Tips to get more bang for your buck and increase referrals

Editor’s Note: Welcome to “Eye Catching: Let's Chat,” a blog series featuringcontributions from members of the ophthalmic community. These blogs are an opportunity for ophthalmic bloggers to engage with readers with about a topic that is top of mind, whether it is practice management, experiences with patients, the industry, medicine in general, or healthcare reform. The series continues with this blog by Joy Gibb, ABOC, an optician at Daynes Eye and Lasik in Bountiful, UT. The views expressed in these blogs are those of their respective contributors and do not represent the views of  Ophthalmology Times or UBM Advanstar.

 

There are essential components to a budget for your practice-rent, utilities, and staff wages to name a few.  But there should also be another section in your budget for marketing.

Marketing can be done in many ways and some are far more cost effective than others.  You’ve probably explored the typical marketing avenues such as advertising in your local paper or hometown values coupon booklets that are mailed to all the homes in your area.  While those are always nice options, the marketing you do to develop relationships with others in your community will always give you the biggest return on investment.

We recently embarked upon a marketing strategy to get our practice name more recognized in the community.  Instead of targeting customers, we targeted other physicians in our local area that had the ability to refer new patients to us. 

We made a list of local pediatricians and family physicians and came up with 45 providers to visit.  We wanted to make sure we had a good message so they would remember us and know what we could do to help their patients.  With school starting just around the corner, we opted for a message about school vision screenings and some statistical information about what can be missed in a vision screening not conducted by an eye care professional (thevisioncouncil.org is an excellent resource for information). 

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