Specialty services like myopia control lend credibility to your practice and help distinguish you from other eye care providers. But only if people in your area know about your medical specialties, who they’re for and why they’re important.

If everyone around you knew that myopia progression could lead to severe complications, parents would line up around the block to have their children treated. But parents probably don’t know all of that. You have to tell them.

Marketing medical specialties is crucial to your practice’s success and, of course, your marketing strategy. Here are a few steps you can take to get the word out about medical specialties, like myopia control. 

 

Drive Awareness for the Issue

People can’t seek treatment for an issue they don’t know anything about.

Before you can drive traffic to your practice, you have to drive awareness to the issue. In the specific case of myopia control, most parents will know what it means to be nearsighted and whether their child is myopic or not. They probably don’t realize that myopia gets worse as children get older and that high myopia can cause significant issues once their child reaches adulthood.

You need to educate parents about myopia, the long-term effects and the importance of slowing progression down. You educate patients and their families from the exam room. But it’s even better to educate people that aren’t currently your patients. This way, you can bring new patients in.

Creating educational content is an excellent way to bring awareness to the issue. Long-form blogs, infographics, informative videos and other types of content give you the platform to explain the issue and why it requires intervention. Then, disseminate this content on every platform you can – your personal and professional social media accounts, local newspapers and magazines, practice website, maybe even flyers on public notice boards. The key is to put the issue in front of people and show them why they should care.

 

Build a Targeted Ad Campaign

You can drive awareness organically without necessarily spending money. But a little bit of a budget can really help put your message in front of the right people. Search ads, display ads, social media ads and other types of digital advertising are a great way to reach a specific subset of people in your area.

For example, you could run a display campaign that targets moms aged 25-50. 

Many types of digital ads are pay per click, so they only cost you money when someone actually clicks on them.

 

Reach Out to Potential Referral Sources

Sometimes, teachers, coaches, child care providers and other professionals actually spend more time with a child than their parents do. These professionals may notice signs of myopia in a child before parents, so it’s absolutely critical that they understand the importance of this discovery and the stakes if the child doesn’t receive the right treatment.

If you educate adults who work with children about myopia and myopia control, those professionals can keep an eye out for symptoms and say something to parents if they see something.

Start by drafting a letter introducing yourself and your practice. Then you can explain a little bit about myopia, how it progresses and why slowing down progression is so important.

Finally, you can briefly mention that your practice offers myopia control and you would be happy to see any patients they send your way. You may even want to include a brochure or some kind of printed collateral with more details about myopia control and your practice.

Mail this letter to any of the professionals that you think might find value in it. There’s a chance that they may refer patients to you when they see the opportunity arise.

 

Get the Word Out

The whole point of myopia control and other specialty services is to help people. But you can’t do that unless people know you’re available to help. Investing time and effort into marketing specialty services like myopia control won’t just help you grow your practice; it could potentially change someone’s life.

By Kaia Pankhurst,
Marketing4ECPs.

Kaia Pankhurst is the content strategy manager of Marketing4ECPs, where she leads a growing team of writers. In her time at Marketing4ECPs, Kaia has created and implemented custom content strategies for eye care professionals all over North America.