One thing that will help immensely in making your optometric practice more turnkey is having a strong patient base, a solid brand, and a clear marketing plan. Read on for my tips on developing these areas of your practice.
Evolve the Patient Base Owners often complain about some ways their patient base is evolving—fewer private patients (yet some practices are nothing but private pay), more cost consciousness, etc. With the right marketing plan, however, you can control who your patient is, and therefore what your patient base is. Evolve your patient base to more of what you want and less of what you don’t, and you’ll get a premium when you sell.
Improve the Marketing Plan First, look at your brand. Patients and potential patients need a strong regard for and relationship with the brand, not just the doctor. With that in mind, ask yourself: Is this the time to strengthen or even completely change your brand?
Then, address three must-have components of the Internet portion of the optometric practice: information (a killer website as well as reviews from happy patients); connection (a great social media program); and consumption (a strong e-commerce/buying setup).
And finally, consider education, internal and external marketing, and creative strategy. Define what you want existing and targeted potential patients to know, and internally and externally teach them exactly those things. The more they value the relationship with the practice, the more sellable it is.
And we all want our practices to be as sellable as possible, right?
Tom Bowen
Executive Vice President
Williams Group
Email Tom Bowen