Minimizing Financial Risk In Your Refractive Practice
It's not how much you spend on marketing, it's where you put your dollars.
By William B. Rabourn

(Part 2 of 3)

This article is part two of a three-part series on minimizing the investment risk in refractive procedures. Part one (See the October issue of Ophthalmology Management) discussed strategies for building a solid infrastructure for your refractive practice.
In this installment, I'm going to assume that you've already invested in a refractive practice model, and are now focusing on how advertising, marketing, and media can help you to increase patient volume to a level that will keep your practice in the black.

ILLUSTRATION: GREG RAGLAND

Because refractive procedures are mainly considered elective, every refractive patient who walks through your door does so by choice. The main goals of using advertising, marketing and media for refractive practices is to employ proven methods and messages to give each patient a reason to choose you, and also to build recognition of your name or the name of your practice. This methodology is known as branding.

In the early part of the last century, Ford produced the only widely available car. People needed cars, so it was natural that they bought mainly Ford cars. But as competition increased, Ford soon found that it needed an identity that connected strongly with car buyers who now had more choices -- and Ford has been branching, expanding and evolving its brand image ever since.

Similarly, if you're the only ophthalmologist in your town, you don't need branding. Your identity is "I am the local ophthalmologist." If another ophthalmologist moves into your town, your identity then becomes "I am this town's first ophthalmologist." But if more ophthalmologists move to town, you're going to have to explain to your community why they should specifically choose your services. This process is known as market segmentation.

Establish a point of difference

At the heart of your practice lie your skills, talent and technology. While it's nice to be known as "the ophthalmologist who cares" it's far better to be known as "the ophthalmologist who has cared for 10,000 patients." Find the point of difference (POD) between you and your competition. What makes your practice better?

The POD can be any number of things:

• does your practice use the best technology?
• do you have more experience?
• are your statistical outcomes better than your competitors'?
• does your practice offer a greater breadth, depth and value of services?

These questions are only posed to give you a small idea of the many factors that may define a point of difference Any single answer or combination of answers to these questions could form the core of your POD strategy.

Once you've developed your POD, it's a good idea to hire an image consultant. An image consultant can help you develop a consistent, design-driven look and feel for your practice that will extend to every level -- from the logo on your business cards to your interior decoration and staff uniforms. I can't stress enough that this is more than picking a few colors and drawing some squiggly lines.

Choosing an image consultant

A professional image consultant will work to make sure that on a visual level, everything about your practice and surrounding your practice is designed to give the observer a single, strong and positive impression. You could get lucky by placing your faith in the latent design skills of a relative, but from first-hand experience I must tell you that this philosophy has created many of the ugliest practice themes I have seen -- and I've visited many practices.

By using professional people, you can almost guarantee professional results for your practice. If your face needed a facelift, would you trust your sister to do it? You'd only answer "yes" to this question if your sister happened to be a qualified plastic surgeon. So when it comes to your practice needing a facelift, whom are you going to trust? A professional image consultant or your sister? Remember that your practice may have to live with this choice for the next decade.

Professional image consultants should be able to provide both examples and references. Many advertising agencies offer image-consulting services, and most metropolitan areas have competent independent and freelance consultants as well. Those consultants with good performance records can easily be located by asking around your business community.

When choosing an image consultant, try to select a firm with a background firmly rooted in the medical area. There's a world of difference between developing an image platform for an ophthalmic practice and marketing a tennis shoe, so make certain that you put your faith in someone who understands the subtle details and demands that the profession requires.

Use appropriate media

One of the most overlooked media vehicles of all is the seminar. If you're planning on building a successful refractive practice, I implore you to develop a successful and educational seminar format. This allows an open forum between yourself and prospective patients in which you can answer questions and assuage fears. It should be noted that seminars aren't right for all markets, particularly large urban markets where consumer education and professional competition is very high.

Beyond seminars, a number of different media vehicles and devices are available to you, including (but not limited to) direct mail, print ads, broadcast, and the Internet. You can explore other ways to convey your message, but please avoid pens and refrigerator magnets unless you really need a plethora of pens and refrigerator magnets. Pens and refrigerator magnets can only be printed once, and aren't suitable for announcing upcoming seminars.

Determining which media are right for your practice depends upon such factors as regional differences, the maturity level of your market, and the capital resources available to you. When in doubt, consult a professional.

Your media budget can make or break your practice, so before spending any dollars, make certain you have a system in place to track your results. Tracking will enable you to quickly identify areas and approaches that aren't working, and you'll be more prepared if you need to try a different approach or marketing vehicle.

Typically, my clients spend somewhere between 7 and 10% of the gross collected receipts of their practice on media, and often more if they're expanding into new markets or launching a new service. This number can vary even further, however, depending upon the maturity of the marketplace. A market's maturity can be determined by assessing the collective advertising efforts of all ophthalmologists within the given market. The more saturated the advertising effort, the more mature that market is -- and the more you'll have to spend to make an impact.

Succeeding with broadcast media

Radio and television advertising can be extremely risky or extremely profitable. Getting the greatest media reach for your money doesn't happen by blind luck. Avoid dealing directly with media representatives. Each one will promise you the best offer because every media representative is essentially a salesman. They may even try to demonstrate through graphs and charts exactly why their deals are the best. Don't believe them. Remember that gross rating points and other common media indicators are easily manipulated, and often aren't representative of your target market.

When you need advice, don't be afraid to look outside of your practice. Time and time again, I've seen ophthalmic practices burden otherwise competent members of their staffs with the enormous responsibility of placing media. With perhaps one or two exceptions, this has always resulted in failure. Buying media is a real art. It's a talent and a skill, just like painting is a talent and skill. Anyone can throw paint on a canvas, but it takes an artist to cover the canvas with a pleasing balance. In a similar manner, it takes a true talent to cover your target market. When in doubt, always consult a professional media broker.

Media brokers will be able to provide you with competitive rates for your broadcast dollars. They can also help by giving you straight answers as to the most effective areas in which to spend your money.

In broadcast media, there's a magical number that I term "the saturation horizon." If you fall short of the horizon, you'll create very little impact. If you hit that number, you reach your target audience with your message. But any spending in excess of reaching the target market is wasted.

This saturation horizon works in a manner not unlike a jet approaching the speed of sound. The effect acts as an invisible threshold in which, as you approach it, you experience some turbulence. You find that you're exhausting an incredible amount of energy and effort to increase your marketing impact by the smallest increment. But once you cross over the horizon, everything smoothes out and your practice can really boom. While you can roughly guess where that point is, remember that a more sleek and powerful marketing vehicle will always take you there with less turbulence.

Tracking broadcast media

Broadcast media isn't cheap, so it's vital to determine whether it's working for you. There are many nationally supported software-tracking systems, such as ACT2000 or Goldmine. These systems are affordable and relatively easy to learn and use. They can help your practice in several key areas:

• managing leads
• tracking daily activity
• developing market reports based on where and how leads are being generated
• communicating with patients and potential patients.

If you're working with an agency or media placement broker, they should already have access to something similar.

The pre-procedure questionnaire

While these programs can give you some insights, you can gather far more information by planning and developing an in-office questionnaire. In fact, I often recommend that practices develop two in-office questionnaires, one that's given to patients before you perform their refractive procedure and another that they can fill out after having their surgery.

This questionnaire should be as short as possible. You want to capture key demographic information about the patient while respecting his privacy. If you can accomplish only one thing in the questionnaire, make it your personal goal to find out how and where prospective patients would be most likely to hear of your services.

When reviewing your media budget, you can use the information gained from the pre-procedure questionnaires to adjust your spending on the various marketing vehicles you employ and make your quarterly plan more effective.

The post-procedure questionnaire

The most powerful ally of a media budget is patient satisfaction. If your patients aren't 100% happy with your service, the best media budget in the world can't save you. One satisfied patient might encourage three friends to choose your practice for their refractive procedures, meaning that your advertising dollars have reached four people at the cost of reaching one.

After the procedure, give your patients a voice. Listen to what they have to say and, as often as you can, translate their feedback into better patient service. When you effectively gather and capitalize on patient feedback, even a mediocre advertising plan can have a high chance of success.

In part three, a look ahead

I've never been more excited about this business than I am today. Both marketing and ophthalmology are advancing at a tremendous rate, which means I have to work very hard to help my clients stay one step ahead. In part three of my series on minimizing the risk of your refractive investment, I'm going to give you a sneak peek into emerging techniques and technologies, along with practical advice for what you can do today to prepare for these changes. 

William B. Rabourn is the founder of Medical Consulting Group, an ophthalmic consulting firm based in Springfield, Mo. He may be reached at 417-889-2040 or via e-mail at bill@medcgroup.com