Event Marketing Tips for Elective Surgery Practices Event Marketing Tips for Elective Surgery Practices It’s that time of year again: time for the Eyes On Our Heroes campaign! Each year Fast Track Marketing does this amazing giveaway with several of our clients. We ask the local community to send us stories of heroes, firefighters, EMT, police or military veterans who are in need of LASIK. After a public vote of the top stories on Facebook, three people are awarded free LASIK. It has become a great way for vision practices to support their local communities. It also stands out as a great way to plan and execute event marketing campaigns. Strategy Sessions Before you can start planning an event like this you have to know where you are as a starting point and where you want to go. Taking a look at all of your assets and getting an idea of what tools are available to you is key to successful event marketing. Once you have an idea of what is available to you, plan your desired outcome. With one of our clients we created an action plan with certain points along the way, supportive materials and options all laid out. We took stock of what our social media accounts could accomplish and we targeted local Twitter users to help push the message out. In Facebook we scheduled several posts and boosted them by targeting specific audiences. We knew we wanted to throw out a large net for people to enter the promotion, so we partnered with a local radio cluster which then promoted the campaign locally on their websites. All of these successes happened because we envisioned and planned out what our path to success was going to look like. Media Relationships Media buying and strategies are more about relationships than anything else. Good relationships are always built over time. One of our strongest relationships in a specific Texas market, for example, is with the radio cluster we work closely with on the Eyes On Our Heroes campaign. It’s common to move away from radio these days; however, a tree doesn’t only have 1 leaf to capture sunshine. Knowing how and where all the different media types fit in for premium functionality is vital to success. Each relationship should support the next. Our relationship with the radio stations allowed us to increase our audience for our community outreach programs. Support A big part of our success with Eyes On Our Heroes comes from the support structures we build into the campaign during our strategy sessions. These include 3rd party blogging, Facebook post boosts and specially timed Twitter posts. Several of our partners at the radio stations wrote blogs about the campaign and the doctor. Not only does this help promote the campaign but this type of media is great for the practice’s SEO. Next, we drafted several posts to support the campaign on Facebook and backed them up with an ad campaign. This also helped to increase the reach of the practice. Our approach on Twitter was a bit different. We targeted local influencers and news anchors to help get the word out. In past campaigns we were able to secure TV appearances based on our Twitter strategy. Twitter has become a great way to get the word out to a completely different group of users than what you can target on Facebook. These acted like 2 sides of the same coin. These are just some guidelines to keep in mind when planning and executing a large campaign. There are plenty of variables that will provide challenges along the way. The best way to handle these challenges is to have a plan in place and discuss with your team possible challenges and solutions. Plan big and aim high. Bring in all your social media assets and get them working for you. Contact local radio and TV stations and push them to learn more about what you are doing. Tease them with interactive media they can share such as supportive videos. Have them cross blog, tag and post about it. Make sure you interact well and always answer their questions. Harvest these relationships in the community to help you get your message out. Most important, have a great support team that works together to a set common goal. For more great PPC insight Follow Fast Track Marketing on Twitter @FTMarketing and Follow Scott @SkotTheMarketer.