BREATHE – DON’T SUFFOCATE

Historically, the economy moves in cycles – upturn then downturn. During the upturn, businesses have money to burn, and invest in advertising and marketing activities. When the downturn occurs those same businesses tighten their belt-buckles, rein in ‘unnecessary expenses’ and weather out the storm. That usually means cutting back on advertising and slowing down the marketing machine. Seems to make sense… Standard business practice….

But take a look at that again: It’s actually a fatal error.

Any business, regardless of how good or how valuable the product or service it offers, MUST make those products and services known – how else can potential customers avail themselves of those products and services?

Violate that basic rule of business and you’re off down a slippery slope to nowhere. Less advertising means fewer customers, fewer customers means more cost-cutting, means less advertising, means fewer customers, means that business eventually shrinks itself down to nothing and becomes a casualty of the economic downturn…

Here’s an example to illustrate this point.

One time I was asked to help a friend of a friend’s coffee shop that was on the brink of closing down. I was given the address but it took me several minutes of walking up and down the street before I found it. It was early evening but the illuminated sign above the window was turned off – apparently to save money. I went inside: it was cold and the shop was empty. This was an unannounced visit for the purposes of observation, so I sat down like any other customer and waited for service. I ordered a latte and a sandwich but the sandwich was not available, sorry… Then I waited…and waited… After twenty minutes I asked to speak to the owner. I introduced myself and we discussed his problems. Eventually I asked why I’d had to wait twenty minutes for the latte? Because, he explained, they had to buy the milk from the convenience store, because they’d cut out the usual daily dairy delivery – to reduce costs. It was cold to save on heating costs, he’d also cut down the food ordering… It all made perfect sense to him – he was doing a great job cutting unnecessary costs to save money, and weather out the storm.

Here are the errors he was making.

• The first big one was turning off the illuminated sign. If his pool of potential customers was smaller or less attentive, then obviously he needed to INCREASE his efforts to attract them. Yes, it’s true that he couldn’t afford to waste money – and by looking over his past marketing he’d been wasting a lot of money on ineffective but expensive radio ads – but now he was shooting himself in the foot. 
• No sign, the most basic of all advertising or promotion, meant no visibility. That means no one could find the shop – or those that did assumed it was closed and went elsewhere. 
• The other errors, like not keeping any milk, turning off the heating, and so on, followed from this because as soon as he stopped this promotional activity his income dived and he was forced to cut more costs, eventually developing the bunker mentality that is one step away from closing down completely. The next week he closed.

How does this example relate to a LASIK practice? The same basic principles apply.

• LASIK practices that INCREASE their marketing and advertising in a down economy can EXPAND their market share. Here’s how this works – your competition is probably going into bunker mode, but there are still prospects out there. Who is going to talk to them if no one else is advertising at all? Yes, that’s right – YOU. You will have to spend some money to do that but if you don’t, in the long run you’ll surely lose more money than you save. The key here is ‘effective marketing’ – not wasteful and ineffective marketing. There’s a world of difference!
• Marketing Is Like Breathing. If you slow down or stop breathing you faint or die. “We’d better cut costs to weather the storm” is a good rule to follow in all areas except marketing, because when you stop marketing, your practice stops breathing. Cost-cutting can be a very involving activity – in the case of the coffee shop ‘the operation was a success but the patient died.’ There are still plenty of prospects out there and if yours is the only message they are hearing, guess where they will come?
• Marketing Is Not Synonymous With Burning Money. A marketing budget is not supposed to be a bottomless pit where your profits go to die. Real marketing is a science not an art. This is how marketing is supposed to work:
  • “Prior to Fast Track Marketing we were running on 11 radio stations and 7 TV stations including cable, but our number of surgeries had not increased in two years and our costs of advertising were continually rising. I was beginning to feel like I was on a treadmill, working harder to continually feed the advertising engine. We have just completed the biggest March in our 10 year LASIK history in terms of surgeries, revenue and profitability – and our advertising expenses are still dropping.”
    • Dr. Britt Buckley, Buckley Vision Institute, Colorado Springs

Fast Track Marketing Can Show You:

1. How to lower advertising costs while increasing your patient load.
2. How you can get prospective patients to recognize the differences between your practice and the others in your area before they ever set foot inside your building.
3. How you can get more inquiries into the office for a consultation and exam.
4. How to raise your ratios of inquiries to consults and consults to surgeries.
   

These points and others are all addressed in a series of comprehensive marketing programs that have increased the profitability of practices all over America.  Why does our system work? Because we’ve identified the points of interest and concern that prospective patients have and created messaging that hits them with IMPACT.

What Are The Fast Track Marketing Programs?

1. Programs That Will Teach YOU How To Improve Your Marketing
2. Programs Where We Will Help You Do Your Marketing
3. Programs Where We Will Do Your Marketing For You

Take a tour of this website and contact us for a NO-CHARGE practice evaluation.