Buckley Vision Institute

I own and operate the Buckley Vision Institute in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I've had this practice for about 20 years and about 9 years ago I began specializing in LASIK while others on my staff manage the other surgical and optometric parts of our full service practice.

Prior to Fast Track Marketing we used an in-house marketing director and a media placement agency. We are a sizable practice and spend a significant amount on advertising. In fact, in a marketplace of about 450,000 people we were running on 11 radio stations and 7 TV stations including Cable. Our number of surgeries had not increased in the previous two years and yet our cost of advertising was continually rising. I was beginning to feel like I was on a treadmill, working harder to continually feed the advertising engine.

We didn't initially let Fast Track have control over our advertising placement but after a few months saw that their lead tracking system enabled them to know which radio stations and other media were cost effective and which ones weren't. It was refreshing to see a marketing company who really paid attention to the expense side of the ledger and help us identify and get rid of the money wasting stations we were spending a fortune with.

The ads they produced were ads that everyday people can relate to. In some of the ads, I was featured talking about technology and even my own experience having LASIK while in others, we used celebrities or past patients to tell their LASIK success stories. It's been real effective.

Early in our relationship Fast Track produced a DVD about our practice and about my professional background which they began offering along with the consultation in all of the ads. Once we allowed them to implement the complete Monopolize Your Marketplace system including training scripts for the telephone reception people and sales scripts for following up with prospects, our number of leads, consultations and surgeries increased immediately. And, once we gave them control of media placement we immediately saw our advertising expenses decreasing without sacrificing the quantity of leads coming in.

The idea of reaching the entire population of LASIK prospects rather than just the "now buyers" is very appealing. We recognize that this is creating a sustainable pool of prospects that, due to the ongoing educational messages we are sending, will develop loyalty to us and choose our practice when they are ready to have LASIK.

We just completed the biggest March in terms of number of surgeries, revenue and profitability in our 10 year LASIK history and our advertising expenses are still dropping. We are very optimistic that our results will continue to get better and better. The monthly management meetings we have with Fast Track are very helpful for me as I am able to get good insight into what is and is not working and where they are planning to make changes to continue strengthening our marketing and advertising.

We've found Fast Track to be both competent and flexible in developing and implementing our marketing programs. Their lead generation techniques are highly effective and I really like the way they test the various media and track the results to help us get the best value for our advertising dollar. I recommend them highly.