Being an optometrist often means taking on the role of teacher or educator. In fact, educating patients is one of the top responsibilities of being an optometrist. To make sure information is comprehensible and understood by your patients, content marketing comes in.
There are several forms of content you can utilize to reach your patients; blogs, social media, ebooks, newsletters, brochures, the list goes on. The main questions are: how do you utilize these forms of content to educate your patients and what forms of content work best to reach them?
Successful Strategies to Educate Patients
Develop Trustworthy Content
The biggest key to educating your patients starts with developing trustworthy content. The internet is filled with unreliable, low-quality information, which is difficult for patients to filter through. In order to educate your patients, it’s crucial to be the source of truth for them by creating fact-driven content.
Add studies to your blogs, use outside links to reputable vetted sources, or show real case studies. Not only will this boost your SEO practices, but your patients will view you as a reliable source in the industry.
Identify Your Patient’s Pain Points
Patients respond well to content that solves their problems. The more you talk about yourself and your products, the less that content is spread and engaged in.
Gain insight into your patient’s pain points through social media polls, Facebook lives, or patient surveys. This will allow space for conversations to open up with your patients and will give you the ability to utilize this information to create educational content that directly responds to their issues.
Take Advantage of Technology
Technology has made patient education more accessible. Educational resources are easier to make than ever before through free products such as Canva or Flipsnack. After you print out these resources, make sure you have a conversation with your patients and answer any questions that might arise.
Remember not all patients have the same learning style. Some may read over a pamphlet and get the facts, others would rather discuss the details with you directly, and some may want to watch videos on their own time. Choose a patient portal that allows you to easily upload and share these patient education materials that your patients can reference after your appointment, like Rendia within Uprise EHR & PM. Whichever way your patients like to learn about their eye health, creating educational content will reveal new possibilities for your marketing and uncover new and valuable patient stories.
Interested to learn about more embedded tools within Uprise? Here's a free ebook where we go over all of them.
