want to buy the domain back … and then...

To many marketers out there, successful Facebook marketing is marked by an ever increasing number of “Likes” or fans – a successful campaign brings in Likes, and that number is the metric that really counts. However, when you think about what these fans are doing after they like your Page, this could present a very different perspective. Are “Likes” Useless? Let’s face it. The truth is that many, if not most, of the users who have Liked your Facebook Page have and never will actually engage with the content you post and many will never visit the Page. One study by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute in Australia, which looked at the fan activity of a major brand, showed that less than 1% of their fans actually interacted with their Page. While this may be an extreme case, it does illustrate the idea that quantity does not equal quality when it comes to fans! So is it a wasted effort to spend time and money trying to get more Likes and to use this metric as a measure of success, when you are likely not getting any real interaction from your fans? Does this number in any way translate to revenue in your pocket in the form of new patients and appointments? We have asked two OD...

At the end of April Facebook rolled out yet another algorithm update. In general the changes put less focus on how friends are engaging on Facebook in favor of content that the user has shown an interest in. Some marketing experts feel this could possibly win back some of the organic reach lost after Facebook’s last update – if you do your Facebook marketing right, that is. Here are updates that Facebook has made and how they can change the way users experience Facebook: 1. Now able to see multiple posts from the same source: Facebook has relaxed their rules that previously prevented this from happening, now allowing more content from one page or friend to get through to the News Feed. 2. Posts such as photos, videos, and status updates from friends and pages that you care about (meaning you visit their pages and interact with them regularly) will be pushed up into the News Feed. 3. Posts about friends liking or commenting on a page’s content will be given less importance and pushed down the News Feed. When it comes down to it, these changes mean that users are more likely to see content they care about directly from friends and the pages they have liked and interact...

Here are five good reasons why you must be advertising on Facebook. 1 –1$ A Day Still Gets Results The minimum spend on Facebook advertising is only $1 a day. With this small budget, you can reach thousands of people that meet your specific criteria. With AdWords, you would be lucky to get two clicks a day. You also have multiple bid types available. Cost per Thousand (CPM) Cost per click (CPC) Optimized cost per Thousand (oCPM) oCPM is when Facebook shows your ad to people that FB believe are most likely to take action. Cost per action (CPA) Choose the right option that best fits your needs. 2 – The Targeting Options For Facebook Ads Are Impressive Unlike AdWords, Facebook ads are targeted to the users’ demographic and interests, not what they’re searching for. Because of this, the refinement available to you, when you set up the audience targeting for your ads, is impressive. With so many targeting options and combinations available, you can ensure that your budget is only spent on the most relevant audience. 3 – Facebook Has A Massive Audience, Including Your Customers Facebook claims to have 1.28 billion active users with over 800 million users active daily. You can...

Want to make sure your Practice looks its best on camera? Well, you should want to, because as we mentioned in our last two digital tips, photos and video marketing are going to attract a lot of attention to your Practice, so you want to “dress to impress” so to say. Looking your best means more than just sharp dress of course. There are a lot of details that should go into making sure everything about your appearance on your video and photos looks professional, from the people to the background to the sound quality. Here is a basic checklist for how and what to prepare for your video or photo shoot: 1) Clean the office/area of the shoot. Make sure the area is clean and clutter free. Check for and remove anything that may be distracting. Ensure there are no personal items you don’t want to be seen. Remove anything with confidentiality status. 2) Prepare attire for team members and doctors. Solid color clothing is best, stay away from busy printed tops and bold stripes or exceptionally bright reds or yellows. If your team has a uniform, make sure everyone is wearing it. If they don’t, consider asking everyone to wear the same color scheme. Make sure clothing is clean and...