By Dick Barnett
With another leap year upon us, the need for an expert, up-to-the-minute website that’ll be working for you 24 x 7 x 366 is all-important in this fast-moving business to capture new patients and keep existing clients. The first impression and user-friendliness of your website have to be on display for your clientele 24 hours a day. Chances are, your patients are visiting your website and making decisions long after you’re closed for the day.
Four out of five Americans are searching the Internet each and every day, and 75% of them are looking for health and/or medical information. That requires a powerhouse of a website, as traditional modes of marketing like newspapers, TV, radio, and the Yellow Pages have been relegated to the back burner. Google is the new Yellow Pages, and revenues for radio, TV and print have dramatically fallen off. Internet marketing dollars are expected to be greater than TV spending by 2016.
But we’re not talking about any website in these days of heavy competition.
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“I was relying on a website that one of my patients put together for me,” says Ben Domiano, a certified optician and owner of two shops in Pennsylvania. Domiano got wind of custom websites such as those created by web developers EyeVertise, “and my business is now through the roof,” he said. And that’s with a custom website—
www.bendomianooptical.com—that’s been online since early summer 2011.
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Without waiting for Domiano’s opticianries’ doors to open, his clients can access his website to schedule a consult with Domiano himself, fill out medical-history forms; take a dry-eye questionnaire; request an eye examination with the onsite optometrist or ophthalmologist; see if their insurance will cover the purchase; watch product-targeted videos on eyecare and read about all the frames and lenses that vendors have available for purchase, and on and on. “We even urge our customers to go on the site when they return home after a visit to one of our shops in order to evaluate their experience,” notes Domiano. “We’re always interested in whether we’ve succeeded in satisfying our clients’ needs.
“The skilled staff from our website developer consulted with us at the outset and asked us what we wanted on the site in terms of emphasis, colors, and branding requirements,” recalls Domiano. “We told them our ideas, and they offered their suggestions based on their own expertise. They also indicated that by specializing in development exclusively in optical they would optimize the website during the build-out phase.
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“The final website far exceeded my expectations,” he says happily, “and it perfectly represents our two shops, one of which caters mostly to the elderly customer in Old Forge, while the other one in Clarks Summit attracts a younger clientele.”
Another graduate from the “cookie-cutter”-type template website, which usually offers a limited number of pages and only designated areas to “cut and paste” material, is optometrist Jerri L. Birsinger, whose practice is in Arnold, Missouri.
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“We wanted to update our online presence and bring our website up to a whole new level,” she said, “and the custom website was the way to go—and grow
(www.arnoldeye.com)! The new website was up-and-running in January 2011, and we’re more than pleased with the results in reaching out to new patients, its appearance, visibility, and functioning ability.
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“Through search engine optimization or SEO offered by the website developer we used,” she notes, “we have direct links for the patient to Facebook, nutritional-supplement ordering, and much more. And we’ve become far more efficient during the patient registration process as patients have already submitted their paperwork through our customized website. It saves us time and it saves patients time—a win-win situation, to be sure.”
Both Mr. Domiano and Dr. Birsinger said that word-of-mouth has worked well for them for years, but it was time to update and expand their Internet presence in this ever-changing time to attract new patients. Domiano had focused on digital billboards while Dr. Birsinger ran occasional ads in programs put out by local organizations and schools. Both agreed that in today’s world, the website—if well-done—can significantly impact a doctor‘s practice or optical boutique and is the optimal way of getting your clientele to walk through the front door. In a word, they wanted their websites to have a wow factor, and that was the word they wanted their clients to utter when they were viewing their custom websites.
“Your website reflects you and your practice. We have the tools to help patients find you on Google, Yahoo and Bing and make a lasting impression,” observes Steve Freed, Executive Vice President of Marketing for EyeVertise, a custom-website developer that exclusively develops websites for optometrists, ophthalmologists, and opticians.
“We encourage opticians, optometrists, and ophthalmologists who want to update their websites—or even to set up their very first site—to visit their competitors’ websites to see what they’re up against,” says Freed. “Knowing is knowledge.”
“Include your website address on invoices, receipts, mailers, business cards…anything you use on a daily basis in merchandising and marketing,” Freed adds. “The end-result is new-patient retention and continued interaction with your current and potential patients.
In conclusion, the EyeVertise executive says, “You have enough to do providing your patients with better vision and healthier eyes. Leave your website development to those who understand your business and have expertise in your field. After all your patients come to you for eye care advice, the same holds true when hiring a website developer that knows the optical, optometric, and ophthalmological fields.”
