The Official VisionWeb Blog

Eyecare practices invest a large chunk of money into their equipment, software, people, and education. Of course, we encourage that you weigh your options and comparison shop before making any big decision. Sometimes, you find the perfect solution or vendor for your practice, but you hesitate because they're expensive or highly specialized.

You might want to start with calculating which expenses can be consolidated to give you a bigger bang for your buck. We encourage you get creative, too. You could bundle deals for frames, product ordering, outsourcing, or hiring a recruiter. Let's take a deeper dive into how.

You'll reach a point in your marketing strategy planning where you feel zapped of creative ideas to get your practice on the map. Turning to industry blogs and researching competitor events is a good place to start. However, there are a few internal ways to boost innovation, too.

We suggest that you effectively gather ideas from everyone in your practice through an innovation program. These programs use strategic methods to bring out new, possibly out-of-the-box ideas to improve your day-to-day processes or keep up with the changing industry. Keep reading to see how this could apply to you.

Our last installment of the financial guide was on budgeting your marketing campaigns. Access it here if you missed it. This month we'll be thinking about the return of investment on conferences, tradeshows, and other industry events.

Not only do you have to consider the cost of attendance, but also factor in the flights, hotels, transportation, and loss of opportunity ODs incur taking time away from your practice. As an optometrist, you'll have to choose which conferences are convenient, which CE courses you need, calculate how many days you can afford to be away, and set up business meetings in advance. 

We'll help you break down if you can earn your expenditures back in the post below.

As doctors, you're usually rewarded for having the answers. When you feel like you don't know enough about a topic, you might turn to continuing education courses at Vision Expo West and other tradeshows.

However, when we looked at the CE courses offered at VEW 2019, there was only one or two courses on billing, coding, and managing the profits of your practice. Even though many ODs aren't sure where to start when it comes to optimizing their claim filing or managing cashflow for the practice.

Would you believe us if we told you that we'll give you $25 at our booth MS9035 for NOT knowing the answer to a question? Keep reading to find out more.

Making sure that you understand the needs, desires, and motivators of loyal patients can help you boost retention in your optical practice. As little as 5% increase in customer retention could lead to over 25% more company revenue (Reichheld, 2000). That's why we want you to focus on your existing patients before investing money into outbound marketing campaigns.

Developing a strong foundation with your patients starts with delivering excellent patient care, but can be nurtured though rewards, feedback loops, and patient-centric content. We'll show you how to delight your customers and dabble in relationship marketing in your optometry practice below.