For cold starts, marketing is what turns the car on and keeps the engine running. As an extension of your brand, it connects potential patients with your new practice, promotes new services and improves patient engagement. Most importantly, consistent, strategic marketing ensures you don’t just reach your goals but keep moving forward.
PECAA Marketing Advisor Shelby Wade brings a wealth of expertise in customized marketing plans and initiatives that drive results for practices of all sizes and life cycles. Here, she shares her tips for low-cost yet impactful results to kickstart your new eye care business.
Set Your Marketing Budget
The industry standard for an eye care practice marketing budget falls within 1-5% of the practice’s gross revenue. This range provides balance between investing enough to see significant returns and maintaining financial stability. The exact percentage for your practice could be affected by a few factors:
- Size: While all practices require a marketing budget, a larger practice may achieve effective results within a smaller percentage of their budget. (For cold starts, expect to invest 5% of projected revenue, especially in the first year, with an emphasis on brand building)
- Location: A smaller practice in a highly competitive area may need to allocate more funds for a marketing budget to remain visible within the local landscape. However, while you may encounter more challenges in a competitive environment, strategic planning can help you thrive!
- Patients: Understanding your target patient helps you create intentional messaging, select the right channels, produce relevant content, offer appropriate services and enhance the overall practice experience, which helps you understand what it takes to reach your patients year after year.
Do More with Less
The most effective marketing approach is to prioritize tactics that deliver the greatest impact. Rather than avoiding spending marketing dollars, especially at the beginning stages, focus on proven strategies that generate visibility and patient demand more efficiently.
Remember if your practice is quiet, those patients won’t stop searching, they’ll simply find another provider. Maintaining a focused, results-driven marketing presence ensures your practice remains visible, relevant, and competitive.
PECAA helps members on small budgets customize the marketing mix that suits their practice goals. Allocating funds to creating and updating your website and social media presence is paramount for all practices to attract patients who look to these touchpoints for accurate and informative content and engaging design. However, a practice may need to pass on its paid participation in a community event, for example, until next year’s budget reassessment.
Connect With PECAA Experts
Shelby brings a wealth of expertise in crafting strategic marketing plans and executing field marketing initiatives that drive results. Her passion for marketing and dedication to watching businesses thrive fuels her enthusiasm for connecting with PECAA Members. Shelby is committed to developing customized strategic plans that empower their practices to flourish and achieve continued success.
Jenny loves putting her extensive practice management experience to work guiding cold start practices through all aspects of planning, development and execution. She provides both business strategy and emotional support, dispensing the right type of wisdom at the right time to support emerging practice owners throughout the cold start journey. Jenny joined PECAA in 2015 after managing a 10-location ophthalmology/optometry practice in the Pacific Northwest and is a Certified Ophthalmic Technician.
Shaun enthusiastically applies his more than 20 years of ophthalmic leadership to helping PECAA Launch members create the best possible foundation for their success. He has performed every position within an eye care practice and has advised hundreds of practices across the country, giving him a unique vantage point for guiding new practices on how to maximize both patient experiences and business outcomes.