Holidays are the perfect time to connect with your patients. Reaching out to your patients around the holidays helps build trust and credibility for your practice. People are already feeling the warm fuzzies around the holidays, which allows you to celebrate and share in those feelings of companionship and gratitude.
As a bonus, people are willing to pay extra attention during the holidays for anything holiday-related! Meaning that if you create campaigns with visuals and promos tied to an upcoming holiday, they will get far more engagement than a generic campaign.
Hit the Right Note This Valentines Day
So, with Valentine’s Day right around the corner, how do you make sure that a holiday campaign will be a success?
Know Your Audience
The first step in ensuring that your Valentine’s campaign is a success is making sure that it appeals to your target audience. If you already have buyer personas, great! A buyer persona is essentially a fictional character you’ve created that has all your ideal patient features. If not, you can quickly create one.
Use your buyer persona to frame the type of holiday content you will create. If your eye care practice is fashion-forward, your buyer persona will likely be interested in a holiday campaign that highlights the latest styles in the frames you offer.
If your buyer persona is someone who is family-focused, make sure your campaign keeps the family at the forefront.
By keeping your holiday promotions inline with the buyer persona, you will stay on brand, plus are more likely to capture the right person’s interest. It can also help make sure holiday marketing doesn’t come off too corny.
Be Mindful of the Current Situation
Even in promotional campaigns, keep the current situation with COVID-19 in mind. If you can, try to make promotions accessible to anyone. Allow people to order online or do curbside pick-up. Giving patients options will help them feel comfortable supporting your eye care business.
Also, try to avoid using images of large groups of people. With social distancing measures, it’s no longer in good taste to use images of large groups of people. Keep photos to small groups of people who look like they are from the same household.
Show Local Businesses Some Love
Shopping local is a significant movement right now. Take advantage of it! People want to help support local businesses in these challenging economic times.
If you’re a local business, don’t be shy! Incorporate it into your messaging. Take a peek at these free downloadable campaigns.
Have Some Fun
Don’t take your Valentine’s Day marketing too seriously! Stay positive, uplifting, and use humour when you can. Holidays are meant to be fun! Tap into the holiday experience even if you aren’t running a specific holiday promotion.
Giveaways and Contests
Giveaways and contests are very cost-effective ways to boost your social media engagement with your followers, get new followers and build the hype for an upcoming holiday. Use this opportunity to highlight a new product or line of frames your practice is carrying! If you’re not sure how to run a social media contest, check out SproutSocial’s article here.
Brighten Someone’s Day
You can still participate in Valentine’s Day fun even if you aren’t running a promotion or contest. Your social media channels are the perfect place to post witty eye care jokes and fun captions.
Check out our free downloadable campaign for more!
Another great way to connect to your patients this Valentine’s Day is to share the traditions at your practice. Do you send all your staff valentines? Have a favourite box of chocolates? Are you throwing an in-office or digital party with your staff?
Document the fun things your clinic does for the holidays and share them on your social media channels! People love to get a behind-the-scenes look into your practice. It will help you connect with patients on a more personal level.
To Sum It Up
You have lots of options for how your eye care practice can get into the spirit this Valentine’s Day.
A few things to keep in mind are:
- Ensure your promotions appeal to your target audience
- Be sensitive to the current pandemic situation
- Use the opportunity to highlight yourself as a local business
- Giveaways can be a great way to get people engaged
Check out our Free 2021 Valentine’s Day Campaigns if you’re looking to kick up your Valentine’s day marketing a notch!
