A VITAL ELEMENT IN YOUR SUCCESS - DIFFERENTIATING YOUR LASIK PRACTICE
You’re a unique individual. Your patients admire and respect you – some adore you. You’re dedicated, hard-working, and committed to improving vision for as many people as you can. You take great pride in your knowledge and skills, and you truly care about every patient you treat. Because of these qualities you’re the right choice for anyone considering eye surgery…But how does a prospective patient know these things when your marketing makes you look and sound like every other surgeon in the region?
Try this exercise:
- Gather up a few of your competitor’s ads or marketing materials
- Cross out his name and insert your own
- Now read the message again and see if there is any appreciable difference…
- Now take some of your own ads and materials
- Cross out your name and insert one of your competitors’ names
- Now read the message again and see if there is any appreciable difference…
You’ve just discovered the biggest problem any prospective patient encounters when searching for the ‘right’ doctor or the ‘right’ LASIK center: they can’t tell the difference between any of them, so how can they possibly choose the best? They end up having to shop for the best price.
HOW NOT TO TACKLE THIS PROBLEM
Some practices try to solve this problem by self-congratulatory and insincere-sounding statements such as:
“At Eyesie Dozie we REALLY care about you …”
“At Eyesie Dozie we are committed 100% to helping you achieve your vision goals…”
“Our dedicated team at Eyesie Dozie stands ready to serve all your vision needs…”
“Eyesie Dozie – where your satisfaction is all we care about…”
Do you really believe those statements? Who would? Would you decide to have eye surgery based on any one of them? At best they just sound like everyone else, and at worst they prompt the response – “Well, I should hope so, since people like me, spending my money at your clinic, are the only reason you’re in existence!”
DON’T TALK ABOUT IT – DEMONSTRATE IT
There’s an excellent reason why the average LASIK patient spends between 2 to 5 years ‘researching’.
These prospective patients are apprehensive about eye surgery. They have valid fears and concerns. The idea of entrusting their eyesight to someone they don’t know is scary. So they want to feel they know the surgeon, that he’s the ‘right fit’ for them. That he will treat them as an individual, not just a number.
It can take 5 years to even begin to answer those concerns – and in the end even the most the careful ‘researchers’ will throw up their hands in desperation and default to ‘selection by price’ – the poorest method there is.
However, an equal number wait until someone in their circle of friends or acquaintances makes a recommendation about a specific doctor or practice. Now they have something to work with – but why did they have to wait so long? Why didn’t you provide them with EVIDENCE of the qualities contained in the first paragraph of this article?
How you do that without resorting to unconvincing platitudes and ham-fisted posturing is an entire marketing technique in itself. It takes work and persistence to accomplish this goal, but it doesn’t take 2-5 years and it will bring you patients who know they have made the right choice.
Contact us for a free analysis of your current marketing and ask us to show you some simple tools for differentiating your practice.
