How do Independant Opticians Market?

[kcount]

How is everyone doing their marketing?

I focus on direct mailing with letters and post cards. Typically sending them to all households 3-4 times a year.

What are you doing?

[Jacqui]

I put a sign out front. If things get too dull I go out and drag them in off the street. Never thought about mailing or advertising.

[Johns]

I'm not doing as much as I should. I've cut my Yellow pages down to almost zero. I do a lot w/the schools, and sponsor sprts teams, 10ks, plays, and other community events.

[cocoisland58]

Always did postcard blanket mailings to local zipcodes a few times a year. When we started including a coupon worth 20.00 they brought in more than they cost to mail.

[uncut]

We try to stick to an annual budget, and spread our promotions throughout the year, with emphasis on certain months. I vary the media from year to year, tweak the Yellows annually, and use radio for special features/events. I must admit I am emphasizing "awareness" rather than any promotion/price mention. Diversity with attention to positive/informative ads.

[kcount]

I'm not doing as much as I should. I've cut my Yellow pages down to almost zero. I do a lot w/the schools, and sponsor sprts teams, 10ks, plays, and other community events.

That's me. Local HS Booster Club, Church rally days, Etc. Tried print advertising with the local paper, but after 9 months finally stopped. Direct mailings work well for me. I know Kloman does some stuff with billboards but it's cheap by him.

[HarryChiling]

If you do the local paper ask them for a quote on those yellow stickys that go on the front page, best bang for the buck.

[LENNY]

On the back of Fried chicken place works the best!

[OpticianVlad]

I work at an Optometrists office, so please pardon me for contributing since your post wasn't originally intended for me.
What is the demographic for who you are trying to market to?
We are in hackensack, NJ. An area with a lot of young professionals that seem to all commute to NYC. Our practice though skews much older than the area we are in. so we have been trying our luck with Yelp and other social media to attract a younger patient base that perhaps has more disposable income (if such a thing exists anymore).
This weekend though we put an ad on LivingSocial.com and it worked.
We generated 12 appointments in one weekend alone, all private pays.

check it out.

[racethe1320]

Not an Optician, but still independent. Network. I'm very active in many different organizations. My wife jokes that we're always out and about doing something keeping busy. Truth is we have lots of fun, meet great people and keep spreading our names out there. She's a lawyer and I run my different locations. Toastmasters. Great place to get out and meet local professionals. I also run a photography business and network among my corporate clients. I keep most every voucher or perk that I get from various sources and use them to reward clients who provide direct referrals. Those are just a few off the top.

[For-Life]

I would like to ask you all, what is your goal in your Promotion Strategy?

[DragonLensmanWV]

For a pretty low price, I can get an ad on several local restaurants' menus, both in-house and take-out menus, for a year at a time. Gotta pick the right ones though.
For a ridiculously low price I get 30 second ads on our local NBC affiliate's secondary digital TV channel. This gets a LOT of responses.

[opticalcathy]

Everyone mentions all the traditional ways- What about Social Media? Websites, Blogs, Facebook, MySpace, Groupon, FourSquare, Twitter? Most of that is all free.
http://theopticalvisionsite.com/cate...-social-media/

Events are becoming more important as well

[Craig]

We cut out everything but the internet; it is the new yellow pages and works in out tourist area. This means you need to have a nice website to convert the hits to action. This is our electronic brochure and represents our office at a glance.

CRaig