Most eye doctors I’ve met have little desire or time to deal with marketing their practice. They understand the value, but getting it done well is like waking up a 15-year-old on a Saturday–it’s not easy.
While the tactics for optometry marketing vary widely, there are five ways to ensure those tactics get done:
Most optometrists launch their marketing using their internal team, where everyone wears multiple hats, especially in start-ups.
It goes like this: “Hey, Crystal is pretty active on social media and has an eye for good photography. Let’s ask her to run our social media.”
Or, “I got a coupon from our competitor last week. Let’s contact our print shop and run a direct mail promotion.”
Because new practices often thrive on referrals for the first few years, mixed with a shotgun approach to marketing, this can be effective for a season–especially if someone on your team has marketing experience.
Hiring specialized vendors is a natural next step in handling your marketing as your practice grows. This process often starts with finding a website vendor to build and maintain your site, an ad company to run campaigns or an outsourced social media creator.
These vendors are often freelancers (found on sites like Upwork or Fivver) or niche agencies who work specifically with optometrists or medical practices (like Eularity or Avalient).
Specialized firms and freelancers are moderately high-priced. Expect to pay 50¢-$1 per word for a professional optometry copywriter. A custom website provided by an experienced development firm will be $8000 or more.
Niche vendors who provide DIY ad management, template-based websites, or simple SEO services are generally cheaper (less than $1000).
Full-scale niche agencies are a powerful yet expensive way to handle your marketing.
You will be assigned an account manager or strategist to oversee your projects and report on budgets and outcomes. Most of their creative team operates in-house or is white-labeled (hired as a contractor but working and billed as if they were part of the agency).
As your practice grows, it will make sense to hire someone internally. Marketing tactics that require personalized attention, such as organic social media, are nearly impossible to perform well with an outside vendor or agency, particularly if you have multiple locations.
Depending on experience, a marketing professional can provide strategy and some execution. However, few marketing professionals can sufficiently execute all marketing tactics without help from a vendor, freelancer, or agency.
Expecting one marketing employee to excel in strategy, copywriting, video production, graphic design, and coordination is unrealistic and unfair. You wouldn’t hold your practice employees to such a standard; the same consideration applies here.
With a full-time employee, you’ll have a high fixed cost, especially on the front end during the learning phase. A starting salary for a new marketing technician is $48K or $25/hour + benefits. An advanced marketing strategist is $60-$90K depending on experience. A marketing leader or CMO is well over $100K.
Fractional leadership is a new, evolving concept in the business world. Fractional work includes fractional bookkeeping, marketing, operations, sales, and beyond. These contractors operate as internal team members but are available and compensated “fractionally.”
Fractional marketing professionals are perfect for optometry practices that need advanced leadership guidance for a "fraction" of the time.
Now you face the difficult decision: What’s the best marketing approach for my practice?
Answering these questions will give clues as to which marketing option is suitable for your practice.
If deciding the best way to approach your marketing execution is overwhelming, we can help. We call that marketing myopia–trying to get the big picture for your marketing while fighting nearsightedness.
I offer optometrists willing to give their marketing the effort it deserves a complimentary 60-minute “Fix My Marketing” session.
Fractional CMO
