Where Are You In Your Ophthalmology Marketing Efforts?
Improving the patient experience. Increasing new acquisitions. Evaluating new tactics, while keeping costs minimal. No matter the size of your LASIK practice, your goals generally fit within these paradigms. However, as the vision care industry continues its meteoric growth—a 6.5% compound annual growth rate until 2022—competition is becoming increasingly fierce.
So, how do you position yourself in a crowded, competitive market? By incorporating data-driven, proven digital marketing techniques into your organization.
Digital ophthalmology marketing drives real results.
No matter your previous or current efforts, every practice is in a unique position—and has different goals and resources. By asking yourself where you’re currently at with your efforts, you can create a roadmap for success.
So, where are you at in your digital marketing journey?
“We’re just getting started.”
Maybe you’re not reaching enough of your target audience. Perhaps you’re having a tough time figuring out which services will best impact your organization. Or, maybe you just want immediate results from your website. Regardless of where you stand, research can help identify the logical next steps for your practice.
Comprehensive SEO and Paid Digital Marketing audits are the best place to start.
Uncovering insights about your website and its performance helps outline your next steps—and which approaches to pursue. A thorough audit from digital marketing experts can help you determine:
- How your website performs on search engines like Google
- How your practice's website compares to your competitors
- New ways to make your content more compelling for your patients
- New ways to improve your website rankings and get you found faster
“We’re trying to improve our current efforts.”
Maybe you’ve invested in a shiny new website, but need help ensuring a smooth transition. Perhaps your site has suddenly dropped in rankings. Or maybe you feel like you’re not getting good value from your current ad spend. If you’ve already invested in marketing efforts, but aren’t seeing the results you desire, read on.
Paid Digital Marketing pairs well with a longer-term SEO strategy.
SEO success depends on an expert understanding of search engine algorithms and what Google is currently rewarding and ignoring. However, it’s also important to know that results may appear over the long-run. Conversely, Paid Digital Marketing—the umbrella term for Pay-Per-Click advertising—is an ideal choice for immediate results.
Paid Digital Media is a way to bring patients in the door right away. However, ignoring SEO means that your practice will have to pay for every lead and every click. Instead, when paired together, SEO and Paid Digital Marketing are a holistic way to approach digital marketing. Combining PPC and SEO helps your practice dominate both paid and organic search results—which boost visibility and website traffic.
Holistic marketing campaigns are about more than just throwing money at a set of keywords or demographics. Even if you’re generating traffic, it’s important to ensure visitors are converting into leads. Ongoing maintenance can help uncover efficiencies through testing of ad copy, design, and targeting.
“We’re trying to stay competitive in our local market.”
Perhaps you’re struggling to compete against large, corporate practices. You know you should be showing up for local terms—but you still aren’t ranking in your own backyard. Maybe you’re ranking well, but you face new competitors. Whether you’re facing national or local competitors, every practice needs to reinforce points of differentiation to prospective patients.
Make the most of local SEO.
This means following best practices to optimize for local SEO, such as:
- Claiming and optimizing Google My Business
- Managing patient reviews and ratings
- Leveraging local structured data markup
Local SEO plays a prominent role for any practice operating in a specific geographic area. While it does take cues from general SEO elements, local SEO is its own specialty. For example, building backlinks to low-quality directories is not an effective strategy. Instead, by identifying the right directories, businesses can build signals to their site and increase their chances of appearing in local results.
While on-page copy may carry the load once users reach a site, getting them there is equally essential. A refined, holistic ophthalmology marketing strategy that includes SEO, PPC, and Conversion Rate Optimization can help your practice reach new patients—and increase the likelihood that they visit your practice.
Need help figuring out where your LASIK firm stands? Contact us to start your journey today.
See results with digital marketing.
Our LASIK digital marketing guide can help your practice compete.