By Michele Quintero, OD
Dec. 16, 2020
2020 was supposed to be the year of the optometrist; we all know how that turned out. Lakeshore Eye Care was able to see past this challenging year and end it with some holiday cheer!
We are always looking for ways to promote the practice, increase sales and increase the number of new patients. This is a core function of every business. We utilize a marketing calendar to plan out the year to maximize the results of our efforts. The holidays can be the perfect time to offer special promotions and market your practice to your patients and your community. Of course, with all the hustle and bustle of Black Friday deals and door busters you will need to get creative. This year especially. Our goal was to find a way for our holiday marketing campaign to be fun and interactive for the whole family.
Here’s a marketing campaign that my practice is using this holiday season.
My practice resides in the Boardwalk at Towne Lake. Every year at this time, the Boardwalk has its Light the Towne event which consists of a tree lighting, business booths and give-a-ways. Normally, there are over 2,000 people in attendance. This year because of the pandemic, the event was moved from “live” to virtual.
We thought about this change and adapted what we had previously done and created a Letters to Santa marketing campaign. We had special Christmas-themed stationary printed so that children could write Letters to Santa. Here’s a picture of our stationary:
The entire staff got into the holiday spirit and my dad, one of our doctors, dressed up as Santa. We wanted to set the mood. In addition to any child that wanted to use our stationary to write a Letter to Santa, it was offered to any child who came into the office for an exam. We also created a mailbox so the letters could be “delivered” to Santa.
The Boardwalk created a video of all the businesses that wanted to participate. We accepted their generous offer. You can see the entire video HERE. We pulled out just our part of the video, added some text to the beginning and end, and now we have an additional marketing piece that we have used in many ways. We posted just our part of the video on our website, Facebook page and Instagram account.
http://www.lakeshoreeyecaretx.com/
http://www.facebook.com/lakeshoreeyecaretx/
http://instagram.com/lakeshoreeyecaretx
The purpose of the marketing campaign is to drive people into the office. And that’s what happened. Parents are bringing their children into the office to write a Letter for Santa and mail it.
Once in the office, we offer $100 off any second-pair purchase. Because this is the end of the year and many people need to use their flex-spending dollars, we are finding that this promotion is working well.
Dr. Quintero and colleagues get into the holiday spirit.
My staff is having fun with the marketing campaign. It’s putting everyone in a good mood. We wanted to be sure and do something family-friendly and show support for the community. After all, we live here, work here, and want the community to thrive.
Patients love the Letters to Santa marketing campaign. We are getting a lot of feedback from people that they appreciate businesses that give back and are involved in the community and, in turn, they want to support these businesses. Community has always been important to my practice and it is a great feeling to know that people recognize that and want to support us.
As the campaign progresses, we are tracking important metrics of the campaign such as: number of campaign patients seen, campaign dollars brought into the office, dollars spent on the campaign and profit realized from the campaign. We do this so that next year we can make the campaign even more effective.
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This marketing campaign was relatively easy to put together and run. This is something you should consider doing in your office, as well.
It’s been a difficult year for small businesses. I’ve learned it is important to be able to be flexible and find fun and meaningful ways to promote your practice and keep your patients engaged. We’re looking forward to a new year, but we’re thankful to our community for helping us get through this one.
Michele Quintero, OD, is the owner of two cold-start practices: Lakeshore Eye Care located in Cypress, Texas, and Advances in Vision located in Houston.
