Insights From Our Editors

Patient Education Opportunity: Address Patients Who Don’t Wear Sunwear Protection

August 3, 2016

There are several key reasons patients give when explaining why they sometimes don’t wear sunglasses when outdoors, according to The Vision Council’s 2016 UV Protection Report. Seventy-five percent of Americans are concerned about UV eye exposure, but only 31 percent say they wear sunglasses every time they go outside. Some 28 percent of respondents say they don’t wear sunglasses sometimes because “I don’t have them with me.” Another 26 percent say they’re not wearing them because “I forgot to put them on,” while 17 percent say “I’m not outside long enough to put them on,” and 11 percent say they don’t wear sunglasses because their eyes require correction, and “I don’t own prescription sunglasses.”

Seventy-five percent of people say they are concerned about UV exposure when they go outside. That’s good news. That means that people are paying attention to education about the danger of UV light. But only 31 percent of people say they wear sunglasses every time they go outside. That means 69 percent of people don’t. Sixty-nine percent is a big number. Sixty-nine percent of people don’t take the step of protecting themselves from the sun’s dangerous rays.
Let’s do something about that. Let’s use the Fast Fact data from this week to create a marketing program to help patients get the protection they need.
Start with a marketing program outline. The components of a marketing program outline are:
1) Identify a need
2) Identify a target market
3) Identify a product or service
4) Identify your unique selling proposition (USP)
5) Create an ad
6) Identify how to get your message to your target market
7) Set your pricing to be attractive to your target market
8) Set a budget
9) Establish marketing goals
10) Measure your results
11) Calculate your ROI for this marketing program
12) Identify improvements to this marketing program for future runs
Let’s take the Fast Fact data for this week and fill in the marketing program outline.

Create an Ad

It’s good that 75 percent of people are concerned about UV exposure when they go outside, but we need to get to the point where 100 percent of our patients are protected from the harmful light from the sun when they go outside. Thirty-one percent of people wearing sunglasses every time they go outside is not enough. We have some work to do to get to 100 percent. Creating a marketing program is a good place to start.

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