Educate Your LASIK and Cataract Patients with Content Marketing

When you oversee the marketing for a LASIK and eye care practice, it can be tempting to fall into the rut of prioritizing ‘awareness’ marketing tactics. You probably know all too well what this looks like: Banner ads and social media advertising to get your name out there, email marketing to let your current customer base know about new offerings - and other similar efforts.But, there’s a major opportunity to go beyond this and tap into content marketing to educate those considering LASIK or cataract surgery and move them forward in their journey with your eye clinic. Here are a couple helpful tips to keep in mind.The Goal: Educate and EmpowerUsing content to advertise your services, highlight your differentiators and spread awareness of your brand can be very useful. But using content marketing to proactively answer your patients’ questions and equip them with the confidence to move forward with your eye clinic can be transformative, to your patients and your practice.When you’re considering getting started with content marketing, first begin by bringing together a group of team members who interact with patients most frequently. For example, you might invite a few of your doctors, a couple of front desk staff members, a billing and insurance coordinator, financing counselor - and so on. Hold a brainstorming session and ask each person to share common questions and concerns that they’ve heard from patients and prospective patients over time. This is the single best way to create educational content that speaks to your audience.You might be amazed by just how many content topics this will yield you, and from there you can break each topic down into even more specific topics. For instance, you might learn that patients are often confused about the technology you use at your clinic. From this umbrella topic, you could have a blog post for each type of LASIK, cataract or other eye surgery you perform that goes into detail about the technology you use for every one and why it’s best in class. This type of in-depth, targeted content can go a long in assuaging patients’ fears and helping them feel better about the quality of the services and technology you offer.Once you have 15-20 educational topics nailed down across a variety of subjects, you can start to map out your editorial calendar. Decide which topics correspond well with certain dates or seasons, and whom at your eye clinic is best suited to write each one. Then it’s time to determine a plan for the format of your content and how you’ll distribute it.Explore Various FormatsWhile blog posts were specifically mentioned above, there are numerous types of content pieces you can create to inform - and even entertain - your patients. The best way to decide on what format you’ll choose for each topic is to first ask what your specific goal is. If your goal is to help a patient who is nervous about the cost of LASIK understand their financing options, you might want to provide a short case study about another patient who creatively financed their own procedure with great success. If your goal is to let your patients get to know their doctors better, so they feel more comfortable with them prior to their surgery, you might want to use short videos that showcase the doctors’ personalities and use their own words.Whether you choose blog posts, infographics, videos, ebooks, white papers, case studies or another format, keep your ideal audience in mind. As long as you’re working to educate and empower your patients (and prospective patients), your content marketing will succeed. And this can do a lot to help satisfy your patients and grow your practice.Contact us if you’d like to learn more about how we can help you get started with content marketing, no matter where are you in the process.