Marketing

Creative Marketing Concept: Signature Windows

By Rachael Click, OD

Enhance your practice brand–and attract new patients–with catchy window designs that become the talk of the town. Here are easy-to-do ideas.

What do you do in your practice that makes you a landmark in your community? A few years ago, when ROB professional editor Mark Wright, OD, FCOVD, posed that question to those of us attending the First Practice Academy, it got me thinking. Dr. Wright explained that the practice he founded,with his wife (and fellow ROB professional editor), Carole Burns, OD, FCOVD,has a large dinosaur in its front window which has become the office’s signature.

Keys to Make Your Windows

a Community Landmark

Update frequently.The most important practice is to change the windows regularly to keep community interest active. Like all marketing ideas, frequency and consistency is best.

Be stylish. Take a book on design out of the library–or search the internet for ideas. Here is a web site withideasto get you started: http://www.squidoo.com/storewindows

Here is a blog on the best and worst window displays:

http://thewindowdisplayblog.com/

Tie into monthly health campaigns and holidays. We once painted a cartoon turkey for Thanksgiving holding a sign with a message in it about flex-spending accounts. Another year we painted snowflakes and had suction-cupped snowflakes that lit up on the windows for Christmas, along with the message “Happy Holidays.” We also honor breast cancer awareness month, and hope to add the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to the roster for 2012.

Create Awareness of Practice in Community

When I returned to the office, our team had a meeting to brainstorm display marketing concepts. We all agreed that since we have an office located on the corner of a busy intersection, painting our windows would increase awareness. The community that we live in has major restrictions on signage and banners that can be displayed, so painting our windows made logical sense. We change our window paintings every couple of months to further increase awareness as we don’t want our current messages to blend in with the surrounding landscape. We try to have the painted messages reflect current events in the community, office or optometric profession.

For example, during the month of October we paint pink ribbons on the window for breast cancer awareness. During the summer, we paint a beach scene with sunglasses. In the fall, we paint a message about not letting your flex-spending account benefits “fall” away. And in the spring and summer, we have messages for sunwear being “SPF for your eyes.” For back-to-school time, we make the windows appear like chalkboards and have a message pertaining to back-to-school eye exams.

When the Transitions’ 30-day guarantee was implemented in our office, we painted one of our windows announcing it. Recently, our practice won Transitions Eye Care Practice of the Year. Currently we have that message painted with confetti to celebrate our accomplishment.

Cost Efficient Marketing Solution
The cost in dollars and cents to design our windows is very small. The only supplies needed are craft paint and a few craft paint brushes. I believe an initial investment of about $100 dollars would buy a great start-up kit. The cost in time is about two to five hours to change the window design. The variation in time accounts for cleaning off the old design and painting the new design. The more detailed the artwork, the longer the time it takes to paint the windows.

Makes Giving Directions Easy
Our window designs have also been worthwhile because they give us an identifying factor when giving driving directions to the office. The staff always tells our new patients: “We are the office on the corner with our windows painted.” It has definitely increased conversations within the office to existing patients and made finding us easier for new patients. While there isn’t a dollar amount that can be tracked to just the windows, anything that makes it easier for new patients to find you is always a winning idea. Also anything that gets our patients asking questions because of something they have seen is great because it increases top-of-mind awareness. In my opinion, that is priceless.

Related ROB Articles

Make Your Practice a Fixture in Your Community

Motivating Consumers to Choose Your Private Practice

Giving Back is Good–and Good for Business, Too

Rachael Click, OD, is the owner of Preferred EyeCare Center in Mount Pleasant, SC. To contact her: drclick@preferredeyecarecenter.com.

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