How Do You Market an Ophthalmologist?

No matter how great your ophthalmology practice is, you cannot succeed without bringing in new patients consistently. Ophthalmology marketing is challenging because your target audience is not just shopping for fun. Instead, prospects are searching for eye care professionals who can adequately treat their needs, whether it’s cataract surgery, Lasik surgery, plastic surgery, or a basic eye exam.

So what healthcare marketing and digital marketing techniques can you utilize to increase your patient acquisition? Below, one of our Weave marketing strategy experts discusses how you can attract more potential patients and create business growth through online marketing.

What Is a Market Driver In the Ophthalmic Industry?

To attract your ideal patient audience, you must understand what will drive them to choose your office. First, they need to understand what services your ophthalmology practice offers.

Next, you must prove to the prospective patient that you’re the best in your field. How can you do that?

  • Build your online reputation so that new patients know you’re legit.
  • Advertise patient reviews that display your credentials and success rates.
  • Ensure that your website is near the top of search engine results.
  • Design a professional website that is easy to use and informational.
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Ophthalmology Marketing Ideas

Now that you understand what your prospective audience needs, it’s time to start considering different medical marketing campaign ideas. When building your online presence, you have many options to choose from, so it’s essential to select wisely. You may feel tempted to do everything simultaneously, though this can lead to lackluster results.

We recommend choosing just a couple of digital marketing campaigns to start. Then, you can compare the results and decide which one deserves your focus. You can continuously try a couple of new methods at a time until you find what works best.

1. Online Reviews

Reviews play a significant role in your online presence and may determine if a patient chooses your medical practice. When in need of eye care, new patients want someone they can trust, meaning someone who has stellar reviews. Finding a system that can store your feedback is difficult because you need to leverage reputation management without losing authenticity.

With Weave, you can convince more ophthalmology patients to leave reviews by offering a convenient text link. You can understand how to improve your patient experience by gathering all online reviews in a single place where you can manage responses.

2. Social Media Marketing

Reputation management also involves your social media presence. Maintaining active social accounts, responding to questions, and sharing engaging content can help boost your online presence. A successful social media campaign can build patient awareness, improve your search engine rankings, increase your market share, and convince prospective patients to choose you.

To successfully pull off a social media marketing effort, you should:

  • Consistently post across multiple platforms.
  • Respond to questions.
  • Maintain a consistent brand voice and tone.
  • Engage with the eye care community.
  • Consider turning off or filtering comments for easier reputation management.
  • Try offering exclusive online promotions and deals.

3. Content Marketing

Content marketing involves creating and publishing online information to boost your awareness. The internet runs on content, so creating high-quality resources can help you reach the top of search results. When a patient googles a question, they want answers, and you can be the place where they find resources.

Some popular content ideas include:

  • Blog posts
  • Video content
  • FAQs
  • Webinars
  • Interviews
  • Informative ranking lists

Consistently creating new content is vital. Keep your information up-to-date, write about relevant and hot topics, and try to get other websites talking about your content with backlinks. Link building can generate your authority.

Content Example: Is Ophthamalogy a Stressful Job?

You may think that writing content about eye care is tricky. So what can you write about that people will find interesting? One of the most frequently asked questions surrounding ophthalmology is whether or not the job is stressful.

You can use this question to your advantage. For example:

  • Have your owner or employees talk about their job and how they chose this career.
  • Let patients get to know your staff with a team introduction blog post.
  • Show your patients around the office with a virtual video tour.

This example is just one question that can generate loads of content.

4. Local SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, is a marketing strategy for ranking your website high in search results. If someone Googles “best ophthalmologist near me,” you want to be the first result to pop up. So, how can you master local SEO?

  • Research keywords to learn what you should rank for, like your city or services.
  • Consistently create content that utilizes those keywords.
  • Consider paid advertising, like Google Ads, so that you can rank more quickly.
  • Build website authority with backlinks by getting other websites to talk about you.
  • Make your content easy to share on social media.

5. Website Design

Your website design plays a massive role in getting patients to convert. Prospects want to see that you’re professional and easily accessible online. When creating your website, consider the following:

  • Is the website simple to navigate?
  • Can patients easily find any information they need?
  • Is the contact information too hard to find?
  • Are the colors pleasing to look at and read?
  • Does each page have engaging visuals?
  • Do the pages include your optimal keywords?
  • Does the website look good on mobile devices?
  • How fast does the content load?
  • Does each page have the appropriate heading structure?

6. Email Marketing Campaign

Email is a more traditional marketing strategy but still an effective one. You can utilize email marketing to:

  • Bring back your existing customers
  • Generate referrals
  • Gather reviews
  • Convert new patients
  • Introduce yourself to the eye care community
  • Schedule patients’ appointments
  • Send appointment reminders
  • Offer promotional deals and sales
  • Promote new services that you offer

The most important thing to remember with email marketing is to sound human and include personalized touches. You don’t want your patients to feel like they’re reading a mass-produced message, so try to address their names in the introduction.

Ophthalmology Advertising Examples

Here are a few great examples of simple advertising campaigns that you can start with:

  • Email referral campaign: Offer your existing patients a 10% off coupon if they refer a friend.
  • Newsletter promotion: Promote your blog by offering a newsletter subscription that readers can sign up for to receive notifications.
  • Review offers: Offer your loyal customers a discount code for writing a review.
  • Social media campaign: Create a post asking viewers to leave questions and respond to each.
  • Link building: Ask relevant websites to write about your practice online and link to your website.

Ophthalmology Marketing Materials to Use in Your Strategy

You don’t have to figure out marketing all on your own. Many marketing services exist to help you gather your materials. The top marketing materials you may want to utilize in your strategy include:

  • An adequate website
  • A logo and slogan
  • Blog posts
  • PDFs and e-books
  • Customer reviews and testimonials
  • Youtube videos
  • Educational webinars
  • Social media marketing material
  • Business cards and pamphlets
  • Digital coupon codes

Remember that when using any of these materials, you should set up a way to track their success. You want to measure how each helps you grow and what works the best.

How to Use Ophthalmology Marketing Specs

A marketing spec, or specification, is a detailed plan that you should create before embarking on your marketing journey. This plan should include your starting statistics and your short-term and long-term goal statistics.

For example, say you currently have 35 patients a week. Your short-term goal may be to acquire five new patients this month, while your long-term goal may be to reach 45 patients a week by the end of the year.

You can use digital marketing specs to measure your progress and stay on track so that you don’t waste resources on ineffective campaigns.

Steps to Create a Marketing Plan for Your Ophthalmology Practice

Follow these steps to create an advertising plan for your ophthalmology practice:

Define your target audience: Outline what type of patient you wish to attract. Is your target patient interested in cosmetic or medical treatment? Plastic surgery marketing will differ from general medical marketing material.

Study the overall market: Ask yourself, “If I Google my business, who else will pop up?” Analyze each competitor’s online presence to see what ophthalmology campaigns work well.

Build and execute your marketing strategy: Use our list of ideas to outline each campaign. Define your goals, create your content, and measure your results.

Get Weave to Keep Your Ophthalmology Practice Running Smoothly

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