Tag: digital marketing

New Virtual Try-On Solution To Accelerate Digital Transformation

Digital Marketing, Marketing, Practice, Technology, The Patient Journey

|

0
(0)

PlanetVA (https://planetva.com), a Belgium-based provider of virtual try-on (VTO) solutions for eyewear, announced the debut of  vmLIVE, for optical retailers and eyewear companies.

vmLIVE enables shoppers to virtually try on eyewear live in 3D. The solution runs within the modern browser. Users can see precisely how the selected eyewear looks appears without going into a physical store or downloading a a specific mobile phone app.

This breakthrough web-based try-on experience ensures that PlanetVA and its clients are at the forefront of retail’s transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Following the acquisition of VanKeel Solutions (https://vankeelsolutions.com) earlier this year,  PlanetVA significally improved VanKeel Solutions’ live 3D VTO eyewear web app VTOLive and have renamed vmLIVE.

“We are excited to launch the latest VTO solution, vmLIVE, that complements our current offerings,” said Ludwig Heymbeeck, founder of PlanetVA. “Unlike competing solutions vmLIVE processes all camera live streams and pictures in the browser and therefore user privacy is fully guaranteed.”

PlanetVA’s proprietary solution, vmLIVE, runs on smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. The solution makes it suitable to deploy in the dispensary area of the optical retail shop as well as on the website.

“PlanetVA is always on the lookout to complement its offerings,” said Heymbeeck. “We are especially interested in partnering with independent optical labs and optical service providers.

Recently, we have set up an exclusive distribution agreement in North America with OpticalNearMe.com which provides turnkey e-commerce solutions to independent optical retailers.”

For more information:
https://planetva.com
https://vankeelsolutions.com

For a demo of vmLIVE:
https://planetva.net/demo/vmLIVE

ABOUT PLANETVA
PlanetVA is a private company registered in Australia and Europe with a 16-year footprint in the virtual eyewear try-on arena. PlanetVA provides leading-edge virtual eyewear try-on solutions based on advanced in-house developed AI and AR technologies.

Share:
Rate:

0 / 5. 0

Rectifying a Rotten Review

Digital Marketing, Marketing, Resources

|

0
(0)

The reality is bad reviews happen. Today’s high-tech world guarantees a seamless outlet for clients to provide their feedback and not every one is going to agree with your approach. That is life. Experts suggest the best thing you can do when faced with the dreaded one-star review is to avoid turning a blind eye, address the complaint and harness the opportunity to make improvements to your business process.

Some may slough off a poor online review and not give it much merit. However, it is a serious matter and can certainly be a risk to any business, even more so in the healthcare industry. We all rely on our peers for advice and, no matter what advertising strategy may be in place, word-of-mouth still reigns.

Take a Deep Breath

And, while the thought of one poor online review tarnishing your well-developed professional reputation may be gut-wrenching, the best thing you can do is put your best foot forward.

But what does that mean exactly? This can be a touchy subject, especially if you are not comfortable online to begin with. Here are a few tips from the experts to guide you through what may be uncharted waters:

Take a moment to digest. What has the customer really said to you? Poor reviews can often feel very personal and the last thing you want to do is rush to reply and respond with emotion. Do your best to understand the situation from the customer’s perspective.

Evaluate the validity of the complaint. Has this issue ever come up before? Could the situation have been avoided? And, is there any action the practice could take to prevent this from reoccurring?

Don’t be defensive. The last thing an unhappy client wants to here are all the reasons why they had they experience they did. Do not try to justify anything.

Be sure to follow through. Whether you pursue connecting with the author of the review privately or respond in an open forum, be sure to follow through with any action items you may suggest.

Focus on addressing the issue. In many cases the customer just wants to feel heard. So, focus on acknowledging what has been said and try to rectify the situation with fairness.

A negative review can certainly be downer but experts say it’s not all bad news. These situations can also provide an immense opportunity to demonstrate your practice’s commitment to client engagement and offer a chance to make business improvements that are directly impacting your clients.

“An important thing to remember when dealing with negative reviews is to be proactive. This is your opportunity to demonstrate that your business is properly run and deals with problems quickly and fairly,” said Matt Earle, president of Reputation.ca, a Toronto-based digital public relations company geared towards helping people and businesses improve their online reputation. “Always respond in a highly empathetic way that addresses the substance of the complaint and shows a fair and generous response to their complaint.”

Seize the Opportunity

If you have never had to deal with a negative online review, you should still consider how to best position yourself before it happens. In this scenario, the old adage, ‘the best defense is a good offense,’ rings true.

A good starting point is to gather a few spots clients may be posting about your practice that you can monitor regularly. A simple Google search of your name or company name can pull up local discussion boards or mentions on sites such as healthgrades.com, vitals.com, or ratemd.com. Facebook, the Yellow Pages and Google itself also provide the opportunity for user to leave a review about your business.

“We do have a couple of staff members that monitor this at our practice,” said Dr. Ian Beaumont, practicing optometrist at FYidoctors in Brandon, Manitoba. “We just want to be aware of any major deficiencies that people may be posting about us. I don’t mind the online review system. It obviously has limitations just like any system, but it can be used as a self evaluation tool to better yourself.”

Aim to hold an active presence online, whether it may be with a company website, blog or social media posts. Then take it a step further and encourage all of your customers towards providing their feedback online. More often than not, patient reviews are going to be exceedingly positive, but of course the negative ones always seem more prominent. Think about balancing that equation and painting a more accurate picture of your practice by motivating clients to comment, like or provide a review.

Don’t forget, thank everyone who takes the time to provide feedback, no matter the intention. These reviews provide valuable insight from the patients’ point-of-view about what areas of your business are working well and where improvements can be made. All feedback, including that rotten review, has the capacity of improving your practice if handled correctly.

 

JENNIFER PAIGE GOLLETZ

Jennifer Paige Golletz is a freelance writer and journalist based in Toronto, Ontario. She graduated with honours from the print journalism program at Lethbridge College in Alberta and has been actively writing for a number of publications for the past five years.

Share:
Rate:

0 / 5. 0

Writing SEO Content for Your Eye Care Practice Website

Digital Marketing, Marketing, Resources

|

0
(0)

Custom, search engine-optimized content is crucial to the online success of your practice. In an internet survey conducted by Pew Research Center, 72 percent of participants said that they went online for health-related information in the previous year, and 77 percent of those began their search with a search engine.[1]

These statistics highlight just how important it is to rank highly on Google’s search engine results pages. Custom content is one of the most powerful ways that you can improve your online search rankings. With this in mind, how should you optimized your website content to be favoured by search engines?

The answer to that question involves implementing several search engine optimization (SEO) best practices that satisfy Google’s complex search algorithm. Recent updates to this algorithm have made custom content an increasingly important aspect of search engine optimization to focus on.

Consider the following factors when writing SEO content for your eye care practice’s website:

  1. Quality over quantity

A search engine’s main goal is to provide users with a list of website that are most relevant to what they are searching for online. Websites that lack substantial content are commonly determined to be spam and lowered in the search rankings.

However, using unnecessary filler text just to satisfy a word length goal, or posting low-quality content in order to make a certain number of blog posts each week is poor practice. In order to provide a valuable resource to visitors to your website and improve your online search rankings, aim to post consistent, informative and relevant content to your website.

  1. Keep the content useful and informative

Search engines are designed to return search results of websites that they have decided are most relevant to the user. Therefore, your audience is the most important factor to consider when you write content for your website. Who are you writing for, and what are they looking for? A simple way to answer this question is to identify if any currently trending eye care topics apply to your practice and patient population. Once you have identified topics that your patients will find interesting, you can then decide what information would be most valuable to them.

Plus, if you are still searching for some content inspiration, a Pew Research Internet survey recently revealed that the most frequently researched topics are specific diseases and conditions, treatments or procedures, and profiles of health professionals.

  1. Keep it credible

New updates to Google and Facebook give considerable weight to credibility of content as a ranking factor. Now more than ever, the internet is rife with misinformation and articles that are deliberately meant to look credible, but are, in fact, completely false. Pay particular information to the credibility of your sources when drafting custom content, and make sure that it is entirely accurate and up-to-date.

  1. Write high quality and engaging content

As search engines learn more about how internet users make decisions, they do a better job of delivering exactly what users are looking for online. Health-seekers in particular are looking for substantive websites that offer quality advice and general answers to their health related questions. Search engines understand this and take measures to keep “click-bait” (websites that offer little value and are designed solely for getting clicks) from ranking highly on search engine results pages.

Click-bait sites are usually superfluously stuffed with keywords in order to gain favourability with search engines. It is okay to use some keywords, but try to keep the focus on quality and providing engaging information.

Wrapping up

Previously, high-quality content played only a secondary role in SEO strategy. It is now one of the main ranking factors used by search engine algorithms to judge whether or not a practice website is worthy to be displayed on the first page of results. If you lack the time to write your own content for your practice website, it is instrumental to the success of your practice to entrust a professional content writer with the task. Now is the time to start focusing on the online success of your practice.

 

Find out how the SEO experts at iMatrix can provide professionally written content designed to drive more potential patients to your practice website and convert them into treating patients by calling 877.596.7585 or visiting us online at imatrix.com/OPTIK216.html

[1] http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/health-fact-sheet/

RANDY TRAN

IMATRIX

Share:
Rate:

0 / 5. 0

5 Things to Fix in Your Current Online Marketing Plan

Digital Marketing, Marketing, Resources

|

0
(0)

[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”]

You may think that simply having a website is enough to help your eye care practice attract new patients and increase practice revenue.  However, a successful, well-rounded online marketing plan involves more than just a website. The following are five components of your online marketing strategy that you should fix now, if you have not already.

  1. Your Website Features. Turbo-charge your website by including high-definition video content. The average Internet user spends nearly 90-percent more time on a website with media.1 Blogs, social media, new-patient online forms, an e-store, educational resources, click-to-call functionality on your phone numbers and a map feature with directions to your practice, all help to keep patients on your website longer, convert them into patients and help increase practice revenue.  Finally, make sure your website is mobile friendly, or Google will penalize it and your search rankings will drop. If potential patients cannot access your website from a mobile device or cannot find it online because it is buried on the fifth page of the search results page, they will turn to your competition instead.
  1. Your Social Media Presence. You may already have a business page on Facebook, but also consider Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest. Even if you are on all these social media sites, are you taking full advantage of them? Many social media sites are introducing “buy” buttons that allow online visitors to purchase a new set of eyeglass frames with the click of a button. You can also run advertisements on social media that target your patient. At the very least, make sure you are sharing your seasonal promotions on your social media business pages.
  1. Your Online Reputation. Did you know that 88 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations? 2 That same percentage read reviews to determine the quality of a local business.3 This highlights the need for practice owners to closely monitor and quickly respond to both positive and negative reviews on sites such as Google+, Facebook, Yelp and specific health care sites like rateMds.com. In fact, Harvard Business School study showed that a one-star rating increase on Yelp has been shown to increase practice revenue 5 to 9 percent. 
  1. Your Paid Advertising Campaigns. Nearly 65 percent of people click sponsored ads when searching for a service or product online.⁴ A pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign is not something you can ignore. Once you have done your keyword research and have designed compelling website landing pages that convert visitors into patients, make sure you are taking full advantage of the advanced PPC features available. These include broad match modifiers, negative keyword lists (so you do not pay for ads that will not convert visitors into patients), ad extensions (that allow you take up more real estate on the search results pages without an extra cost) and mobile device bid modifiers. You should take 20 minutes every week to review your PPC strategy and update it as necessary. 
  1. Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy. Less than 10-percent of people advance to the second search results pages.⁵ This highlights the need to rank highly. However, it’s more difficult than it seems, especially in competitive markets. Google does not make it any easier by constantly updating the ranking factors in their search algorithm. Nonetheless, there are best practices you can follow that increase your chances of ranking well. Provide a user-friendly experience and increase your SEO efforts through unique informative content, including media that keeps visitors on your site longer. Include relevant keywords on each webpage add meta data, including page title tags, headings and meta descriptions, onto each webpage. Make sure your practice name, address and phone number are consistent across all platforms and encourage quality websites to link to yours.

If you are not marketing to your online audience you are likely losing potential patients and revenue. However, by fixing these five things now, you can make your website and online presence work for you, helping to recruit new patients, retain current ones and foster word-of-mouth referrals. Remember: Your website is your best sales person, and it never goes on holiday.

Want to Learn More?

Learn more about effectively marketing your practice online by contacting iMatrix, a leader in websites and online marketing solutions designed specifically for eye care professionals like you. Call 1-800-462-8749 for more information.

CASSANDRA RANSOM

imatrix

Share:
Rate:

0 / 5. 0