Boost Repeat Visits & Referrals: Your Optometry Patient Retention Blueprint

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When your business is in the healthcare industry, your online marketing efforts should have two focuses. First, you need to reach new potential patients to bring into your practice, but second, you need to keep the patients you have returning for their future medical needs. In optometry, where patients need regular exams and new glasses or contacts, retention can be just as lucrative as new lead generation. So, how can you reconnect with past patients and retain the ones you currently have? Utilizing patient retention strategies for optometrists can help you keep those relationships healthy so you don’t lose any potential patients.

The Importance of Patient Retention

Marketing, even online marketing, is a balancing act. You need effective strategies, but you also need strategies that don’t cost more than they bring in. One of the reasons patient retention matters is that it’s the most cost-effective way to keep your practice healthy.

Why is this? According to Forbes, it costs five times as much to bring in a new patient compared to keeping a patient at your practice. Your money is better spent on patient retention.

Not only that, but patient retention tends to grow your practice. Patients who stay with your practice are typically happy patients. Using patient referral programs, those patients can replicate themselves. Thus, focusing on patient retention can lead to growth through new patients, even with minimal effort or cost on your part.

So, how can you do it? Consider these patient retention strategies for optometry practices:

1. Make Scheduling Easy

First, make it as easy for patients to schedule their appointments. Online appointment bookings are great for many patients who want the convenience of booking an appointment when it occurs to them rather than waiting for normal business hours. Create an online booking program, and then make sure it works well.

Then, set up SMS text or email reminders to encourage people to book their annual eye exam or other follow-up appointments. These automated appointment reminders, when linked to your booking platform, will keep people from forgetting those invaluable routine visits. When people get these friendly reminders, they’re more likely to stay with your practice. It’s easier to click a link and make the appointment than to take the time to find a new optometrist.

2. Make Their Visit Pleasant

While this tip doesn’t refer to online marketing for optometrists, it’s still vital. When someone comes to your office, make their visit pleasant. Have a coffee and hot chocolate machine they can use, create a soothing ambiance, and train your front desk staff how to handle common issues in a polite and friendly manner. Do what you can to reduce wait times. If they have a positive experience at your clinic, your patients are more likely to choose you when they need an eye exam again.

3. Keep Marketing Personal

Any time you message or call a patient, keep the process as personal as possible. Using their name, reminding them of the past procedure they had, and finding other ways to add a personal touch go far in patient retention. Personal contacts also give you the opportunity to reconnect in a way that resonates with the patient.

There are many opportunities to create personal interactions with your patients. Emails, texts, and even responses to online reviews all give you a chance to include the patient’s name and other personal information that makes them feel important. You can also send holiday or birthday cards with a personal address inside, adding yet another layer of personalization. If you don’t have the budget to mail cards, set up SMS messaging or email campaigns that will greet the patient on these important personal days. This type of relationship-building will often lead to better retention.

An online marketing platform, like Surefire Local, can make it easier to personalize your messaging while saving time. These platforms create custom marketing messages that automatically include personalized information to connect with patients, without the need to spend time on each message individually.

4. Ask for and Use Reviews

Give your current patients a place where they can leave a review. Google is the ideal option, but you can also have reviews on physicians and optometry directories. Use surveys as well to learn what patients like and don’t like about your practice.

Send these surveys or review requests to past patients regularly. Not only will they give you invaluable feedback about what you’re doing in the office, but they also keep your practice in mind for patients who may need to schedule their next service.

Once you get reviews, learn from them. If there’s an issue with your scheduling or billing processes that’s frustrating people, address it. In addition, respond to every review you receive. Thank the patient for leaving a review, and then address anything they discussed. Personal, timely, and professional review responses will create trust and give you another point of contact to reconnect with your past patients.

5. Create Retargeting Campaigns

Retargeting is a marketing technique that involves reaching people with your advertising method who previously interacted with your website or social media pages.

Retargeting is a little tricky with healthcare businesses, like optometry practices, but it can still work. Retargeting happens when a visitor comes to your practice website, where a cookie to track their activity gets placed on their browser. Then, when the visitor goes to another page, your pay-per-click advertising campaigns will activate, showing them your ad. This process puts your practice in mind again, increasing the chances that they will remember their relationship with you and book their appointment.

Not all patients you’re trying to retain will visit your website, so this tactic only works some of the time. Still, it’s a helpful tool to add to your marketing efforts.

6. Keep the Relationship in Mind at All Times

Any time you have contact with your patient, remember that you’re building a relationship. The more warm, personal, and professional you are in these interactions, the better your retention rate will be. People want to visit optometrists who treat them like people, not just another number to push through their practice.

7. Create Referral Campaigns

Optometry referral programs not only help you retain past patients but also recruit new ones. A referral program gives your current patients an incentive to invite people to your practice. An easy, yet effective, one is a small discount on eyewear or contact lens purchases. This incentive has monetary value for the patient, but it costs you very little to provide. The patient receives the credit when their friend uses their name on the new patient form as the referral.

How do referral campaigns keep your current patients with your practice? When they have the incentive you offer, that patient is going to return to your practice. The more incentives they earn, the more loyal they become. After all, no one is going to go somewhere else when they have $20 in credit to use toward their eyewear purchase.

8. Utilize Social Media to Build Relationships

One of the best tools in your arsenal when it comes to reconnecting with and retaining patients for your optometry practice is your social media presence. Take the time to build an established page. Then, once you have it, use it.

On social media, you can reach past patients with your marketing message. If and when they comment or otherwise interact with your page, you can build rapport. Respond to comments, interact with posts people share, and create a reputation for responsiveness.

Then, join community groups and optometry-related groups to add more opportunities to connect with your patients on social media. These groups give you a chance to brand yourself as an expert in the eye care world, while also increasing your visibility. When a past patient sees you posting, it may encourage them to make an appointment.

Staying active on social media is challenging, especially when running a busy optometry practice. Surefire Local centralizes your social media pages on one platform, connecting them to your other marketing tools. You can quickly see where you need to post or what comments you need to reply to every time you log in, so you can leverage this effective tool with less stress.

See the Difference Surefire Local Makes in Patient Retention

All of these strategies for patient retention for optometrists require time. You have to find the platform, log into it, respond to comments, and still have time to run your physical practice. A marketing tool like Surefire Local streamlines these processes by letting you handle each of these tasks from one central platform. With social media, content, pay-per-click, and SMS marketing all in one location, you can connect with your patients in the way that reaches them best and still have plenty of time to spend running your practice.

Curious to see how it works? Attend a demo to see Surefire Local in action.