The Coronavirus situation is changing day by day, sometimes hour by hour, and no doubt it’s causing a lot of unrest in uncertainty in your practice.
While there are many things out of your control right now, you do have a few things you can control:
- Your response to what’s happening
- The way you address and encourage your team
- Your activities during this downturn to set yourself up for success once it’s over (or at least calmed down)
Specifically now is a great time to tackle any long-term projects or back burner tasks that you’ve been waiting to accomplish.
I wanted to share a few of the areas where we’re helping clients during the current situation.
Maybe this can give you some ideas for how to best use your time and prepare for the pending upswing once everything starts to return to normal.
Updated Social Ad Campaigns for Coronavirus
If you’ve read my previous emails, you’ve seen me talk about advertising opportunities right now.
I understand the desire to conserve budget, and I think you should.
But I wanted to tell you what I’m seeing on the social media ad side, from my clients who are still advertising there:
- Ad costs are down 20-50% (depending on demographic we’re targeting)
- Leads are still being generated (Most clients who are still advertising on social have seen little, if any, reduction in the number of leads coming through. Some have even slightly increased the number of leads generated)
We’re crafting new creatives around the fact that people have extra time on their hands, so “take our self-test” or “schedule a virtual consultation” and find out your options, now that you have some extra time.
If you can spare a few hundred bucks a week, social advertising (primarily on FB and Insta) is a good marketing buy right now. For less than the price of one TV commercial, you can get a week’s worth of solid coverage on social.
Conversion Rate Optimization on Your Website
I’m not a fan of website redesign projects.
Yes, they’re necessary from time to time. But they’re typically expensive, long-winded and generally a mammoth undertaking.
But there is a way you can quickly improve your website without redesigning the whole thing.
Look at your highest trafficked pages (the ones that get the most visitors), and make sure they are as user-friendly and as conversion-friendly as possible. This practice is commonly known as Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO).
Maybe it’s time to update the copy. Or add some buttons for your self-test. Or update the videos you feature. Or all of the above?
Online Reviews
It’s a great time to catch up on inviting patients to leave you reviews.
It helps with SEO, it helps with referrals, and surveys show 8 out of 10 people trust an online review as much as a personal recommendation from a friend or family member.
Coronavirus disaster or not, 5-star reviews are high leverage marketing assets.
Your patients are sitting at home without much to do. Keep sending your review requests and build your army 5-star reviews.
Web/Blog Content
If your blog is a wasteland, it’s a good time to get some posts out there.
They don’t necessarily have to be about Coronavirus – I recommend creating evergreen content like “5 Outdoor Activities Our Patients Love After LASIK” or “Answering The 4 Most Common Questions about Facelifts.”
Google likes seeing “new content” going up on your site, so this can help with SEO. It also gives you something to share on social media.
And if you go the evergreen route like I suggest, you can still use the blog posts in your marketing long after the Coronavirus situation is handled.
Virtual Staff Training
Staff development is one of those things that we know is important, but it gets put on the back burner because you’re so busy.
If you have extra time right now (and most practices do), it’s a good time to consider this.
Earlier this year, we started rolling out our virtual sales training program, based on the DISC profile of human behavior.
Obviously this type of online, virtual format is ideal in our current “social distancing” situation, and a great way to get teams trained up and ready for the resurgence of business (even if they are working from home).
Online courses are another good way to facilitate staff development, even remotely.
You’ll have to figure out how to budget for something like this. (What we’re doing in our program is a “Train Now, Pay Later” approach – deferring the actual payments until practices are up and running and creating revenue again. )
Prepping Future Campaigns
Might as well take some time to think through your marketing strategies and campaigns for the reminder of 2020.
I’m taking the approach that the worst will be behind us by the end of April, and things will start to upswing.
Maybe that sounds crazy to you. And maybe it is.
To be clear, I’m not *predicting* this. But I’d rather be ready and delay if necessary, than be unprepared and try to catch up.
That means we’re getting summertime graduation campaigns, teacher appreciation campaigns, military appreciation campaigns, new reading vision campaigns and summer cataract campaigns ready to roll.
In Conclusion
While you and your team have extra time on your hands, think about what you can do – what you can control – to set yourself up for success once everything is back in full swing.
That should give you plenty to chew on for the weekend. If you have questions, hit reply and let me know how I can help.
And if you find this useful, please pass it along to a colleague. We all need to work together to get through this.