Omnichannel marketing might be an unfamiliar term for you, but chances are you’ve experienced it plenty of times in your life away from the office.
Today, good marketing involves tapping into a variety of different customer engagements that make up the overall customer experience. If all of your outreach efforts work together harmoniously across all of your departments, buyers have a better experience and are more likely to make a purchase from you.
Optical practices have a golden opportunity to score big with a solid omnichannel marketing strategy in place. But what does omnichannel really mean, and why is it important specifically for a private practice owner?
What Does Omnichannel Marketing Mean?
To get a good idea of the definition of omnichannel marketing, let’s boil it down to its roots. Omni, derived from the Latin word omnis, simply means “everything” or “all-encompassing.” Think about the words omnipresent (everywhere at once) or omnipotent (all-powerful).
What, then, is a channel? To cut through the marketing jargon, a channel is simply a means or “category” through which you market to your customers.
A good example would be any promotional flyers your practice uses to advertise your frame selections, which would be classified as a print marketing channel.
Then there are the conversations your optical team has with patients, or even inventory you display on the shelves. These are all examples of in-person marketing channels, aimed at guiding the buyer’s journey within the walls of your office, but with Optify you can extend that online for an omnichannel approach.
Omnichannel marketing = an all-encompassing approach to marketing to your patients. This method modernizes your practice and keeps all patients engaged with your inventory, in-store and online, ensuring that they buy from you and not other eyewear sellers.
Modernizing Your Practice
The online, or rather digital channel approach to add to your marketing would include email marketing, newsletters, website ads, e-commerce, user interface, follow-ups, appointment reminders, and even an online store tied to your practice’s website and the inventory you sell in-person. Anything you do to promote your brand to buyers across the internet would fall under the digital marketing channel.
With an omnichannel marketing strategy, all of your different channels—both in-person and digital—work together to facilitate a spectrum of different buyer journeys that flow together seamlessly. An omnichannel approach links together all of your customer interactions for smooth sailing to a purchase and a customized, enjoyable patient experience.
An Example of Omnichannel Marketing In Action
In one scenario, let’s say your opticians send out flyers to your patients for a new deal on frames. This requires the recipient to look your practice up online and search for the frames on their own. One patient manages to find the deal on your website, but with no option to make a purchase online, they have to drive to your location. After arriving, they have to look up and down the shelves and ask an optician to help find the discounted frames. This takes a lot of staff time and also creates a friction point – meaning some patients won't have time to take these steps at all.
Compare that first example to an omnichannel approach: your opticians send out flyers or even emails, which contain direct links to your website. The patient can easily go to the discounted frames in one slick. From there, the patient can purchase directly from you for easy in-store pickup. They then arrive at your office, walk up to your optical department, and give some information to an optician, who retrieves the frames that were set aside for them before they even got in their car. It's fast and convenient for opticians and patients.
Omnichannel marketing is all about making a buyer’s path to a purchase decision as simple and streamlined as possible by bringing all of your marketing channels together into one coherent ecosystem. Optify makes this process fast for private practices to incorporate.
Why is Omnichannel Marketing So Important for Private Optical Practices?
Optical experiences are personal. After all, glasses are an essential lifestyle investment and vital for healthy day-to-day activities. Patients seek out guidance from optical staff in making this purchase.
The entire aim of omnichannel marketing is to tap into a strategy that makes the buying process personalized and easy for every patient.
Many of your patients need frames, and your office already has their trust. All you need to do is give them a straightforward and appealing way to buy from you, and it’s a done-deal.
Turn Patients Into Loyal Eyewear Shoppers with Optify's Omnichannel Approach
Optify brings the omnichannel experience directly to your practice by integrating all of your in-person and digital channels into one comprehensive software. This allows you to not only provide a fluid experience for buyers by meeting them where they are, but it also ensures your brand has the modern systems in place to back it all up.
Optify is the industry's #1 eCommerce software solution. It's easy to integrate into your existing website and EHR system and onboarding for your staff takes less than a hour.
Take out the guesswork of omnichannel and book a 15-minute demo with us today.