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 Guest contributor: Dr. Justin Bazan, OD.
Social Media (SM) success stories are abundant. Allow me to share one of mine.
I was excited because a very popular and influential local blog, with a readership of thousands, wrote up a glowing review of my office. Even more exciting was that they have an active Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/effedinparkslope , which has a couple of thousand fans.
I began to think, "How can I help to get these fans converted into patients?"
Realizing the power of influence peers have over decision making, the influence of this blog post and the power of Facebook, I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to make my office highly visible to these "primed" prospects. I knew that I could accomplish that with the robust ad platform that Facebook offers.
While social proof and word of mouth recommendations from friends are strong forces that escape traditional ads, they are present and effective in Facebook’s ad platform. For example, when you see an ad for Park Slope Eye, you would also see a passive word of mouth endorsement from a friend! This backing by a friend helps drives engagement of the ad and facilitates the conversion of prospects into clients.
It is amazing how precise you can craft a Facebook ad. For this case, I hyper-targeted a group of Facebook users. I went for:
- 18+ year olds - decision makers
- Living within 10 miles of my office - which means Park Slope Eye is easy to get to
- Who liked the “F'd In Park Slope” FB page - this means they were probably exposed to the Park Slope Eye review
- Who are NOT already connected to (i.e. probably not patients of) Park Slope Eye
This left me with about 1200 people who would hopefully see my ad. The ad was a picture of our sign, with the call to action, "Book Online Instantly! www.bit.ly/BookPSEyNow", with an endorsement from one of the potential customers’ friends, ex. "Justin Bazan likes this".
In a period of about two weeks, the ad generated 250,000 thousand impressions. Wow. A quarter of a million opportunities for engagement!
While impressions refers to the amount of times the ad was shown, not clicked, in my opinion they are free promotion because even if people choose not to engage, they probably do see them. This is valuable because it creates awareness, which is an initial step in the prospect to client conversion.
The real magic happens when the ad is clicked. In this case a click brought the prospect directly to my online scheduler where he could self-select an available appointment slot. 73 people arrived at the scheduler!
Best of all was how much I spent on the campaign. For about 15 minutes of work to set it up, the outlay of money was only $54.51. Yes, for 50 bucks I potentially had 73 new patients. Not bad at all :)
Get creative. There are many ways to use Facebook ads. I hope this one example inspires you to give it a shot. There is a lot of potential and I look forward to hearing of other success stories. Please do share them! Email Daniel and he will feature you in an upcoming release of the Eyecarepro blog.
Dr. Justin Bazan graduated from SUNY State College of Optometry in 2004 and currently practices at Vision Source Park Slope Eye in Brooklyn, New York. He has been an active social media user since the early 90s. Professionally, he has been using social media channels like Wordpress, Yelp, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Foursquare since 2007. His business has gained popularity due to integrating social media into his business strategy – he estimates approximately 20% of new patients are gained as a result of their social media efforts and the revenue acquired from those patients is well into 6 figures. Vision Source Park Slope Eye’s Facebook Page has over 1,300+ fans, their YouTube channel has 40 videos with nearly 5,000 views, their Yelp page maintains a 4.5 Star rating with 100+ reviews and their Twitter handle has 3,600 followers. Dr. Bazan is a recognized speaker on social media in the eye care industry and small business world.
Connect to Dr. Bazan at PSEye on Facebook
Read Reviews of PSeye on Yelp: People are Talking about PSEye! Hear the good, the bad and the ugly!
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