First Steps

Dr. Gordon visits the library and quickly produces a media contact list. He doesn't bother with suburban papers, because they don't serve his neighborhood, but he does find two daily papers, six television stations, 31 radio stations, one city magazine, a weekly business paper and an in-town free-advertiser distributed in his neighborhood. Both daily papers have weekly "Health" sections and several radio stations feature health-oriented talk shows. His contact list includes 51 names.

Evaluate Current Position

Gordon first reviews his business posture. Are there additional steps he can take to find new patients? Is he missing opportunities with his current patients?

Dr. Gordon looks through his files and sees that over 20 years he has examined thousands of patients. Indeed his files are so voluminous he decides to cull patient rosters to find out which patients are current, and which are not.

He begins to list people by name, address, phone number, date last examined, and whether the patient wears eyeglasses, contacts or sports eyewear. The contact lens category is further broken down into single vision and bi-focal patients, those with special lenses, extended-wear users and hard and soft lenses. Eyeglass wearers are divided into single vision and bi-focal patients, those with designer frames, and those with regular frames.

Develop a Basic Brochure

The availability of low cost, high volume, quick service competitors has a major effect on Gordon's practice. To compete effectively, Dr. Gordon must show that he is not merely a high-priced, slow-moving echo of his newer competitors.

Several months after North American Coal, Steel and Eyewear -- a major conglomerate composed of 200 corporate subsidiaries -- opens a huge retail outlet a few blocks from his office, Gordon notices that appointments are down. The new competitor in the neighborhood has a mall location, frequent advertising and discount prices. Dr. Gordon is in trouble.

Or is he? A year after North American first establishes its office, Dr. Gordon notices an interesting phenomena. Several patients who had gone to the big retailer came back. True, prices were lower, but they didn't know the doctor who served them and the doctor, they felt, didn't have enough time to know them. North American might be big, but in a service industry it was missing an essential ingredient: Personal contact.

With the help of a local ad agency Gordon developed a new office brochure. Called "Who We Are" the pamphlet explained that eyecare was a personal matter and that independent optometrists cared for patients on an individual basis. It also described what patients should expect in an eye examination, why certain tests were used and the optometrist's role. Although low key, the brochure emphasized the idea that professional observation and evaluation were central to good eyecare, and apologized for the fact that individual exams sometimes took longer than allotted appointments. Unstated, but clear, was the implication that retail outlets might not be so flexible, or so caring.

Peter G. Miller is an image, marketing, and public relations consultant whose clients include selected national corporations, associations, and web sites. Mr. Miller can be reached at peter@boardroomarts.com