Optometry Marketing Ideas
Ever wanted to take a peek behind the scenes at a large advertising campaign?
Wouldn’t it be useful to get tips and ideas to make your own advertising more effective!
In this interview, I talk with Trinity Scarf and Kerry I’Anson from Optometry Australia about the nationwide Good Vision For Life Campaign.
You’ll learn how to:
- identify your target audience
- use the right channels
- choose the right emotion behind your messaging
Watch now, or Read the transcript below:
Here’s the full transcript:
(Kerry)- Thanks for inviting us, it’s great to be here on your Facebook Page.
(Leigh)- It’s a privilege to have you guys here. And to give up your time in the day too. So, today we’re gonna be talking about the Good Vision for Life campaign. And how Optometry Australia has led and promoted and engaged optometry using this campaign. And also how members can use take aways from this large campaign to be able to grow their practises and create successful campaigns for themselves. So, whether you’re watching the live video or the recording, please share this video with a friend or a colleague who might be interested. And if we get time, we’d love to answer your questions in the comments as well. So, let’s dive in. So, congratulations guys on a really successful campaign. Optometry Australia has run several campaigns to raise awareness of optometry in the past, like the UV campaign and the Children’s Vision campaign. But the Good Vision campaign is a lot larger and longer duration. So, how did the previous campaigns set you up for the Good Vision for Life campaign? And perhaps Kerry, if we could start with you?
(Kerry)- Yes, Optometry Australia has run in the past. Based around single themes such as UV or contact lenses. And they’ve been quite successful in the market. But they’re not, they weren’t delivering a single message because every campaign that we did had its own separate set of messages. So, it was our goal really to look at how we could implement a national campaign with a single message. So, we delved in and did a lot of research in the marketplace. And we discovered that while there were many, many campaigns out there that focused on single issues such as glaucoma or macular degeneration and there were lots of campaigns run by the big corporates. There wasn’t really a campaign out there that focused on eye health in general and in the need to see an optometrist throughout life for prevention and detection. So, when we honed in on that, we thought, “Okay, well here is a clear market gap “that no one is filling. “How can we fill it?” So hence, I guess the early scenes of the Good Vision for Life national campaign started to form. And then we looked at, okay, if we’re going to have a national campaign, how can we position ourselves? How can we cut through consumer and the consumer space? And the Good Vision for Life campaign came about because we’ve been using Good Vision for Life for many years, almost 10 years. And it was a really friendly message that we could position into the marketplace. And we worked with agencies to look at whether or not that resonated with consumers. And we actually tested a number of taglines, and most consumers came back and said, “Yes, we like that tagline, “we understand it, and we understand the message “that it’s trying to deliver.” So, that was kind of the early seeds to developing the campaign.
(Trinity)- Yeah, I guess, just to add on that also, of course, the understanding and the desire to become more digital for the many benefits, and our previous campaigns, may of had that element but also a lot of more point-of-sale type element. So, and desire to move more into the digital space for the benefits I mentioned such as cost effectiveness, ability to be agile and consumable and that kind of thing. So, that was the other reason.
(Kerry)- Yep, and we also wanted a campaign that anyone could use, whether or not you were a corporate optometrist or whether or not you’re an independent optometrist. So, it didn’t differentiate, you know, it was a generic, classic campaign that could be picked up by anyone working in optometry.
(Leigh)- For sure, yeah. And it’s fair to say that you’ve engaged members in talking before you started this campaign? You asked them, how can we help you better, as far as creating a campaign?
(Kerry)- Absolutely, when we rebranded back in 2014, we looked at a lot of member feedback. And we also had a member panel working with us on that rebranding. So, we asked our member panel, “How do you want to be portrayed to the public?” And very clearly came back, “We wanna be portrayed as community orientated, “friendly, professional.” And we certainly, you know, the feedback was, “We don’t wanna be seen as a scary profession.” Now when we looked at the campaign and looked at the premise, where we wanted to go, we had, you know, multiple routes that we could go down. A lot of health campaigns are based on scare tactics. And looking at what our members were telling us, we didn’t want to a scare tactic. Would be very easy to go down that route when it comes to optometry. We wanted to make optometry warm and friendly, and a place that where you want to go for your eye health and not fear going to see an optometrist.
(Trinity)- So yeah, and I think that’s quite evident in the campaign. Elements, and the look and feel, and the imagery, and the language used and selected is very much to project that. And because that’s what our members told us and we agree. As Kerry said, rather than fear focused, warm, friendly, approachable, and that’s exactly the look and feel we’ve tried to live up with the campaign.
(Leigh)- For sure, it’s been great to use that feedback and promote the campaign. And also, Facebook values that positive, warm experience too so it’s gonna show the campaign to a bigger area. So, it’s great.
(Kerry)- And just on that Leigh, we don’t scare away, we don’t shy away from the scary topic side because our Good Vision for Life is there to promote some of the scary subjects around optometry. And our Facebook site, we do the same too with articles that we see of–
(Trinity)- Well, like the lady yesterday, most of us would’ve seen the lady with the worms.
– Yes. <Laughter>
(Trinity)- So, of course, anything with consumer relevance and interest we will talk about.
– Remote, yep.
(Trinity)- Just as a continual way to raise awareness of eye health and the need to regular eye examinations. That’s an obvious need to go and see someone.
– Absolutely.
– What a story.
(Leigh)- Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, Optometry Australia wants everyone to come for an eye test. And, eye care, good vision is important for everyone. But it was better to go ahead and create a target audience rather than trying to attract everyone at once. So, how did you go about narrowing or identifying the target audience?
(Kerry)- Look, we knew the shotgun approach wouldn’t work and shotgun approaches in marketing rarely work. So, we went to our agency and we, we also work with a fabulous media buying house who really understands audiences and audience demographics and psychographics. So, between both of those agencies, they recommended our target audience of Australians aged between about 35 and about 60 as our target audience. And while that seems fairly wide, they’re absolutely a significant part of the Australian population. Because most of them have children and most of them have ageing parents, so–
(Trinity)- And they’re still in the workforce.
(Kerry)- So we knew through that cohort that we could reach for the maximum number of Australians with our messages. And particularly women, because women are the household influencers and decision makers. So, we knew if we could tap into that age group and particularly women, our messages would start to I guess echo across all of the population.
(Trinity)- Yeah, that’s right. And certain psychographics were looked at and media behaviour to target that group, of course. And as Kerry said, we worked, we continue to work closely with our media agency to ensure that our media selection reaches this audience.
(Kerry)- And we also knew that, that target audience were very digitally savvy, they you know, health and well-being were top of their list on what they look for online. So, we knew instantly that they would warm to our messages.
(Leigh)- Yeah, for sure. So, with the target audience, it’s important to engage them across multiple channels, so why was it, what helped you to decide what channels to try and reach this target audience between 35 and 60?
(Trinity)- Well this is where we certainly lean heavily on our media agency, who are great and in that space and continue to, we’ve got a close ongoing dialogue, so they continue to report back and refine and test, and that kind of thing. And they’re the experts in selecting the media according to the audience. So, and those type of psychographics and consumer and media behaviour that I mentioned. So, we work with them and rely on their expertise to help us pick. And we pick a wide variety of media as well, I think it’s just, I think we all know in business or marketing it’s, you know, there’s so many messages out there, a lot of noise. But, you know, so we try to come at our audience in relevant, in a variety of relevant ways. So, that’s the media mix that we work with, the agency too.
(Leigh)- Sure, what was some of the mixture Trinity for the, that the agency recommended?
(Trinity)- Well, digital is a key part and the omnipresent part that goes year round. And really represents our messages as banners, video, ads in the handpicked websites. SEO and SEM form a major part. So, as I said, that digital component is the ongoing piece and the very, you know, tweakable–
(Kerry)- Very fluid.
(Trinity)- Fluid and allows us to continue to maximise, which of course we love about that. By testing and tweaking. We also, radio was a key portion as well, continues to be. Radio via the Austereo network, several stations nationally. We’ve also now branched into audio streaming via Spotify. Just to attract, to reach people that no longer listen to free-to-air radio. Who now use digital streaming. Cinema, we did a trial in cinema, because we had also created a range of video assets which were performing very well and we first just promoted them in the digital space. And, so that’s part of the digital mix as well as via our own direct channels, the website and pushing out through stories. So then, seeing their great performance, allowed us like TV, was not, wouldn’t have been as cost effective but we were able to do a cost effective cinema campaign using our existing assets. We did do a little bit of TV in the first six months, or first year actually, which was more of an advertorial style, again, very cost effective, and that’s where we utilised our then president, Kate Gifford and had conversations and dialogue about eye health and our agency was great in securing extra, what do you call it? Repeat, repeat–
– Bonuses.
(Trinity)- Bonus segments and things like that. So, it was played a lot, we got bang for our buck there, which was great.
(Kerry)- And I think that’s one of the benefits of working with a media buying house, is that, they can negotiate on our behalf and deliver more value than what we might otherwise pay for. For instance, our radio spots, I think last year they delivered almost 500 additional spots, over and above what we paid for. And they do that because they negotiate on our behalf.
– True.
– Yeah.
(Leigh)- That’s good, so you get the better, like more efficiency, more opportunities through going through a media house.
– That’s right.
(Kerry)- Absolutely. Than what we would be able to achieve if we were to negotiate by ourself.
(Trinity)- For sure, for sure. So, just better value, I think, but that’s also because we are going out nationally as well. That helps.
(Leigh)- With the radio, was there any differentiation between regional and city people?
(Trinity)- We, good question, yeah, it was predominantly metro. In fact–
(Kerry)- It was all metro.
(Trinity)- It was all metro, yeah. Yeah, you’re right, we couldn’t extend to regional radio.
(Leigh)- Okay, right. Yeah, ’cause it’s, there’d be some practitioners that would be looking to advertise themselves on the radio, so they’d be like, “Okay, where is this most likely to work for me?”
– Sure, sure.
(Kerry)- You’ve got to look at your target audience. And say for instance, if you’re selecting a radio channel and your target audience is 20 to 30 year olds. But the target audience of the radio station is 45 to 60 year olds. You know that you’ve got a mismatch, so it’s a matter of matching your channel with your audience and getting I guess the biggest bang for buck.
(Trinity)- That’s right and the biggest reach, the biggest reach we get. And of course, and then via all of those other supporting channels or complementary channels, such as Spotify, such as cinema, such as digital, TV, the other one is now, in-home catch up TV, which is a growing demographic too. Which can be anywhere, so you know, just of course hoping to reach large portion of Australians within our target audience that we can. And the key call-to-action, if we haven’t mentioned already but that is, number one, so we’ve got the prevention, early detection messaging underpins most of our activity, yeah. But, and then the call-to-action is always find an optometrist on Good Vision for Life. So, that’s simply what we want people to do. Search for our members, and book an appointment.
(Leigh)- And the centrepiece of the campaign was bringing people to the Good Vision for Life website
– Correct.
– That’s right.
– Yeah, for sure, so–
– They’re the two, two steps.
(Leigh)- Yeah, and the find an optometrist part, yeah. Yep, that’s awesome. So, actually, and really you’re driving real appointments because patients can go click on the find an optometrist section and if members have a online appointment set up, then they can, people can just make a direct appointment from the website.
(Trinity)- That’s right, absolutely. And we’re in the process, we had done that with one provider, members of ours who had a relationship with MyHealth1st have to date been able to, consumers have been able to book via Good Vision for Life as well. And now our intention is to move to a place where whoever our member, if members have any relationship with a booking provider or they have their own booking widget or facility, we wanna mirror that on Good Vision for Life, just to maximise booking options for all of our members. Of course, you know, consumers, finding an optometrist, if there’s no online booking function, can pick up a phone and we’ve done some testing to see that, that’s what happens too.
(Kerry)- Yeah, that’s good. Depends on what people are comfortable with, if they’re comfortable with booking online appointments ’cause they’re used to doing that with their doctor or if they’re happy just to pick up the phone.
– That’s right.
(Kerry)- And look, if they’re seeing an optometrist for the first time, they might not know what kind of appointment that they need to book. So, they may feel more comfortable with a phone call.
(Leigh)- For sure, yeah, that sounds good. So, when you were looking at some of these channels, did you have some key performance criteria for each channel that you were looking to meet?
(Kerry)- I think, the criteria is really around ensuring that the messages go to our target audience. And that our target audience are motivated to make a response. So, which is a critical thing.
(Trinity)- It is, that’s right. And, key performance indicators probably, they came down to reach. But then that, what Kerry just said is the main objective, of course, which is hard to measure. You know, it’s the ongoing challenge as marketers. But, you know, we certainly have aimed to do that for research at the beginning, prior to launching the campaign, we did a survey. Tacked onto an existing survey, an omnibus survey to ask Australians when they last had an eye examination, and then we did the same survey one year later. We’ll continue to do that, and sorry, not just asking that, annually for sure. And not just asking that but also have they heard Good Vision for Life messaging and has that compelled them to–
(Kerry)- Find an eye examination appointment. So, that’s how we now track, I guess the, you know, the impact of the campaign. So, we know that the campaign in the first 12 months, grow of approximately 1.07 million appointments. Because that’s our target audience told us directly that due to the campaign they booked an appointment to see an optometrist. So, we go, we know something is working.
(Trinity)- It can at least give us an indicator for sure, we know it’s not water-tight, we don’t have budgets to survey all of Australia. Yeah, but, but it certainly gives us a strong indicator and you know–
(Kerry)- It is working.
(Trinity)- Yeah, it’s something that we can do to measure our success.
(Kerry)- And look, and we look at hits to our website, we look at how many people are clicking on our ads. You know, every time they click on an ad and come to our website, we’ve got a clear measure there. So, lots of different ways that we are looking at consumer engagement with the campaign.
(Trinity)- Yeah, of course, we’ve got all of those reports and numbers and those kind of things but, but yeah, the ultimate, the ultimate measure is actual changing behaviour and bums on seats, really, for our members. So, while of course we’re measuring reach, and activity and hits, and all of that, we need to, you know–
– Sway opinion.
(Trinity)- Yeah. And that’s also the reason for moving into a broad large scale campaign with longevity, rather than more ad-hoc messaging. I mean, we have a big picture vision for Good Vision for Life and that’s longterm changing behaviour.
(Kerry)- And of course that campaign now, the Good Vision for Life campaign we’ve cascaded to our campaign with GPs that we implemented last year around referral pathways and we’re looking to launch a new campaign very soon with pharmacists. So, Good Vision for Life, tag resonates across all of those markets as well.
(Leigh)- Influencing a million appointments is incredible, yeah, to be able to achieve that, it’s really good. But also there’s been some other benefits from emergency departments as well that’s just been announced.
(Kerry)- That’s correct, what we did was we looked at emergency department data over the last three years and we’ve noticed a decrease in the number of patients presenting with non-urgent eye health issues. So, we’re hoping– That as a result, not only just of the campaign and the advertising that we see. But we do a lot of work with the media as well and generating publicity around eye health. And you know, our media profile is growing, I can’t say rapidly, but it’s certainly growing.
– Absolutely.
(Kerry)- And the amount of coverage that we’re getting in regional, suburban and national media across print, online and broadcast is growing year on year.
(Trinity)- Yeah, and I think the efforts that we’ve put into that space, the PR activity, has also had some Even now, very much called on, on a regular basis. Luke Arundel, our media spokesperson is regularly called now, I mean we, he’s excellent with media and also we did so much proactive activity there, that now the reactive stuff is just part and parcel, which is great, so we’re You know, on a very regular basis called on.
(Kerry)- And of course, media is free, so, I mean it’s, it’s not easy, it’s–
– Time consuming.
(Kerry)- It’s time consuming and it takes a lot of effort to build your profile with your media contacts. But once you’ve done that, it’s worth all the effort.
(Trinity)- Absolutely, yeah. So yes, we’d like to claim that our efforts have had a big impact in the reduction in emergency patients.
– Absolutely, well it’s been a lot of hard work for you guys.
– Sorry, Leigh, sorry.
– No, no, please continue.
(Trinity)- It’s, all of the work that all of our members are doing as well as us to promote.
– Absolutely, yep.
(Kerry)- What we do as a sector.
(Leigh)- For sure, so with, how would you like members to be involved from now on with the Good Vision for Life campaign?
(Kerry)- I think there are lots of ways for involvement, I’ll pass over to Trinity in a sec but, I think the main thing that members can do is make sure that their details are up-to-date in the member database.
– Yeah.
(Kerry)- That allows consumers to find them when they go onto our find an optometrist search functionality. Which just doesn’t sit on Good Vision for Life, it also sits on Optometry.org.au. Which is the number one optometry website in Australia, so we know it gets lots of hits, as does Good Vision for Life, so please, update your member details.
(Trinity)- That’s right. And also, we push out a lot of content too around general eye health and good health, that eye health needs to be a part of. So, so we’re trying to build our consumer database, or our database for those monthly newsletters of content. So, we’d hope that our members would sign up for that, just for general interest and potentially to push out to their own patients. We’d love that. Or if any of our members are looking for content to share on their own platforms or channels, we’d love that too. Because it, you know, it just, create this halo effect of more people, you know, more people gaining awareness of the need to see an optometrist regularly. And, look after their eye health. So, signing up on Goodvisionforlife.com.au, entering details into the fields there, sign up here.
(Kerry)- Encouraging patients to sign up.
(Trinity)- Exactly, yeah, absolutely. Follow Good Vision for Life on Facebook, if members have got an active Facebook page for their practise. Share content, that kind of thing, we’re always open to shares too.
(Kerry)- We have a range of marketing materials that are downloadable on our website. So, you know, members can emulate the campaign in their own practises. We have a partnership with ProVision, ProVision also use a lot of our member collateral as well and theming in what they do. We’re very open to being plagiarised and copied.
(Trinity)- Collaborating.
(Kerry)- Collaborating, it’s really good. Well, it sounds like, yeah, members can be a part of it, can take, yeah, can take the initiative to, to put into the campaign and they also receive from that too. So, it’s a win-win.
(Trinity)- Absolutely, the more we can get our messages out and the more consistent those messages can be, the more chance we have of our messages being heard by our target audience.
– Yes.
(Leigh)- Yeah, that’s fantastic. So, with Good Vision for Life now being a trademark for Optometry Australia, how do you think that Good Vision for Life will change and evolve over time?
(Kerry)- I think it’s like any, anything that you do in the marketing space or even in a practise. You’ve got to, you’ve got to evolve and you got to keep yourself fresh. Yes, we own the Good Vision for Life tagline, we feel very happy to achieve that because it’s going to hopefully stop copycat campaigns. Which then protects us and protects our message consistency. But like anything, we need to constantly look at what our target audience is doing. We need to constantly look at what consumers are doing, what media that they’re absorbing.
(Trinity)- Feedback from members. Broad objectives and ensure we’re on track. But with, you know, having said, we did create it for longevity, we would hope the look and feel will stay consistent, the core brand will stay consistent but activity and elements will be tweaked.
– Yeah, just as any campaign, it’s yeah.
(Leigh)- Fantastic. Well, we look forward to hearing more, more patients continue to hear the messaging of Good Vision for Life, whether it’s directly on the website, or on social media, or radio. But also, yeah, we look forward to hearing more results, like more emergency department data going down. More people going to an optometrist. Yeah, and it’s, thank you for all the work that both of yourselves and Optometry Australia have been doing for this wonderful campaign.
(Trinity)- Thanks, Leigh.
(Kerry)- Thanks, Leigh. And it’s great to hear that feedback.
(Trinity)- Absolutely, absolutely. And yeah, thanks for having us on to talk about it. It’s a pleasure.
(Leigh)- Oh, it’s wonderful. Well, thank you guys so much again for your time, and yeah, we look forward to staying tuned to optometry news and the weekly newsletter and hearing more great results for Good Vision for Life.
– Thank you.
– Excellent.
– Alright.
– Thanks, everyone.
– Thanks, guys.
-Mama nene
