Connect with Potential Refractive Patients
Consumers are searching the Internet for surgeons. Position your online marketing so that they find you.
BY DAVID EVANS, PH.D., M.B.A.

However, before describing how consumers search, let us first address the importance of the Internet for practice marketing.

Marketing and the Internet

Who are your average LASIK or refractive surgery patients? They are young, usually ranging in age from 18 to 54, upwardly mobile and progressive. They include older "echo boomers" to younger individuals born from 1961 to 1987 who do not want to wear glasses or contact lenses. They usually have good-paying jobs with some disposable income. They use the Internet routinely at work and/or at home. And most importantly, the Internet is the primary tool they use to research buying decisions, particularly decisions about elective surgery such as LASIK.

Internet usage is booming. The most recent statistics show that more than 200 million persons now use the Internet in the United States, and 9 million new users are being added each year. Studies show that Internet usage increases with education and income for persons 18 to 54 years old. Daily Internet and computer use is extremely high, with about 75% of people in their prime workforce years logging on almost every day.

The highest level of Internet traffic takes place on weekdays during the lunchtime hours of 12 noon to 2 p.m. This statistic points to high Internet usage in the workplace for personal use. From our company's own experience with the AllAboutVision.com LASIK Surgeon Directory, about 70% of the e-mails from prospective patients are sent between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. It is clear that for an effective Internet strategy, your practice should be easy to find when consumers search for LASIK information during the middle of the workday.

If you are not targeting the Internet user, your practice is missing an important socio-economic portion of your potential audience. The Internet is every where and can be the most powerful tool for building your practice.

How Consumers Research LASIK

Most potential patients use the major search engines to investigate LASIK or other refractive surgery procedures. The major search engines are Google, with 55% of the searches, Yahoo, with 20% and MSN, with 10%. This may seem high for Google, but remember that other important search engines offer Google results, including AOL, iWON, Netscape Search, HotBot and a number of others.

Consumers search terms fall into two categories. The first category includes the root or base search terms, such as "LASIK," "laser eye surgery," "LASIK surgery" or "LASEK." The second category is the specific terms related to your location or practice, such as "Los Angeles LASIK surgeons," "Texas LASIK surgery" or "Dr. Smyth."

Keep in mind that when consumers are making buying decisions about LASIK, they first search to learn about the procedure, and then search to find a doctor. This is not unlike how consumers learn about a car. First, they search for information about the car, e.g., "Jaguar," and then, once they have made a decision to test drive, they search for a dealership: "Jaguar dealers in San Diego." For LASIK, consumers first search the generic terms, such as "LASIK" and "LASIK eye surgery," and then search for a surgeon.

It is a common misconception that the majority of searches by consumers are for local refractive surgeons, and that those consumers primarily use terms such as "LASIK Los Angeles." This could not be further from the truth. In reality, the generic LASIK terms are searched about 80% of the time by consumers and the local searches are searched only about 20%. That is why www.wordtracker.com counts more than 100,000 searches per month for the generic LASIK-related terms, and only about 600 searches a month for the term "LASIK Chicago." What does this mean for your Internet strategy? It means that your practice Web site should be found both for the local searches and for the root-word searches.

Paying for Clicks

Two basic methods exist for your practice to be easily found on the search engines. The first is to purchase advertising on the major search engines using Pay-Per-Click (PPC). PPC means that each time a consumer clicks on your online link, you pay a fee.

Both Overture and Google offer online PPC advertising. Buying a PPC link on Overture puts your practice into both the Yahoo and MSN search engines. Buying Google means that your link appears on Google, and you also have the option of putting it on a number of Web sites affiliated with Google. The PPC fee is the same for Google and any other Google-affiliated sites you choose to be on.

If you choose to purchase a PPC ad under the general search-term "LASIK," it will cost about $4.22 per click for a prime position on one of the major search engines. Although the individual cost per click is relatively low, this type of PPC ad can be expensive because there are so many searches for the root word "LASIK." And many of the consumers who click on a "LASIK" PPC ad may not be from your geographic area.

If you want a more targeted PPC link, such as "LASIK New York," it will cost you far more, about $23 a click for prime positioning. This is because potential patients who have narrowed down their search for a refractive surgeon to their local area are more likely to schedule a consultation, and the surgeons competing for these prime spots on the search engines are willing to pay more.

PPCs are a great tool, and can be implemented quickly, but for medical marketing, where consumers are primarily looking for information about the procedure, the PPCs are less effective. Also, PPCs have click fraud as high as 20%. That is, 20% of the clicks are from dubious sources, such as your competitors, and not from potential patients.

Content Earns Free Listings

The other way for your practice to get on a major search engine is to appear in the free, or "organic," listings. Free listings can be compared to the editorial content of a newspaper and have a much higher conversion rate than PPCs. A recent Jupiter Research study showed that only one in seven consumers visit the Web sites linked to the PPCs, while six of seven prefer the organic links. But these free listings are difficult to obtain.

The best way to obtain free listings is to pack your practice Web site with refractive surgery-related content, so that the content has a good chance to be picked up by a search engine. However, if the content relates only to "LASIK," your chances of being included in a search engine are slim. For example, Google has 3.5 million references to "LASIK" that have been picked up by its searching technology.

But say that you have just begun offering epi-LASIK to patients. Put a credible, fact-filled article about that procedure on your Web site and you are only competing with about 7,000 other search engine references to "epi-LASIK." You have a much better chance that potential patients will see the link and be driven to your practice Web site.

When it comes to getting your refractive practice noticed on the Internet, your strategy should be to have some intelligently targeted PPC links, along with the kind of content-rich free listings that potential patients will see. A proper balance between the two is a must.

The Internet and Word of Mouth

Word-of-mouth referrals remain the most powerful marketing tool of any LASIK practice. The Internet can be used to augment this and other referral sources. Consumers now use the Internet as a means to confirm or support referrals. This is particularly true if a consumer receives two different referrals, such as referenced below:

"Susan at work said she was really happy with her LASIK performed by Dr. Smith. But there was also a radio advertisement for Dr. Jones who sounded like she is a very good LASIK surgeon as well."

Today's consumers want to make their own decisions, not rely on someone else's opinion. It is incorrect to think that the "word-of-mouth" referrals are a different group of prospective patients than those investigating LASIK on the Internet. The following are two actual e-mails that came to doctors whose profiles appear in the AllAboutVision.com LASIK Surgeon Directory:

"I constantly hear your ad on 620KTAR and had a couple of questions. Although sight is priceless to me, I was wondering about how much laser eye surgery costs. I believe my current prescription is -3.00 and -3.25. Also, do you have Saturday hours? Thank You."

And this:

"We were referred to your office by a co-worker whose wife had surgery with you. Please contact me regarding cost and scheduling for a lasik surgery for my husband."

These e-mails show how consumers use Internet resources to investigate and confirm referrals. Some practitioners think that if a prospective patient develops interest in LASIK due to a word-or-mouth or other referral source, then the next step is to contact the doctor by visiting the Web site or calling the practice. But, as shown in the e-mails above, these consumers were referred by other sources and then visited an informational portal to learn more about LASIK. Then, these individuals contacted the practices through a directory. In many cases, prospective patients contact the practice by phone, even after visiting the directory. This ratio is about 3 to 1; three calls for every e-mail. High Internet visibility is a must to capture these prospective patients.

It is a liability for your practice if a consumer cannot easily find your practice Web site. Consumers think, "How good could he be as a surgeon? He doesn't even show up on the Internet?" If you are running media advertising and are not easy to find on the Internet under LASIK-related terms, you are essentially driving traffic to your competitors who have good Internet visibility, as this e-mail demonstrates:

"Hi, I saw an ad in the Statesman for lasik surgery, with a cost of about $700 + tax. However, I�ve also heard that with lasik, you pay for what you get. Is this true, and what would be a good rate to shell out for reliable results?�

This potential LASIK patient saw a newspaper ad, searched on the Internet for information about LASIK, and then contacted a LASIK practice listed in our directory, and not the practice that ran the ad.

Directories

The best LASIK directories have prominent organic listings on Google, Yahoo and MSN, and include information about LASIK, not just a list of doctors. However, directories can also have traffic generated by PPCs. These directories can work effectively if enough traffic is purchased. Your directory listings should appear on both the root LASIK-search terms and the local, or more specific, search terms. To investigate the value of a directory, spend some time searching for terms such as �LASIK,� �LASIK eye surgery,� �LASEK� and LASIK-related terms with your locale, such as �San Diego LASIK.� If you are not able to easily find the directory, neither can the potential LASIK patients. And a good directory listing should link directly to your practice Web site.

Proper Positioning Pays

Your practice Web site should be positioned so that consumers can easily find it when searching the Internet for LASIK-related terms. If easily found, your Web site will be a great source of new patients and also a vehicle to support your word-of-mouth and other practice marketing.

David W. Evans, Ph.D., M.B.A., has more than 20 years experience in the marketing of ophthalmology practices, 8 of which include Internet marketing. He has consulted with numerous LASIK practices throughout the US and worldwide on building practice Internet visibility. He is the owner of Ceatus Marketing Inc., which is a joint partner with the All About Vision LASIK Surgeon Directory.