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February is Low Vision Awareness Month
Macular degeneration is a leading cause of vision loss, affecting 1.6 million Americans age 50 and older. Low vision aids can make the most of remaining vision. Include in your marketing materials information on eye disease warning signs and available treatments.

Mysterious Eye Cells Adapt to Light
A new retinal photoreceptor adjusts its sensitivity in different lighting conditions, according to scientists at Brown University, where the rare eye cells were discovered. .

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Advertising vs. Consumer Education

Part two of a three part look at optometric advertising

Be a good doctor, send some recalls, and everything will be O.K. Right? In some cases, maybe. But this outdated passiveness greatly accounts for the tremendous changes in the distribution of ophthalmic market share.

Today's optometric care is the best in the history of the profession. Ironically, however, more and more independent optometrists are seeing potential patients "jump ship" for alternative sources of vision care. Clearly, the days of taking consumers, and patients, for granted are over.

Where does it all end? Will these changes affect you? Can you afford to wait and see? Or is it time to get more aggressive with your battle plan? Needless to say, if you plan to practice this next century, it's time to do some soul searching.

If you decide to get more aggressive, what are the areas on which to focus? With so many ways to turn, how do you categorize and prioritize your plan? These are good questions, and questions that cannot be answered without a basic understanding of the broad-based term "practice management".

Practice management has three basic components. We will call these the realms of practice management. These realms are listed below, along with subcategories of each.

I. MANAGEMENT

1. Production Management
2. Financial Management
3. Personnel Management
4. Inventory Management
5. Policy Management
6. Time Management

II. INTERNAL MARKETING

1. Staff Training
2. Patient Education
3. Policies and Market Niches
4. Accessibility (hours, etc.)
5. Referral Enhancement
6. Recall
7. Sales Skills
8. Telephone Skills
9. Patient Prospecting
10. Brochures, Newsletters, Resumes
11. Product Offerings
12. Point of Purchase Displays
13. Internal Signage
14. Telemarketing
15. Office Decor
16. Patient Flow
17. Market Research
18. Site Selection

III. EXTERNAL MARKETING

1. Community Involvement
2. Practice Publicity and Public Relations
3. External Signage and Visibility
4. Trade Name, Logo, Slogan
5. Sales Promotion (give away items, etc.)
6. Consumer Education (Professional Advertising)
   

Volumes have been written, some of them good, on each of these realms as well as their subcategories. For purposes of this article, however, we shall focus on one -- consumer education (professional advertising). A touchy subject to say the least, but let's get it out in the open and take a crack!

First, let's consider our market. For any optometrist, the market consists of two basic groups of people:

A. PRESENT PATIENTS

B. POTENTIAL PATIENTS

1. Referred patients
2. Non-referred consumers

Present patients are not the focus of this article. We'll discuss them another time. Instead, we'll concentrate on potential patients, and more specifically, non-referred consumers.

What is a non-referred consumer? Well, quite simply, this is a person you will never see if your marketing efforts are all internal. For one reason or another, non-referred consumers lack a referral source and will never be exposed to what you offer. They select vision care according to external information (as all of us do for certain products and services). Consequently, non-referred consumers are being manipulated by a force you have no voice in.

You're comfortable with the referral system. Great! Work that system aggressively. It's inexpensive, ethical and productive. But you can go a step further. You can compete for the other potential patient, the non-referred consumer, who will not know about you if you continue with the referral system alone. How do you do it? Through consumer education!

You'll notice we've called professional advertising consumer education. And for good reason. When you lay aside all the garbage advertising ($29 glasses, free contact lenses, two-for-one's etc.), there is one highly effective and ethical advertising strategy: Teach consumers real factors -- the long-term factors -- of eyecare and eye health management. Who knows more about this than you? And who knows less about it than non-referred consumers?

Why do you suppose they know less about it? For starters, when you were going to optometry school, they were going to business school, nursing school, tech school and a hundred others. The only thing they know about eyes is that you see with them. If they can see an eye chart, and pay $29 to do it, why not? All other variables equal, that's a good business decision.

Put yourself in their shoes. Non-referred consumers don't know about the kind of exam you give relative to that of your competitors. They don't know about differences in quality of soft contacts or eyeglass frames and lenses. They don't know how much time you spend with a patient, or the unique expertise you possess. As a result, non-referred consumers are making eyecare decisions based on limited knowledge, most of which is gained through external vehicles such as advertising. And chances are, you're not contributing to that knowledge. Who do you suppose is...?

Consider the last time you purchased an automobile. Now ask yourself truthfully: Were you affected by advertising? Sure, you did some research, talked with dealers and took a few test drives, but how did you initially find out about models you were interested in? How did you know Ford was the toughest truck or Chevrolet was offering rebates? Chances are, at one point in the process, you were informed by some form of advertising.

Now back to vision care. Remember, one-sided advertising has bombarded “innocently ignorant consumers”. They've heard low price, one-hour, and even a little about a "routine eye exam." What they haven't heard is anything regarding complete eye health management, additional testing (not included in that "routine" eye exam), etc. They haven't heard about complete vision performance. They haven't heard about specialty contact lens care or differences in eyewear quality. They haven't been told about behavioral optometry and vision therapy. The list goes on.

Non-referred consumers haven't heard because you haven't told them. How could you when you have no way of communicating with them? Someone decided advertising is unethical, so you haven't done that. Besides, advertising doesn't work. And the only people who react are price conscious. Right? (this was discussed in part one of this series)

Doctors Parker, Grill and Rose disagree. They have found advertising via consumer education to be both ethical and productive.

These optometric partners have practices in southern Idaho communities. Like many of their colleagues, they found themselves providing the best vision care of their professional careers, yet experiencing a bit of a growth plateau (sound familiar?). After careful analysis, they determined they were losing potential patients (and even a few actual patients) to mass media claims by competitors.

After evaluating options, the partners decided to get more aggressive with their marketing mix. They hired outside expertise and embarked on a mission to recover the healthy growth rate they had once experienced.

They began by adding an array of innovative internal programs and services, as well as professional staff training to enhance practice image and competitiveness. Then they took to the airways to tell their side of the story. And tell it they did.

They placed consumer education in the yellow pages, newspaper and radio. Their educational appeals emphasized eyecare issues never before presented by their competitors. For example, can you imagine the effect when they ran a sixty-second radio spot explaining that all eye examinations are not the same? Rather than talk price or speed, they talked about what they knew best -- eye health management. The spot discussed various tests and procedures consumers had never heard of. For the first time, consumers in these communities learned there is more to vision performance and eye health management than reading an eye chart and a quick screening for Glaucoma.

It's important to note that consumers, as well as patients, were truly impressed by these educational messages. For the first time, people were hearing there is a difference in eyecare, eyecare providers and eyecare products. And they responded.

Did success come overnight? Certainly not. People didn't line up at the door and take numbers. But within one year, the doctors were seeing a healthy growth trend. They were seeing non-referred consumers, as well as the solid referral numbers they had always enjoyed, and were on the road to realizing complete potential.

The key: A strong referral system and strategically targeted consumer education. People who had no referral source (such as new people in the area) now had another choice -- a better choice -- for eyecare. The doctors even found they attracted non-referred consumers who had resided in the area for years but were simply unaware of the doctors' existence.

This raises another important issue. When you professionally advertise (educate consumers), you are primarily targeting people who are not familiar with you. You are not targeting present or referred patients. Non-referred consumers don't know Dr. Jones from Dr. Smith, or an optometrist from an optician. Therefore, they are not attracted to names like "Dr. Smith" or "optometrist." Rather, these people are attracted by services you provide, or your trade. This will be discussed in Part Three of this series.

In summary, there are two types of advertising -- the garbage you hate, and ethical, professional consumer education. There are also two methods to compete for potential patients -- referrals, and broad-based consumer education. Both can be effective in themselves. However, the road to realizing full potential lies in carefully utilizing a combination. If you don't tell non-referred consumers your side of the story, who will? One thing is certain...your competition won't.

Williams Group™ Updates Their Website

We're proud to say we've updated the Williams Group website to make it easier to read and navigate. But we're not stopping there. In the coming months, our website will continue to grow as a valuable resource for the optometric community.

We are continually improving our services and channels of communication to remain the worldwide leader in practice development consulting.

We weclome your feedback and hope you enjoy the new looks and feel of our website!

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