Running an optometry promotion in 2025

April 14, 2025 Robert Springer

What is it like to be an optometry professional in 2025? The good news is there is more consumer awareness than ever before about the mainstream nature of glasses, sunglasses for UV protection, polarised glasses for glare reduction and keeping an up-to-date prescription for the clearest vision possible. Your messages are waiting to be heard!

 

But it is important to realise just how busy everyday people’s minds are. Even ads need to deliver value, so always remember what’s in it for your customers!

 

As a savvy practice operator, you want your existing patients to re-visit and re-purchase eyewear from you at the expected future intervals. You also want to be a magnet for new patients to be able to provide the essential service of proper eyewear selection and make it a no-brainer that they need you as part of their healthcare circle of ongoing care.

 

Take a three-step approach

 

To achieve your patient-servicing goals for this year, I suggest the following three-step approach to running successful promotions in 2025.

 

Would you buy from you?

 

Take a fresh look at your competitors and compare first impressions of your practice environment and online showcase, such as your website and social media pages. Ask your friends, family and strangers for their input too. It can be a painful but eye-opening experience.

 

Ensuring your brand is modern and has some general appeal is the first step to running a successful campaign. It is a very expensive lesson to try to excite people through an advertisement only for them to be discouraged by a lack of online reviews or an outdated website.

 

Ten or more Google or Facebook reviews with real-world descriptions of patient experiences provide the necessary motivation for a prospective customer to act upon your promotional call-to-action.

 

Remember, people much prefer to buy from people, not faceless companies. Showcasing a key representative of your practice will demonstrate accountability and reinforce trust in the message you are putting out.

 

It can be difficult to know where to start if you think your practice branding could do with an upgrade. The good news is that you can focus on a single landing page for your website, which looks good on mobile phones, for under $300 to get results without having to redo your whole website. Landing pages are known for effective conversion and lead generation due to their all-in-one nature and ability to address all the typical questions of the optical buying process (price, product guarantees, aftercare service and more). This can be done with a freelance web designer if you don’t have the capability in-house, for example global marketplace Fiverr.com, or you can take advantage of our ready-to-go optical templates.

 

Fish where the fish are

 

Sales is a numbers game. To reach your desired audience and achieve tangible results, in terms of patient appointments and product sales, have a clear understanding where motivated consumers are.

 

In 2025, this means understanding how to reach prospective customers and being realistic about the chances to appeal to them with a promotional message. For now, let’s talk about offline methods because it seems the world has forgotten that people still interact with each other in the real world.

 

Consider where you go and what you encounter daily in your local community at grocery stores, coffee shops, gyms, community centres, childcare centres, schools, recreation groups, restaurants and more. These are all real-world touchpoints that everyday people experience on a weekly basis. People trust these establishments.

 

Now, what if you could form a collaborative relationship with one or more of these organisations? You are not selling something of questionable value; you are offering a valuable healthcare service within the community and there is an implied goodwill effect of sharing the message of your services for the benefit of all. Remember, every business is likely to have an email or SMS database of their contacts. They are also always looking for new and interesting ways to co-promote and add value to their community and customers.

 

In short, consider creating a simple yet compelling offer that can be distributed in collaboration with a local business whose target demographic overlaps with yours.

 

For example, collaborate with a hair salon to distribute a voucher for an exclusive eyewear offer. What’s in it for the hair salon? Decide what you are willing to offer them – maybe a free pair of specs for the salon owner? Could your practice distribute hair salon offers as part of an eye style and hair makeover combo? For the cost of a quality pair of eyewear, or sharing the salon’s offers at your point of sale with your current customers, you gain access to repeated exposure to style-minded consumers for the life of the promotion and beyond.

 

There are many creative options to show prospective customers you are a unique local business with a personality. We’ve run hundreds of promotions since we started supporting independent optometrists in 2016. I can say with confidence that the right offer to the right audience at the right time, still holds true as most effective best practice.

 

Short, sharp and timely

 

There are three likely reasons to run a promotion: you have availability for more appointments and need to keep your practice operating efficiently; you have a new service or technology to offer; or it is a time of year where there is high consumer demand and you don’t want to miss out and allow your competitors to capture market share.

 

Regardless of your marketing reasons, reaching your audience with short, sharp and effective messages in a timely manner is most likely to win customers over. Timing is all important because of people’s instinct to comparison-shop: make sure you distribute your offer, allow time for consideration, then follow up with the emphasis on your unique value proposition so they will be compelled to buy NOW and buy from YOU!

 

If you feel overwhelmed by the idea of the marketing side of running your business, you can always nominate someone else to run your promotional campaigns for you.

 

 

 

Robert Springer is the managing director of OptomEdge, an optometry-focused marketing and technology services provider, covering new patient campaigns, patient loyalty programmes and e-newsletters, digital advertising, e-commerce and local area marketing. To get in touch and learn more, please call: +64 9 889 3179 or email support@optomedge.com.