Nine ideas worth keeping.
Plain English. No jargon. Read once and they stick.
- 01
Most of your future patients aren’t looking right now
At any moment, only a small slice of people in your area actually need an eye doctor or are ready for a procedure — by most estimates, around 5%. The other 95% will need you eventually, but not today. Marketing that only chases the people searching right now ignores the much larger group who will choose a practice later — and they’ll choose the one they already recognize.
- 02
There are two jobs, and you need both
Some marketing reaches people ready to book today. Other marketing makes sure that when someone becomes ready months or years from now, your practice is the name they remember. The first gives you patients this month. The second fills your schedule for years. Most practices over-invest in the first and neglect the second — then wonder why growth stalls when they pause their ads.
- 03
“I can’t track it” doesn’t mean “it isn’t working”
You can measure exactly how many bookings come from a Google search ad. You usually can’t measure how many people chose you because they’d seen your name around for two years. That doesn’t make the second one worthless — it makes it harder to see. Judge those channels by long-term growth, not last-click tracking.
- 04
You already paid to acquire your past patients — collect on it
The most overlooked source of revenue in most practices is people who already chose you once and quietly drifted away. Bringing back a lapsed patient is far cheaper than winning a brand-new one, because you already did the expensive part. Before spending more to find strangers, make sure you’re not leaking the patients you already earned.
- 05
Don’t pour water into a leaky bucket
Spending more to get new patients in the door doesn’t help much if your phones go unanswered, your reviews are thin, or your website makes people hesitate. Fixing how well you turn interest into booked appointments is often cheaper and faster than buying more interest. Seal the bucket before you turn up the tap.
- 06
Be findable everywhere people actually look
When someone decides to find an eye doctor, they don’t all look in the same place — some search Google, some check their insurance directory, some ask their optometrist, some read reviews, some ask a friend. Every place you’re not present is a patient who found someone else. Being decent in many places usually beats being perfect in one.
- 07
Your reviews are often the tiebreaker
When a prospective patient is deciding between you and another practice, they rarely choose based on your ad. They choose based on what other patients said. Reviews aren’t a vanity metric — they’re frequently the last thing someone checks before they book.
- 08
The practices that win are boringly consistent
Almost none of this works as a one-time push. The practice that posts occasionally, runs ads for a month, then goes quiet loses to the practice that shows up steadily for years. Consistency compounds; bursts fade. Pick what you can sustain over what looks impressive once.
- 09
You don’t have to do everything — do the right things first
There are more ways to reach patients than any practice can do well at once. The goal isn’t to check every box — it’s to find the few gaps that matter most for your practice, your specialty, and your goals, and fix those first. The rest can wait.
The “5%” figure comes from widely cited research on how people buy (the “95-5” rule). It’s a useful directional idea, not a measured ophthalmology statistic.