Tag: websites

Contactless Intake, Payment, and Reputation Management for ECPs

Digital Marketing, Marketing, Practice, The Patient Journey

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With the economy reopening, one of the biggest questions for clinics looking to ramp up their business again is: how do I keep my customers and employees safe? And how can I get my revenue back to what it was pre-COVID? With safety being top of mind for customers now, clinic owners can remove fears entirely with physical distancing measures and hygienic practices, while simultaneously attracting new customers and boosting revenue.

A recent survey of over 1000 consumers was conducted by OneLocal and results indicated that 63% of people said they felt unsafe sitting in a waiting room with other people. What this necessitates is letting customers in one at a time. Significant costs are added to the business from having to spend salary on staff checking in clients manually and ensuring that everyone is kept safe.

In the same survey OneLocal conducted, 89% of people said they prefer checking in over their phones versus having to stay in a waiting room. So by sending out check-in forms via text message, clinic owners are able to eliminate the physical waiting room and efficiently take in customers, without having dedicated staff to manually manage how people check-in.

 

 

 

LocalVisits manages the check-in and payment process digitally, so face-to-face contact is minimized and customers can come to your business efficiently.

 

The check-in link contains customizable Surveys that can screen users for COVID-19 symptoms and can even be tailored to your health forms. When it’s safe to do so, you can let your customers know when to come in without having to clutter waiting rooms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lastly, the software sends a text message to handle the whole payment process, so that instead of using a point-of-sale system which comes into frequent physical contact with staff, everyone is kept physically distant during this part of the process.

 

 

 

 

 

The whole process is managed simply in a virtual waiting room, so the staff knows where customers are in their journey, whether it’s checking-in, booking an appointment, or collecting payment. Staff can monitor cancellations and send check-in links when the clinic is ready to take in new customers.

After you leveraged physical distancing software to ensure everyone is kept safe, the next step is to make your safety processes visible to customers. There are a handful of marketing strategies that you can pursue, but it really boils down to gearing your online presence towards safety. You can add to your homepage exactly what physical distancing practices you are using during your processes. Use keywords like “safest work practices in Toronto”  and “COVID safe clinic in Toronto” to help you rank on Google when people look for the safest clinic in your area.

Last but not least, when the payment link is sent out, you can send automated Google review requests with reputation management software. Right after the payment, the customer experience is top of mind so if you’ve done your job right, the chance of them leaving a positive review is higher then ever. Automated software like LocalReviews can prime users on their experience and ask for testimonials via the same text messaging system. When new customers search for a clinic in your area, they will see testimonials from customers who can attest to your safety measures and overall good experience.

About OneLocal

OneLocal helps thousands of small businesses across North America get more customers with a series of best-in-class and affordable marketing automation tools. As part of an effort to help restart the economy, OneLocal is currently offering many of their tools for a fraction of the price and creating new tools to help clinic owners operate more efficiently. They are a Toronto-based tech company that has been around for over 5 years and is backed by the same company that backs Airbnb.

MATTHEW CARNEVALE

Matthew Carnevale is the VP, client relations for OneLocal, based in Toronto.

With safety now being top of mind for clinic owners, employees, and patients, it is important that you provide an experience that makes your customers feel safe. Find out how OneLocal has been helping clinic owners implement digital check-in, contactless payment, and virtual waiting rooms through LocalVisits by filling out this form:  https://info.onelocal.com/ECP

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Analyzing the Performance of your Website’s Content

Marketing, Resources

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In today’s world, every optometric practice needs to have a website. While there was a time a health care practitioner could hang out a single or put an ad in the phone book and patients would find them, that has changed. Now we rely on online searches to find a business or health care provider.

In Canada, there is a 60/40 for online searches for a business. 60% of people who do a search online have a specific business name in mind before they even search (via word of mouth, a returning client, etc.). 40% of people have a need for a business or service and do not have a name in mind. They don’t even know you exist.

For that 40% of customers who don’t know you, you should be laser-focused on two things:

  1. Getting your business found where and when they’re looking, and creating ads that entice them to engage with your business.
  2. Post. Click. Conversion.These are the results that let you know how effectively you have engaged your intended audience.

For the first point, Google Adwords and Facebook ads are the most effective. These are the ads that will pop up and be displayed to the consumer when what they are searching for matches the ad and the key words you have created and paid for.

Post Click Conversion is the measure of how well your website explains what you will do for them. It evaluates how well the information on your website is meeting the needs and interest of the audience reading it.

The trick is to try displaying information in different ways in order to find what will resonate with your audience. Ask questions of your audience and encourage them to contact you. Put your phone number, contact form, and email address everywhere. Then use the results of your post click conversion analytics to evaluate what is working and what is not. If you have pages of medical information that no one is clicking into, maybe this information is irrelevant on your website. Conversely, if you find that your patients are spending a great deal of time reviewing the brand names that you carry, you may want to consider adding more information to that page.

If you truly own the responsibility of finding out what happens when people visit your website, you will have a lot more success marketing your business.

ERIC HARBOTTLE

With 15+ years of marketing experience, owner of Addison Marketing Solutions and co-founder of MarketingforOptometry.com Canada’s newest marketing agency option for Optometrists, Eric Harbottle knows what it takes to succeed in a robust and confusion digital world.

Coming from a strong background working and consulting with some of Canada’s largest marketing agencies to offering SMB solutions at the ground level with his boutique agency, Eric is able to understand the needs of every level of client with unique optimism and an experienced view as a business owner himself targeting KPI’s and goals to help every client achieve success.

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The Importance of Updating your Website

Digital Marketing, Marketing, Resources

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Coffee shops, grocery stores and other refresh locations update their physical locations every 3-5 years. There is a very good reason for this.  The changes indicate to their patrons that they are staying current and relevant. As humans, we are also very curious about anything new. We are compelled to investigate and see what the latest trends are.

In fact, your virtual presence also needs attention and updating. Your website is often the first time that a new patient interacts with your practice and you want to make sure that it reflects the experience that the patient will encounter if they were coming into the physical office.

Every business has a different strategy, look & feel and personality. It is important that the website reflects all of that so that the patient can be sure that it is the right fit for their needs.

The website also acts as one of your most important sales people. It is going to work for you 24 hrs per day, 365 days/year!

Now the question is, do they have the skills to sell what you do and/or offer?

Take a close and critical look at your website:

  1. Copycat – the highest form of flattery! Look at your competitions websites, see what they are doing. Find other websites in your industries in other major cities and look at what they are doing on their websites.
  2. Hire wisely. Find someone you trust in house or outsourced to be your web person. Look at their previous work and get multiple quotes!

How will you know that your updates are effective?
Conversions! Conversions are people who contact you from your website.

The TWO most important questions you want to know in regards to your website are :

  1. What is the conversion rate to contact from your website?
  2. What is your close/sold/hired/won percentage from those contact conversions?

For example :

100 people visit your website

20 Contact you via Phone/Form Submit/Email (Mix)

You are a closer and your offer and service is great, you close 10.

Your average client value to you is $700

The Answers:

  1. Website Conversion Rate : 15%  (20)
  2. Closed Sale Conversion Rate : 50% (10)

The Math:

For every 100 visitors in our example 20 contacted and 10 became closed/won business.  If it costs $5.00 per click on search to drive 100 that’s $500.00 = 10 New Clients at $700×10 = $7000.00 ROI

ERIC HARBOTTLE

With 15+ years of marketing experience, owner of Addison Marketing Solutions and co-founder of MarketingforOptometry.com Canada’s newest marketing agency option for Optometrists, Eric Harbottle knows what it takes to succeed in a robust and confusion digital world.

Coming from a strong background working and consulting with some of Canada’s largest marketing agencies to offering SMB solutions at the ground level with his boutique agency, Eric is able to understand the needs of every level of client with unique optimism and an experienced view as a business owner himself targeting KPI’s and goals to help every client achieve success.

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Writing SEO Content for Your Eye Care Practice Website

Digital Marketing, Marketing, Resources

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Custom, search engine-optimized content is crucial to the online success of your practice. In an internet survey conducted by Pew Research Center, 72 percent of participants said that they went online for health-related information in the previous year, and 77 percent of those began their search with a search engine.[1]

These statistics highlight just how important it is to rank highly on Google’s search engine results pages. Custom content is one of the most powerful ways that you can improve your online search rankings. With this in mind, how should you optimized your website content to be favoured by search engines?

The answer to that question involves implementing several search engine optimization (SEO) best practices that satisfy Google’s complex search algorithm. Recent updates to this algorithm have made custom content an increasingly important aspect of search engine optimization to focus on.

Consider the following factors when writing SEO content for your eye care practice’s website:

  1. Quality over quantity

A search engine’s main goal is to provide users with a list of website that are most relevant to what they are searching for online. Websites that lack substantial content are commonly determined to be spam and lowered in the search rankings.

However, using unnecessary filler text just to satisfy a word length goal, or posting low-quality content in order to make a certain number of blog posts each week is poor practice. In order to provide a valuable resource to visitors to your website and improve your online search rankings, aim to post consistent, informative and relevant content to your website.

  1. Keep the content useful and informative

Search engines are designed to return search results of websites that they have decided are most relevant to the user. Therefore, your audience is the most important factor to consider when you write content for your website. Who are you writing for, and what are they looking for? A simple way to answer this question is to identify if any currently trending eye care topics apply to your practice and patient population. Once you have identified topics that your patients will find interesting, you can then decide what information would be most valuable to them.

Plus, if you are still searching for some content inspiration, a Pew Research Internet survey recently revealed that the most frequently researched topics are specific diseases and conditions, treatments or procedures, and profiles of health professionals.

  1. Keep it credible

New updates to Google and Facebook give considerable weight to credibility of content as a ranking factor. Now more than ever, the internet is rife with misinformation and articles that are deliberately meant to look credible, but are, in fact, completely false. Pay particular information to the credibility of your sources when drafting custom content, and make sure that it is entirely accurate and up-to-date.

  1. Write high quality and engaging content

As search engines learn more about how internet users make decisions, they do a better job of delivering exactly what users are looking for online. Health-seekers in particular are looking for substantive websites that offer quality advice and general answers to their health related questions. Search engines understand this and take measures to keep “click-bait” (websites that offer little value and are designed solely for getting clicks) from ranking highly on search engine results pages.

Click-bait sites are usually superfluously stuffed with keywords in order to gain favourability with search engines. It is okay to use some keywords, but try to keep the focus on quality and providing engaging information.

Wrapping up

Previously, high-quality content played only a secondary role in SEO strategy. It is now one of the main ranking factors used by search engine algorithms to judge whether or not a practice website is worthy to be displayed on the first page of results. If you lack the time to write your own content for your practice website, it is instrumental to the success of your practice to entrust a professional content writer with the task. Now is the time to start focusing on the online success of your practice.

 

Find out how the SEO experts at iMatrix can provide professionally written content designed to drive more potential patients to your practice website and convert them into treating patients by calling 877.596.7585 or visiting us online at imatrix.com/OPTIK216.html

[1] http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/health-fact-sheet/

RANDY TRAN

IMATRIX

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5 Things to Fix in Your Current Online Marketing Plan

Digital Marketing, Marketing, Resources

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You may think that simply having a website is enough to help your eye care practice attract new patients and increase practice revenue.  However, a successful, well-rounded online marketing plan involves more than just a website. The following are five components of your online marketing strategy that you should fix now, if you have not already.

  1. Your Website Features. Turbo-charge your website by including high-definition video content. The average Internet user spends nearly 90-percent more time on a website with media.1 Blogs, social media, new-patient online forms, an e-store, educational resources, click-to-call functionality on your phone numbers and a map feature with directions to your practice, all help to keep patients on your website longer, convert them into patients and help increase practice revenue.  Finally, make sure your website is mobile friendly, or Google will penalize it and your search rankings will drop. If potential patients cannot access your website from a mobile device or cannot find it online because it is buried on the fifth page of the search results page, they will turn to your competition instead.
  1. Your Social Media Presence. You may already have a business page on Facebook, but also consider Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest. Even if you are on all these social media sites, are you taking full advantage of them? Many social media sites are introducing “buy” buttons that allow online visitors to purchase a new set of eyeglass frames with the click of a button. You can also run advertisements on social media that target your patient. At the very least, make sure you are sharing your seasonal promotions on your social media business pages.
  1. Your Online Reputation. Did you know that 88 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations? 2 That same percentage read reviews to determine the quality of a local business.3 This highlights the need for practice owners to closely monitor and quickly respond to both positive and negative reviews on sites such as Google+, Facebook, Yelp and specific health care sites like rateMds.com. In fact, Harvard Business School study showed that a one-star rating increase on Yelp has been shown to increase practice revenue 5 to 9 percent. 
  1. Your Paid Advertising Campaigns. Nearly 65 percent of people click sponsored ads when searching for a service or product online.⁴ A pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign is not something you can ignore. Once you have done your keyword research and have designed compelling website landing pages that convert visitors into patients, make sure you are taking full advantage of the advanced PPC features available. These include broad match modifiers, negative keyword lists (so you do not pay for ads that will not convert visitors into patients), ad extensions (that allow you take up more real estate on the search results pages without an extra cost) and mobile device bid modifiers. You should take 20 minutes every week to review your PPC strategy and update it as necessary. 
  1. Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy. Less than 10-percent of people advance to the second search results pages.⁵ This highlights the need to rank highly. However, it’s more difficult than it seems, especially in competitive markets. Google does not make it any easier by constantly updating the ranking factors in their search algorithm. Nonetheless, there are best practices you can follow that increase your chances of ranking well. Provide a user-friendly experience and increase your SEO efforts through unique informative content, including media that keeps visitors on your site longer. Include relevant keywords on each webpage add meta data, including page title tags, headings and meta descriptions, onto each webpage. Make sure your practice name, address and phone number are consistent across all platforms and encourage quality websites to link to yours.

If you are not marketing to your online audience you are likely losing potential patients and revenue. However, by fixing these five things now, you can make your website and online presence work for you, helping to recruit new patients, retain current ones and foster word-of-mouth referrals. Remember: Your website is your best sales person, and it never goes on holiday.

Want to Learn More?

Learn more about effectively marketing your practice online by contacting iMatrix, a leader in websites and online marketing solutions designed specifically for eye care professionals like you. Call 1-800-462-8749 for more information.

CASSANDRA RANSOM

imatrix

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Develop a Strong Web Presence for Your Specialty Practice

Digital Marketing, Marketing, Practice, Resources, Specialty Practice

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In order to stand out from competitors and build a strong patient base, it is essential that eye care practices build a solid online presence. However, practices that serve a specialty population, such as sports vision, vision therapy, low vision, or pediatrics, should take a slightly different online marketing approach than a general eye care provider. Here are three tips your specialty practice can use to build a better online presence and stand out in your niche:

  1. Think Like Your Target Audience

When developing an effective online marketing strategy, it is crucial that you understand your audience and how it differs from those seeking general eye care information. The first thing to consider is why your patients are seeking an eye care specialist. Often, the motivation to find specialist care is a recommendation made by a teacher, coach, or another general eye care professional. The second consideration is whether your marketing is targeting the patient themselves, their care givers, or other professionals that could serve as a referral source. Typically, you will find there is one audience segment that is most prevalent and your marketing content plan should be tailored to speak to the needs and wants of that group.  For instance, a vision therapist’s website would probably address the concerns of parents while offering education on symptoms and therapies, while a low vision office’s website might be geared toward patients and include more information on corrective devices.

  1. Create High-Quality, Specific Content

In many ways, content is the foundation for online success. Search engines and online users alike love original content. High-quality content tailored to your audience helps educate your prospective patients, positions you as an expert in your specialty field, and organically boosts your online rankings. When developing a content strategy, make sure your content is easy to understand, and most importantly, that you are offering enough topic-specific information to highlight your practice expertise. For example, in addition to the standard office information pages, the website of a sports vision specialist might have custom pages detailing the difference between a general eye care provider and a sports vision provider; the skills sports vision can improve; the variety of testing modalities typically used, and therapies and technologies one might encounter at the office. The sports vision emphasis could also be carried through to the website’s images, special offers, and blog content.

A social media best practices guideline suggests 80 percent of what you post should be sharable, interesting, and not self-serving; the other 20 percent can be about you – or your business (think special offers, announcements, photos). The purpose of this ratio is to diversify your social media content in order to better engage with followers. It also encourages you to look to outside sources for shareable content.  Using the 80/20 rule, the majority of your social media content should be shared from other online authority sources that align with your specialty.  While you probably do not want to share content from a competitor, you can look to organizations, journals, university studies, product demo videos, inspirational or funny memes, and statistics to source content that keeps your social media pages active, interesting, and in-tune with your niche offerings.

  1. Optimize Your Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Strategy

PPC advertising is a fast-acting marketing tool that brings in impressive results. It specifically targets only local and interested patients who are looking for a specialty practice such as yours online. However, since there is a cost-per-click (CPC) that comes out of your budget each time an online user clicks on your ad, it’s important that each lead is promising.

In order to drive down CPC, consider including specific, long-tail keywords as opposed to solely bidding on generic, short keywords that already have heavy competition among general and specialty practices alike. For instance, the phrase, “where can I find a pediatric eye doctor” or “kids eye doctor open now near me” captures searches with specific, conversational queries. While you can still bid on general keyword terms such as “pediatric eye doctor” and “Greenfield Park kid’s eye doctor,” by including long-tail keywords, you are able to capture the market on those specific keywords at a lower CPC.

When it comes to developing a strong online presence for your specialty practice, one must consider who the website is trying to attract and design the content and ads to appeal to that group. Taking the time to research your audience, craft compelling and original content, and optimize your advertising efforts will help boost your website’s visibility and attract more, new patients.

 

AMANDA NAVARRETE

Content Specialist with iMatrix

Amanda Navarrete is a content specialist with iMatrix, the leader in vision care website and marketing solutions. For a free, one-on-one website consultation with an iMatrix Internet marketing expert and to get a special Optik reader promotion, call 877.596.7585 or visit imatrix.com/OPTIK216.html.

imatrix

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