Competition in Optometry: How Your Digital Presence Helps You Rise Above

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When it comes to competition for optometrists in San Diego, the specifics can vary across a city of more than 1.3 million people. Maybe you have no trouble filling up your appointments in one practice, but your other practice across town struggles against the competition. Or perhaps you’ve built out a niche for your customer base, but you’re slowly starting to see that niche crumble as preferences change.

Stronger online marketing in San Diego, CA can help your optometry office stand out in the crowd. Below, we’ll look at how a better digital presence can help you rise above — particularly if you’re struggling against a select handful of other businesses.

Establishing Your Practice

It’s easy for optometrists to diminish the importance of their online presence, mostly because they don’t consider themselves a splashy brand. But consider that even the best-known companies have to constantly assert their presence online. What’s more, they have to keep updating their content to answer their customers’ most important questions. With better content, whether it’s on your web pages, social media, or blog posts, you are more likely to attract new customers and retain your current base.

So, suppose you’re trying to ‘win’ with younger families and notice that they’re going to big-box chains with optometry divisions because they’re cheaper. In that case, you can use your digital presence to directly address why your optometry practice is better. If you can’t compete on price (which is likely), it’s important to tell customers why your practice boasts advantages that they won’t find anywhere else. For example, if your staff is better with children or you have better technology that can catch pediatric disorders early on.

Finding Marketing Help in San Diego, CA

It can be difficult for businesses of any size to improve their digital presence. Still, it’s tough for smaller businesses that don’t have much of a budget to work with. If you’re looking for a marketing team in San Diego, CA that can help you get the edge over your competition, regardless of who your ideal demographic is, Digital Marketing Professionals is here to help.

Not only are we proven marketing experts, but we specialize in helping healthcare businesses find their way through a complex digital landscape — that unfortunately changes more often than people realize.

Why Website Navigation Matters to Your Optometrist Practice

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Like the eyes are the window to the soul, your website is the window to your optometrist practice. This is how visitors get a glimpse into how your practice operates, what services are available and what your business culture is. If they have trouble navigating the site for any reason, your bounce rate will go up, which is the time for a site visitor to leave the page. You may never have the opportunity to get that potential client to return, either. Website navigation isn’t just about design; it’s about guiding potential patients to the information they need quickly and intuitively. For optometry practices, effective navigation can build trust, enhance patient satisfaction, and ultimately drive practice growth.

Clear and Expected Navigation

By now, everyone expects certain navigation links on the home page, like services, about us and contact us. These are the basics that need to be on your site’s home page. These page names and relevant links should be prominently displayed. And even though your practice may go in for trendy designs, fancy fonts, stunning imagery and the like, the further astray you go from clear and expected navigation, the harder it makes it for your site visitors.

Exceeding user Experience Expectations

Okay, so once you have the basics down, you have a chance to make a difference with your website marketing in San Diego, CA. You can enhance the site visitor experience by having clearly indicated links to a patient portal, where your existing patients can book follow-up exams, download their contact lens prescription and more. You also have a chance to inform, offering blog posts that discuss common eye conditions or educate about options for vision correction. Any services you offer can be showcased in your blog.

For optometry practices, website design in San Diego, CA and its navigation is more than a technical feature—it’s an opportunity to make a strong first impression, engage potential patients, and grow your business. Intuitive design means your site visitors don’t have to think twice about where to click to get where they want to go. And by making intuitive design a priority, you ensure your website becomes a veritable magnet for new business!

How Much Time Should You Spend on Marketing Your Optometry Practice?

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Optometrists in San Diego open up practices to help people improve the health of their eyes, not to spend their day creating content and posting on social media. Of course, if you work in a competitive area, it’s not always easy to build the client base you want, especially if you plan to open more than one practice. Below, we’ll look at how much time you (or your staff) should spend on marketing, and what you can do to make it a little easier on you.

Breaking Down the Time

As you may have already guessed, it’s not always easy to pinpoint how much time anyone spends on marketing in San Diego, CA. Some experts say you should spend around 10% of your time on marketing, but this is little more than an estimate. Plus, it doesn’t really account for the actual demands on your practice’s time.

What You Can Do

The truth is that your marketing efforts have everything to do with your professional goals. So, to improve your reputation, you need to focus on fleshing out your business profiles and soliciting customer reviews. 

 

If you’re going to increase your reach on social media, you may need to launch a campaign that reaches out to your target demographics, whether that’s parents with kids under 5, young professionals with so-so insurance policies, or older adults concerned about disorders like cataracts and glaucoma. Regardless of which marketing tactic you want to step up, you’re going to need to invest some resources if you want it to work.

Hiring Professional Marketers in San Diego, CA

Keywords, local SEO, custom websites, blogs, monitoring: marketing is often more work than people give it credit for. Trying to stand out takes some skill, and that’s why hiring professional marketers in San Diego, CA for your practice may net you higher ROIs than you realize. 

At Digital Healthcare Professionals, we can help you piece together a winning marketing strategy for your optometry practice so you can get the revenue you need to either move up the ladder or maintain your current customer base.

 

Reputation Management is the Key to a Thriving Optometry Practice

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Are you looking to attract more new patients to your optometry practice? How about encouraging your current patients to leave positive reviews? While each of these things is critical for business success, it can be challenging to know how to reflect your optometry practice in the best light. Digital Healthcare Professionals offers reputation management services in San Diego CA to any optometry practice that wants to improve its reputation and bottom line.

What is Reputation Management, and How Can It Help Your Practice?

Did you know that a single negative online review can keep people away from your optometry clinic more than many positive reviews can attract them to it? Think about the typical patient experience for a moment. People who have never been to your clinic often look up the practice and its doctors before scheduling the first appointment. If they find even one negative review, they may continue searching for another optometry practice without giving yours a chance.

We encourage you to respond to negative reviews, even when you think they are unfair. Apologize for not meeting the patient’s expectations and find out what you can do to earn back their trust. People may be willing to delete or change their review when approached by someone from your clinic who genuinely wants to help.

Digital Healthcare Professionals can also create emails and website verbiage to encourage the patients who love your services to leave 5-star reviews for your optometry clinic. Additionally, we have found that leaving reminder cards in a patient’s aftercare items, offering a small token gift in exchange for a review, or providing a QR code that takes patients directly to a review page can help you collect more positive reviews.

Digital Tools to Manage Your Online Reputation

We offer a suite of digital marketing tools that enable you to manage reviews found on multiple websites all in one place. By logging on every day, you can learn what patients are saying about your optometry practice right away and take corrective action if necessary.

Would you like to learn more about how reputation management services in San Diego CA can make your life easier? Please reach out to schedule a software demonstration today.

4 Reasons to Outsource Your Eyecare Practice’s Marketing

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The eyecare market is increasingly competitive. Your practice needs to stand out more than ever. Fortunately, this is achievable through smart marketing strategies. With a quality website, regular blog posts and SEO content, your practice can rise above your competitors. But the most important factor in all of this is outsourcing. Rather than waste your valuable internal resources on marketing, consider outsourcing your San Diego, CA eyecare practice marketing needs. Here are four reasons why.

1. Expertise

A professional marketing agency has expertise in all the areas needed for your eyecare practice. Their in-house professionals understand the industry, but more importantly, they have the experience and expertise to make your practice stand out. Even if you had the in-house resources to spend time marketing, they wouldn’t have the expertise needed to be effective.

2. Cost-Effectiveness

Your eyecare practice spends a certain amount of money on payroll. You hired those employees because of their experience serving your eyecare patients’ needs. It wouldn’t be cost-effective to ask them to pay them to spend their time doing marketing—an area where they don’t excel—and spending less time on what they’re good at, patient care.

3. Access to Advanced Tools

A professional marketing agency has advanced tools and technologies at their disposal to use to market your eyecare practice. They know how to use those tools most effectively, and are dedicated to maximizing their potential in order to position your eyecare practice as a leading industry provider. If you tried to do anything like this in-house, first of all, you probably wouldn’t even know which tools are the best to use. Then you would spend days, weeks or months on a learning curve trying to get those tools to work for you.

4. Fresh Perspective and Creativity

A professional marketing agency brings a fresh perspective and creative ideas to your practice’s marketing plan. They’re on top of new trends, and the latest strategies from working with various clients and following trends online. This diversity of experience can infuse your marketing with a creativity and innovation that you couldn’t replicate without outsourcing your eyecare practice’s marketing.

Contact Digital Healthcare Professionals today for experienced eyecare practice marketing in San Diego, CA. We’re ready to help bring your practice to the forefront of your market!

Key Marketing Tips For Your Optometry Practice

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Owning or managing an optometry practice can be a very profitable and rewarding business venture. However, to succeed, you must learn some key marketing tactics.

Here at Digital Healthcare Professionals, we specialize in optometry marketing services in San Diego, CA. Whether you’re a long-standing optometry practice or just starting out, our experienced marketing team is here to help.

In this post, we’ll discuss four key marketing tips for your optometry business.

Boost Your Website

Having a high-quality website is a necessity in this day and age. And if you want to succeed as an optometry practice, you should improve your website as much as possible. First, make sure your site is fast and mobile-friendly. Nothing turns people away more than a slow website that doesn’t work on their cell phones. Secondly, make sure all of your web pages have a call to action or CTA. This is a form of messaging that encourages readers to take action, such as contacting you for more information.

Integrate PPC

PPC, or pay-per-click, is a digital marketing practice that involves placing paid advertisements on Google, social media, and other websites. These ads are often seen at the top of search results on Google. Unlike other digital marketing practices, PPC can lead to instant results. This can be a vital tool if you’re trying to grow your business quickly.

Utilize SEO

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” This practice involves optimizing your website to appear higher up on Google’s search results page. There are several different SEO strategies to consider, so it’s important to choose the best options for your specific needs. One key tip is to learn the keywords your target audience uses on Google and other search engines, then edit your website to include those keywords.

Earn Reviews

As an optometry practice, earning high-quality reviews is crucial. Try to get as many 5-star reviews as possible on Google and other review sites. This can be done by simply asking your customers to leave a review, or you can utilize an automated tool to help you through the process.

To learn more about the digital marketing tips above, contact Digital Healthcare Professionals today! We’re proud to be the top optometry marketing agency in San Diego, CA.

New Optometry Practice? 4 Ways to Bring In Patients

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Your new optometry practice has everything it needs to be successful except for an established patient base. Bringing in patients takes time. Aligning yourself with an experienced healthcare marketing team can help. At Digital Healthcare Professionals, we provide a range of services to our clients and give advice to optometry practices to help them expand their list of patients. Here’s what we recommend.

1. Encourage Good Reviews

Patients read online reviews when they’re looking for new healthcare providers. Encouraging your patients to write good reviews about your optometry practice can help you get the word out about how great your practice is.

  • Send patients review requests over email or text after they visit your office. Link to popular review sites to make reviewing your practice easier.
  • Review your online reviews and take time to respond to negative feedback. Apologize when there’s a problem and try to make it right. Learn from your patient’s experiences to improve your practice.

2. Establish Good Patient Care Routines

Take time to establish good patient care routines to ensure that each patient gets what they need from your office.

  • Educate patients about the importance of routine eye visits.
  • Remind patients when it’s time for their next eye appointment.
  • Streamline eye exams to minimize patient time in your office.
  • Maintain a comfortable waiting area for patients.
  • Take time to communicate with patients and answer patient questions during visits to ensure that each patient understands their eye health.

3. Create An Informative Website

Inform your patients about your optometry office by creating an informative website. Maintain a comprehensive website that includes information about the brands of glasses sold in your showroom, services your office provides, hours and location, and a custom blog with information that can help patients take care of their vision.

4. Team Up With Experienced Digital Marketers

More than anything else, it’s important to get digital healthcare marketing services from a team of digital marketers who understand the business. Look for a marketing team that offers a range of services, including social media management, reputation management, website management, and more.

Working with experts helps get the word out about your new optometry practice. Call Digital Healthcare Professionals to learn more.