Where Should You Place Your Ads?

Where one should place their ads for LASIK or other refractive services is a complex question. The variables that enter into this decision process include such things as size of the marketplace, proximity to other major markets and the size of your advertising budget. For instance, if you have only one office and are located in a major metropolitan area, you must realize that even if you can afford to advertise on broadcast media (radio and TV) you will likely be wasting a very large percentage of your advertising dollars due to geography. In other words, your broadcast media may reach as many as 10 or 15 million people, most of which are not willing to drive to your single location. Therefore, no matter how compelling your ad is the majority of prospects will rule you out immediately when they learn where you are located. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t still plenty of prospects in your immediate vicinity that would come to see you; it simply means that over half of the people who hear your message are not going to be willing to travel to your location and therefore, you are paying for a lot of wasted ears.

The cost of broadcast media that reaches multiple millions of people is also considerably more expensive than it might be in a small market where the local radio and TV stations are only reaching ½ million to a million people. In such markets, we have found radio to be consistently the most cost effective medium. However, the stations and the frequency chosen can make a night and day difference in the results achieved. Of course, effective messaging is the most important single element in any type of advertising because an effective message will always generate leads even if the station chosen is less than optimum.

Pay-per-click and banner advertising on the internet have become more popular in recent times as a cost effective medium for promoting refractive surgery. These approaches combined with effective search engine optimization can make a world of difference to the success of a refractive surgery practice. The amount of money and the percentage of one’s budget that should be devoted to pay-per-click, banner advertising and search engine optimization once again requires careful scrutiny and planning based on the dynamics of the marketplace your practice resides within.

Where does print media fit into all this? Newspapers, magazines and direct mail all have their own individual places depending on the demographics of the audience you are seeking to reach. For instance, LASIK is less effectively promoted through print media than on the internet or broadcast media however, premium IOL’s can very effectively be promoted through print media.

One is wise to recognize the complexities involved in selecting media for each given marketplace. While there are several tools available to help in this process we have found one in particular to be the most consistent and reliable of all. To learn more about Fast Track’s approach to media selection and the specific tool we found to be highly effective, contact us by phone or email.

How To Write Ads and Copy That Promote A Response

Any advertising is expensive, but there’s nothing more expensive than an ad that doesn’t get any response. That’s money down the drain.

Yet most ads don’t get read, or if they do, don’t promote a response. Of course, some ads do get a response, which is why we keep throwing money at the newspaper or radio/TV station in the hope that we’ll get lucky.

Then there’s this fundamental of running any business: to get customers you have to make yourself and your product or service known.

No marketing at all says you don’t exist, and if you’re not doing any promotion or marketing you’re eventually going to disappear from the scene.

But how do you come up with an ad that works? Is this just a matter of luck? Trial and error? Hire an ad agency full of bright young things with lots of stunning and expensive ideas?

Here are the basic principles of any successful ad – they ALL have to be present to promote a response:

• It has to be seen or heard: this is called the Interrupt factor. Try this exercise. Take a magazine or newspaper and leaf through the pages until an ad stops you. You can do this with radio by listening for an hour and noting which ads you actually gave any attention.

  Most ads are designed to grab the eye or the ear – for an average of 1/25th of a second. In that 1/25th of second you either pause and read the copy, or listen – or you move on. Put a pretty girl in a swimsuit in a print ad and most men will pause. Put a laughing child in the ad and most women will pause. For a radio ad it will be something that breaks the blur of sound. A bell. A strong voice. A sexy voice. A sound effect. If you stopped and looked or listened, the ad fulfilled this first criteria.

• It has to Engage your interest. Many ads fail at this critical second stage. The pretty girl caught your eye but now the rest of the ad has to keep you there by telling you something you want to know. Let’s say the laughing child is the image for an ad about footwear. You scan the rest of the ad and see the name of the store, perhaps an offer to sell two pairs of shoes for the price of one… mentally you’ve already started to wander. What does the child have to do with the shoes? Nothing. You move on.

  If the ad had a headline that said: My Mom Can’t Keep Up With My Growing Feet, and if you were a mother, you’d probably read on because this is a common concern for mothers with growing children. The Engage factor depends on matching some existing interest or concern of the prospect.

• Now the ad has to educate. Why? Because just having your name in big bold letters and a cute logo works somewhat for companies like Coca-Cola or Sony who have money to burn. For a small business you have to take this extra step of educating the reader or listener about your product, service, or offer.

  “Most children’s feet grow faster than the average shoe can be destroyed by playground wear and tear. The shoes you buy for your toddler today won’t fit him in two months time. That’s why we’re offering two shoes for the price of one – one pair at his present fitting and another pair one size bigger…”

  Now you’ve given the reader or listener a reason for staying with you by supplying some relevant information. This also builds credibility.

• The final element is offer. You can term this a ‘call to action’ – you now want the reader or listener to make a significant move in the direction of buying your service or product. However – and for an expensive service like LASIK this is a critical point – the offer has to be low risk.

  Let’s face it; no one is going to decide to have eye surgery on the strength of any ad, no matter how many girls in bikinis you show. With LASIK there is an evaluation-and-decision-making process that according to our studies can last for up to four years.

  Most LASIK ads offer the free consultation. To the practice this sounds like a low risk offer but to the average LASIK prospect there’s nothing low risk about it at all. To the average prospect it says ‘Come in and we’ll subject you to sales pressure!’ and they stay away in droves.

  Here’s a statistic worth considering in light of the heavy, heavy marketing that LASIK has received over the past decade: our entire industry has penetrated less than 10% of the qualified population. That indicates that much of the marketing has been falling on deaf ears, and the free evaluation offer has been rejected by the majority of the prospect pool. In the example of the shoe store the offer could be as simple as: ‘Bring your shoe destroyer in after school or between 9am and 11am Saturday morning when we’ll have Clunky The Clown handing out free gifts while we risk life and limb getting the fitting exactly right…’

  Cute. But you’re not selling shoes, so your offer has to match the concerns and apprehensions of your future patients who want more information to help them through the evaluation process.

  These are the basics of any successful ad. Skip any one of them and you’re wasting your money.

  Review your own ads against these points. Do they efficiently:

• Interrupt?
• Engage?
• Educate?
• Offer?

If they don’t that’s one reason right there why your surgeries are stuck below your capacity.

Use these basics to improve your ads – or contact us and we’ll be happy to review them for you and recommend improvements.