There are many things you need to do for the success of your optometry business. You need to manage your clients, keep on top of emerging trends, and perform excellent service. But you also need to market your business to the community and bring in new customers with optometry marketing.
However, there are some common optometry marketing frustrations that emerge when you’re working with agencies. Agencies might promise you many things but fail to deliver on those promises and end up leaving you frustrated, irritated, and without success. Thankfully, there is a better way to do optometry marketing and connect with your key audiences with the help of the Surefire Local platform.
Frustrations with Marketing Agencies
Marketing agencies are a common solution for many optometry practices, where owners and managers have too much on their plates to run marketing by themselves. Agencies are meant to make marketing easier by managing the daily tasks that help you be discovered online, but there are many optometry marketing frustrations that stem from issues with these marketing agencies.
Let’s go over the top 10 optometry marketing frustrations with agencies and see how agencies aren’t always the promising solution they set themselves out to be.
1. The Agency Uses Impersonal Strategies
One common optometry marketing frustration with agencies is the way that many agencies treat all of their clients the same. Many agencies have cookie-cutter strategies that they try and fit all of their clients into, regardless of if that particular strategy works for your business model. This one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t drive the best results for your brand and can leave you feeling frustrated.
2. The Agency Doesn’t Care
Another common optometry marketing frustration with agencies is the lack of care that many agencies show their clients. Agencies are oftentimes hard to get a hold of, slow to respond, and spend more time in meetings talking instead of listening. All of this makes it seem like they don’t really care about you and your business and instead view you as just another account that they go through the motions with.
3. The Agency Isn’t Transparent
One common frustration with agencies is the lack of transparency when it comes to the specific tasks and initiatives that are being done. Agencies tend to over-promise results in the initial sales conversations, then don’t follow through on those promises. They don’t provide clear reporting or documentation on what is being done and instead try and pacify you with vanity metrics.
4. The Agency Isn’t Data-Driven
Another frustration that commonly occurs is the lack of data-driven decision-making that agencies make in regard to your business. Rather than using the data they collect to readjust strategies and explore new channels, they don’t do anything substantial with the information they are getting through marketing initiatives. This makes it hard to tell if your investments are paying off.
5. The Agency is Expensive
Agencies often have monthly fees and retainer packages that are very expensive. However, there is no clear documentation or reporting on how these funds are being spent to help improve your business marketing. This leads to a lot of frustration as many businesses feel taken advantage of by a marketing agency that costs a lot but doesn’t deliver results.
6. The Agency Isn’t Flexible
Adapting to new and emerging technologies should be a big part of a digital marketing agency. However, agencies are notoriously slow to adapt to new changes as they are so focused on their one-size-fits-all strategies and methods of dealing with clients. That means that they aren’t keeping up with the trends that can help your business grow.
7. The Agency Doesn’t Know Your Business
Oftentimes, digital marketing agencies claim that they can understand every business and work with clients in multiple industries. However, what this really means is that they don’t have a deep, clear understanding of what it is your business does. That means that they only have surface-level knowledge of your optometry business and can’t provide specific information that will help you grow.
8. The Agency Has Unclear Service Terms
As mentioned above, the lack of transparency in services and pricing leads to a lot of optometry marketing frustrations. When you pay a premium price but are paired with an inexperienced account manager or marketer, you won’t get the best results for your money. Many agencies have vague and unclear service terms, making it hard to know where your money is being spent and if there are caps or limits on spending, or who works on your account.
9. The Agency Lacks Customer Service
Another one of the most common agency frustrations is the lack of quality customer service. Agencies take a long time to respond to questions and requests, and when they do get back to you they aren’t communicating clearly. This leads many optometrists to feel as though their business doesn’t really matter to the agency and they aren’t a priority. After all, if it takes several days for an agency to respond to a message, how much can they really care about your business?
10. The Agency Doesn’t Give You Any Control
Finally, one of the most frustrating parts about working with a digital marketing agency is the lack of control you have over your own marketing. Agencies don’t listen to your input and have total control over the growth of your business. It leads optometry businesses to be completely reliant on agencies, even if they aren’t producing the results that they’ve promised. This leads to even more optometry marketing frustrations as you can feel trapped by the agency.
Why Surefire Local is the Agency Antidote
These common frustrations are, unfortunately, all too common. Finding a solution to the agency problem is an important goal for all businesses that want to get the most out of their marketing and avoid the frustrations that arise when working with unreliable agencies. That’s where Surefire Local comes in as the agency antidote.
Optometrists who partner with Surefire Local and utilize our all-in-one local market intelligence platform are able to:
- Control all marketing (leads, reviews, ads, content, email, directories, social media, photos, and more) in one place
- Stop relying on duct-tape solutions that lead to frustrating results
- Eliminate data silos from your organization
- Gain a 360-degree perspective on ROI
- Get a single sign-on view of literally everything with a data-driven marketing intelligence platform
- Seamlessly align your branding and messaging to online and offline touchpoints
- Move key audiences through the customer journey.
Unlike most marketing agencies, you’re never alone with Surefire Local. Your optometry firm isn’t just given the software that will help your business grow profitably. We become a part of your team and your biggest supporter. We help empower you to support others in your organization to participate in marketing effectively, so all teams work towards a common goal. Every Surefire Local customer gets expert guidance from one of our Digital Marketing Strategists, who works with you to help you utilize the software, make the right decisions, and get the most out of the platform and your efforts.
Get a demo of the Surefire Local platform today, and see exactly which tools you can use that will help you achieve your optometry marketing goals and grow your business. Click on the link below to get started now.
