At the beginning of the new year, it’s common practice to take a look at your goals and aims for the new year and work out a plan for getting there. So, to save you time and give you a helping hand, we’ve put together a 2023 Online Marketing Strategy Template for Optometrists. All you need to do is follow along with our blueprint to marketing success in 2023! You’ll come out of it with your own tailored optometry online marketing plan that’s ready to go for your business.
Setting the stage for success
Before you can move on to a brand-new year, it’s a good idea to put the old year to bed. Take a look at what you learned in 2022, what went well, and what didn’t. What marketing did you do last year and how did it go? Where could you have improved on what you did that you can use this year? Where did your marketing really shine last year? What can you take forward and do more of in 2023?
Next, take a look at what goals you would like to achieve over the next year. Where do you want your optometry business to be on New Year’s Eve 2023? What do you want to be celebrating?
Start with the big picture and think about your overall goals, such as how much revenue you want to bring in and how much profit you want to make from that. Think about any big plans for this year. Do you want to invest in new equipment or refresh the look of your optometry practice? Would you like to open up one or more new stores in new locations and expand your business?
Think about your current business reputation. Is it where you want it to be? If it isn’t, how can you improve it, and if it is, how will you maintain it and surpass it this year?
What about your employees? Are they happy in their current roles? Do they want to move up and will they want any training this year?
While not all of those goals are related directly to marketing, you do need to think about them, so that your marketing supports all of your plans.
Once you know how much revenue you want to make, take a look at that and break it down. How many leads do you need to generate to make that much revenue, bearing in mind that you have some existing repeat clients that will add to the total? What will your conversion rate need to be? How will you generate those leads and convert them?
Lastly, what resources and budget can you allocate to your marketing efforts this year? Allocating a budget is always a good idea so that you don’t overspend on things that don’t bring you a good return.
Crafting your marketing plan
Now you have some goals to aim for and some idea of what’s involved, it’s time to decide what online marketing activities you’ll include in your strategy.
1) Website
At the start of the year, it’s a good time to look at your existing website and thoroughly review it. Try to look at it through the eyes of your potential customers and see whether you think it’s still attractive, modern, and eye-catching. Will it attract your ideal audience as it is or does it need a refresh or even a full new website?
Go through your site as if you’re seeing it for the first time. Check the navigation, the flow of the site, and how it moves you through the content. Can you find everything you’d expect to find? Are your contact details on every page? Does the site guide your customers where you want them to go? Is it clear what they should do next, how they can reach you, and how to book?
Go behind the scenes too and look at your site speed. Does your site load quickly enough to keep attention? You have around 3 seconds before potential visitors disappear to another site. Does your site work on all devices and browsers? So many people use mobile phones to shop now that you don’t want to leave anyone out.
Give your site a complete review and make sure it is still doing what you need it to do and that it still reflects your branding.
2) SEO
Once you’ve checked over your site, it’s also a good idea to look at whether your pages are fully optimized for SEO. Are you using the right keywords and phrases in your headings, meta descriptions, tags, and generally throughout your copy?
Are you thinking about SEO and using it when you create your copy and your blog posts? Every small adjustment can make a difference and have you moving up the search results.
Local SEO is also important for a brick-and-mortar business like yours, so don’t forget to add local keywords, such as “Optometrist Maryland” or “Optometry Annapolis”.
When we talk about directories and your Google Business Profile later, we’ll show how filling in your directories fully can also aid you in your SEO and local SEO efforts.
3) Digital advertising
Paid advertising is an excellent way to get attention to your business before your SEO efforts start to make an impact. SEO, done correctly, will get your site higher in the search results over time, but paid advertising can put you at the top of page one of Google quickly. You can bring in qualified leads rapidly, once you get your ads set up.
As with any paid advertising, it’s worth testing different ad copy, different buttons, different images, and more to optimize your results. You can then run more than one ad and test them against each other to see which works out for the best.
And even when your SEO has started to have a noticeable effect, digital advertising can help you keep interest in your business and ensure that sales keep coming in.
4) Review / reputation management
Reviews provide important social proof to potential customers, so it’s important that you include a plan for acquiring, managing, and replying to your reviews in your marketing plan.
Think about what you can do to ask customers for reviews and where you’d like them. Ideally, you need good reviews on your Google Business Profile, Facebook, and any relevant directories. It’s also a good idea to copy the best ones to use as testimonials on your website.
You can ask customers when they’re in your practice to see you. You could also send them surveys by email, and request reviews in your email marketing. Posting on social media is another good way to encourage people to leave reviews.
This needs to be consistent as people tend to only read and take notice of the most recent month’s reviews, so you need to be consistently getting reviews all the time.
5) Directory listings management
It’s important to complete your profile on as many relevant directories as possible, such as Yelp and Angi. You should also claim your Google Business Profile (GBP) if you haven’t already.
The more you have consistent, complete information across the internet on different directories and profiles, the more that contributes to your SEO efforts and the more likely people are to find you.
Your GBP is particularly important and you should fill in every part of your profile, using suitable keywords and phrases and quality images. If you have a complete profile, you have a much better chance of showing up in the Local Pack listings at the top of Google Maps. This makes for excellent visibility in your local area.
With your GBP, you can also appear in searches for “optometrist open now” if you include your opening hours.
6) Social media marketing
Social media marketing can play a huge part in attracting attention and in sending qualified leads back to your website. You may even find that people contact you directly via direct message.
It all comes down to posting interesting and useful content that your audience wants to see. You could talk about a day in the life of and show what happens behind the scenes. You could show what equipment you have and what it’s used for, to show how thorough your eye tests are and how much you know about your subject. You can also talk about eye care, how often to book check-ups, caring for your glasses or contact lenses, and so much more.
People want to see excellent, knowledgeable content that reassures them they are in safe hands.
If you struggle for ideas, check out your competition and see what they are doing. Take inspiration from their posts.
7) Content marketing
Content marketing is again another great way to show off your expertise, to reassure patients, and to show that you’re the right optometrist for them.
You can create content on many of the ideas we’ve already suggested above and again explore what your competitors are up to for ideas.
You can then post your new blog posts on your social media to add more content there and to send people back to your website to read the information.
If your site is set up well, then you could potentially persuade them to sign up for your newsletter where you can continue to market to them.
8) Email marketing
This brings us neatly to email marketing. It’s a good idea to offer a lead magnet in exchange for someone signing up to your list. This could be something as simple as a discount voucher for their next visit, or you could create a guide on something they want to learn about that they can get when they subscribe.
You can then market to them as often as you like and you’re out of the danger zone of relying on other people’s platforms (Facebook, Google, and others) to build your business.
9) Lead nurture
As an optometrist, you probably do get people who simply call up and ask to book an appointment with you. But in some cases, you may find you have to nurture your leads more. Some people may want more information before they sign up. They may be torn between you and another optometrist.
Here, you can provide convincing content and show your expertise to guide them further into your sales funnel and onto your mailing list. You can then later offer discounts and ask if they’d like to book when they are further down your sales funnel. It’s a case of offering the right content and the right touches at the right time.
10) Text message marketing
Just like with email marketing, you can build a list of people to market to by text. It is, of course, permission-based. You can’t simply get a list of your customers and text them without them having opted in. But it is a great way to market to your list. You can send offers to them and be quite sure that they have actually seen what you’re sending. Very few people go out without their mobile phones now and they’re far more likely to look at text messages.
11) Analytics
Without analytics, you’ll have no idea what is going on with your marketing and what is working. Not only that, but you won’t know what’s not working either and where you might be spending money on things that aren’t helping.
Analytics might not be the most exciting things in the world, but they are vital for informing your marketing and ensuring you’re on track.
You need to know if your Facebook ads are working, if you’re getting click-throughs, and how much it’s costing you compared to how much you’re making.
You need to know which posts on your blog and on social media are the most popular and which you need to do more of.
Don’t ignore your analytics.
Executing your marketing plan
Now you have a whole range of ideas for how to target your audience and what to add to your marketing plan.
What you need next is a monthly calendar to maintain consistency. Add your email marketing, social media posting, and content marketing ideas to your calendar. Plan in when you’re going to post and what the topic should be.
It’ll save you time trying to think of something to write every time you sit down. And you can get ahead of yourself in quieter times by writing ahead and scheduling out content.
In addition, you can use marketing software, like the Surefire Local Marketing Platform, to help make life easier. There are a lot of moving parts in a marketing plan and, with the right software, you can manage all of them in one place, including your email marketing, content, social posting, and your reviews.
Setting the stage for growth
We talked about analytics briefly, but there really is no substitute for thoroughly analyzing and testing everything you do in your marketing. You need to stay on top of what’s working and keep optimizing and improving for the greatest success.
You need to know where your customers are coming from so that you can focus more on those platforms. And you need to be prepared with facts and not gut feelings on where to reallocate your budget to optimize conversions and increase new customer growth. This all leads to greater revenue and that’s what you want.
When you know what’s working, you can do more of that, and you can try out new online marketing activities to add to your marketing plan.
Attend a Surefire Local Marketing Platform demo
At Surefire Local, we provide business intelligence marketing software at a fraction of the cost of other tools or agencies.
You can manage your budget and every aspect of your marketing plan right from our clear and easy-to-use dashboard. Easily manage your content marketing, your business directories, and your Google Business Profile. Set up your email marketing and your social media all in one place. And, of course, get your hands on highly accurate analytics and reports so you can see what’s working and what isn’t. Why not book a demo of our marketing software and see how we can take some of the weight off your marketing?