Is marketing your LASIK practice that different from marketing any other product or service?
Well, yes and no.
How’s that for an answer. Actually, there is no SUBSTANTIAL difference. Regardless of what your product or service is (on or offline) there are three essential elements you need to get right in order to profit from your marketing efforts.
LASIK Marketing: Three Key Elements to Consider
1. Traffic
The first element to discuss is traffic. Only online is it possible to generate “free” traffic. Of course, by “free” we mean you either…
- hired a company to do SEO for your website
- spent money learning about SEO
- and/or spent time optimizing your own site
Traffic is the first key to marketing success. You need to communicate your marketing message to a targeted audience.
Plain and simple.
In the offline world, the closest thing to “free” traffic would be when one of your patients refers you other patients.
So far, marketing your LASIK practice is the same as any other kind of business. And if you need to learn how to sell online, think about your offline marketing efforts first.
Which brings us to…
2. Your Offer
Quite simply, when we talk about your OFFER we are discussing how you talk about your service. Meaning, why should someone decide to schedule an appointment with you versus another doctor.
There are a number of items to consider when creating an offer that communicates the total value of your service.
Here is a short list of elements you may want to consider (in no particular order):
- your convenience
- your policies
- terms
- pricing
- quality
- perceived value
- your guarantee
- your reputation
As you can probably see, how you use these elements IS unique to your LASIK practice. It’s about crafting a message that resonates with your target audience, so that they’ll take action.
On that note, that brings us to…
3. Conversion
As you can imagine, conversion is about the exchange of value. In a business setting, we’re talking about you making money.
Plain and simple.
The first item to get a handle on is KNOWING what your conversion rate is. How well do leads convert on your website? From other forms of marketing?
If you don’t know what your sales conversion figures are, we need to talk. You simply can’t improve a process without having, and knowing, the data.
Once you have the data, the next step is to identify breakdowns in your sales process. Look, you’re not going to convert 100% of your leads. But knowing where breakdowns occur allows you to fine tune the system to improve your results.
It’s a question of profitability. Getting more bang from your marketing buck.
Wrap Up
Hopefully you found the points raised here useful for you and your practice. If you’d like to ask a question, feel free to leave a comment below. If you’d like to learn how we can help you with your LASIK marketing issues, feel free to send an us an email:
We look forward to hearing from you.
10
Apr
Posted in LASIK Marketing by Michael Guerin |
Three Key Points to Consider for LASIK Website Marketing
LASIK marketing in general, and website marketing for LASIK surgeons in particular, share three critical components. In fact, marketing your LASIK practice online is not really different from your marketing efforts offline.
Why is that?
Well, the reason is simple. The heart of effective marketing is communicating the value your solutions provide to a receptive audience.
Let’s unpack this a bit.
LASIK Marketing
In the deceptively simple statement above, there are two critical factors evident:
- communicating value (i.e. having a “message”)
- communicating to a “receptive audience”
First, your marketing message should (NEEDS to) focus on the needs of your audience, not on yourself. There’s just so much “me too” marketing out there that we naturally tune it out.
The second part means you’ve identified a group of people that are receptive to your message. Meaning, you should have…
- a good idea of who needs your service(s)
- a relatively good idea of where to find them
Okay, so that’s one and two. What about the third element?
That involves follow up. Meaning, when your message reaches your intended audience and the RESPOND to what you have to say, what do you do next? How do you react to the leads generated by your marketing?
Now let’s shift this conversation to what happens when you market online.
LASIK Website Marketing
When we turn online, the principles of solid marketing remain the same. The only difference is the method of delivery, and the speed at which you receive feedback from your marketing efforts.
For example, in the internet marketing world we describe these three features as…
- Traffic
- Conversion
- Follow Up
Or T, C and F.
When looking at web traffic, it’s actually much easier to generate targeted traffic then offline.
Why?
Well, the answer is simple. Using pay per click marketing techniques it’s easy to generate “clicks” based on your ad. That’s part one.
On a sidenote, despite what you may have heard, pay per click marketing does generate targeted traffic. And that’s because the ad is generated by you, designed to get someone who is a good fit for your services to respond to your mini-marketing message, the ad.
Now, here’s where online marketing is much easier than offline. Remember when we noted that first you need a message that communicates your value, and then to come up with a good idea of where to find your next patient?
Well, online this happens quite naturally. And that’s because people use the internet to find a solution for their problem. And when you understand that, it’s easy to see why they would click on your ad to learn more about what you do.
The next phase of internet marketing is conversion. This happens on your “landing page” (the page where your web traffic is directed.
Conversion is process where a web visitor becomes a lead. The idea is to get the web visitor to take action, to do something on your site. It could be to call your office, send an email, request more information.
Whatever.
The point is, you control this part of the process. Because you control the “call to action” where you ask someone what to do to take the next step.
Follow up is what you do with the lead when it comes to your office, either by phone call or email. What system do you have in place in your office? Do you know what your conversion percentage is?
Web Marketing for LASIK Surgeons
Hopefully you found this brief article useful and informative. We’ve been quietly helping business owners and lasik surgeons for some time.
We use solid marketing principles, combined with cutting edge internet marketing principles, designed to generate high quality leads to your practice.
So what can you do to get started to see how we can help you? Well…
- You can leave a comment on our site, and we’ll get in touch with you, or
- You can send us an email — and include a phone number if you’d like a call back, or
- You can use the contact form below:
[contact-form 1 "Contact form 1"]
We look forward to hearing from you.
