Laser Treatment Leads

Internet marketing for LASIK surgeons involves three key components.   They are:

1. Traffic
2. Conversion
3. Follow Up

So how do these basic principles of online success relate to your LASIK practice?  Let’s find out…

Internet Marketing & Website Traffic

Believe it or not, there are only two sources of internet traffic.

Now, some people will say that there are three sources of traffic.  But as you read on you’ll see why we insist that there are only two. Those sources of traffic are:

1. Paid
2. Free

Yeah, I know.  Pretty basic stuff.  So let’s unpack this a bit…

Paid Traffic:

Paid traffic can take many forms, but most people are familiar with Pay Per Click Marketing.  And it turns out that this is, by and large, the most common form of paid traffic.

It is very effective… IF you know what you’re doing.  Pay attention to all the details of a successfully set up and managed campaign, and your site will receive TARGETED traffic.

Free Traffic:

Free traffic boils down to spending time and effort instead of money.  SEO and Social Marketing all involve helping your site rise to the top of the search results rankings when someone types in a search term that you are targeting and optimizing.

Today, will millions of sites out there, you have to know what you’re doing, and then do it well, to see results here.  Free traffic is often less targeted than paid, but since the traffic is “free” this really isn’t a problem.

Internet Marketing & Website Conversion

Okay, so now people are coming to your site.  Now what?

You’d be surprised how many people just figure that once folks are on your site they’ll know what to do.  As if the job of internet marketing was someone done once people showed up at the site.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

What do you want your web visitors to do when they get to your site? Have you thought this through?

Here is a short list of common mistakes (in no particular order) that should help boost your website’s conversion:

1. Don’t send paid traffic to your “Home” page
2. Include a clear “Call to action” on the site
3. Lose the flash video
4. Use “conversation language” on your site (i.e. lose the “techn-babble”)
5. And for goodness sake, stop talking about yourself (truth be told, no one cares what school you went to, what your hobbies are, the name of your golden retriever — focus on THEIR needs)

Fixing these elements will go a long way toward having your site actually work for you.

Internet Marketing & Follow Up

So far we’ve discussed elements for generating leads from your site.

Sidebar: actually, we actually do al this “stuff” for lasik surgeons by providing a turnkey solution for their internet marketing problems, i.e. having online traffic become qualified leads to their office.

Your web visitor has taken the action you asked them to take on the site (call the office, send an email, whatever).  So now you have a lead.

What’s next?

Well, hopefully you’re following up with them.  Calling them back, or replying to their email.  In other words, now the ball is in your court and it’s your job to convert that “lead” into a “patient.”

We recenly met with Dr. Jeff to get him started with our program.  And before we wrapped up I asked him…

“what percentage of people who come in for an initial consultation become patients?”

He wasn’t sure.  It wasn’t something that was being tracked.  His answer?  “It’s a pretty high percentage.”

So what’s the lesson here?

Internet marketing for lasik surgeons should be able to get some online traffic to your site.  And converting some percentage of that traffic into a “lead.”

But once that happens, once someone raises their proverbial hand to request more info, request an initial consultation or whatever, it’s up to you to get them into your office and into a paying patient.

Now doesn’t that clarify things a bit?

If you found this article useful, please feel free to leave us a comment.  You can even leave us a request to cover a topic of your choice.

To discover how our turnkey web marketing programs will benefit you, kindly leave a comment on our site, or send an email by clicking the button below:

We’d be happy to schedule a 10 minute phone interview with you to discover how we can help your practice grow.

Can pay per click marketing help grow your practice?  Better yet, can you effectively use pay per click marketing profitably?

Well, whether or not you’ve used pay per click marketing or not, this article will outline three key factors for effective (and profitable) marketing for LASIK.

Keyword Research

Effective internet marketing begins, and ends, with proper keyword research.  It really forms the essential foundation for all your web marketing efforts.

Yet, you would be surprised to learn just how few LASIK web marketing efforts have done this first step as thoroughly as needed to ensure successful results.

Because it’s not just about getting a huge list of keywords together.  Or even targeting the high volume ones.

You need to track your efforts to find which keywords are performing best for your ads.  And then see if these same keywords “convert.”  And to do that, you need proper website tracking tools installed.

Pay Per Click Campaign Structure

Okay, so once your keywords are chosen you need to structure them into an effective campaign.

Years ago the idea was to pack as many keywords as possible into one ad and just let it run.  Well, that simply does not work.  In fact, if you follow this strategy you will end up paying much more for your traffic then you should be.

How much more?  Well…

Recently we worked with a client that had used another marketing company in Philadelphia for 4 months.  In the month of December 2008 alone they spent $5,688.76 in pay per click costs.  This resulted in 46 leads for their business.

In late January they signed on as a client.  During the month of February we generated 46 leads for their business.  Their pay per click cost?  $1,584.

So how are those results possible?

By creating proper pay per click campaign structure when you first get started.  It does take a lot of time and effort to properly match your list of keywords to the ads you run, and then optimize each keyword list and ad to improve your results.

But the payoff is well worth it.

In the above example, it took 38 different ad variations until the campaign was running on auto-pilot.  And I shouldn’t have to tell you that very few marketing companies take the time or effort to get this right for people.

Landing Page Marketing Congruence

This is one phase of lasik website marketing that, in our opinion, hurts your overall pay per click results.  To keep it simple, the language on the page where you send your paid traffic must match the language and objectives outlined in the ad that generated the click.

We call this marketing language congruence.

It works like this: 
Keyword —> Pay per click ad —> Landing page —> Action

The keyword that converts an “impression” to a “click,” the ad that generated the “click” and the language on the landing page all have to speak the same language.

What does this mean?

If your ad is for LASIK surgery, the page web visitors land on when they click the link better talk to them about LASIK surgery.

Forget about your office.  Your credentials.  Focus your efforts on ONE goal.  To get the web visitors following your web marketing from ad to your site to stay on your site.

And then to ultimately take action.

The more relevant your keyword, ad, and landing page are, the more likely they’ll stick around and actually do something on your site.

Measurable Results

Let’s focus on the case study outlined above as a way of wrapping up.  How did we cut their pay per click budget while generating the same amount of leads?

For starters, proper pay per click campaign structure resulted in a 36% savings on their cost per click.  Secondly, we changed the layout, copy and font size of their landing page to increase conversion from 4.85% to 9.9%.

And we’re still testing and measuring new initiatives to make their website marketing more effective.

To learn more about how we can help you with your LASIK pay per click marketing efforts, or to learn about our turn-key LASIK web marketing systems, you can leave a message here.

Or you can send us an email to set up a phone appointment so we can discuss your specific needs and how we can help with your marketing.