The Official VisionWeb Blog

Events like trunk shows in your dispensary can sometimes be a big hit or a big miss. If you've never held this type of event before, you probably have a lot of looming questions going into it. Every practice and patient market is unique, so what is a success for one practice could be a total miss for another.

It's important to understand the customers that you're targeting and how you can cater to them for your event. Let's take a look at some of the general mistakes you can avoid when getting prepared for a trunk show in your dispensary.

When business professionals discuss product marketing in general, that can include anything from competitor intelligence to product-specific emails to surveying customers about product improvements. In optometry, we would consider product marketing to include descriptions and organization of frames or other dispensary items as well as sales and promotional messaging of your practice overall. Every eyecare practice should invest a bit of time every month creating product marketing content, especially pieces they can automatically send to patients.

Today we’re going to focus on a few creative ways that writing or producing product marketing content can be a relevant and necessary move for your optometry practice.

Most of us check a social media account, or a few, pretty much daily. It's a good source of personal information, connection to loved ones, and even news. However, it's tough to figure out your social media plan as a small business. How frequently should you post? Should you pay for promotions? What content should you share? 

We're going to answer some of these questions as they relate to patients and customers today, not 10 years ago. Social media content is one that changes relevance almost weekly, so we recommend staying on top of trending topics and checking in every day.

Getting advice from peers can be tough when you're not attending events or really meeting new peers in your field. However, having a fellow OD or two to talk to every few months can be invaluable and help you feel connected to your community.

Maybe you're considering selling to private equity? Or there's a conflict between your team that you're unsure how to solve? There are plenty of OD-specific situations that you just can't google for solutions. We want to help you expand your circle and network to help you through the tough or even exciting changes your practice will undergo.

Informational content is having a big moment online. More and more people are turning to internet searches to learn everything they need to know from finding the best burger in town to checking reviews of local schools for their kids. Creating content that shows up in these searches is a good way you can get traffic to your practice's website, other than putting out google search ads.

We encourage you to think outside the box when you're promoting your services. In marketing, this is usually called inbound content marketing because you're not creating direct promotional materials. However, you're getting people to click a link that leads to your website allowing them to become more familiar with your brand and business. We'll share a few tips for creating these pieces to get your practice started in the world of content marketing.