One of the things that we do with every single client before we do any marketing tactics at all is, establish a foundation for them.

And that foundation looks at the after state and we look at the avatar. So we’re not really interested in the procedures yet. The procedures must be solutions to the avatar’s problem.

So the procedures are over here and we ally ourselves with the avatar, with the potential patient. And by avatar, we mean people that form the ideal patient for different types of services that you offer. And we look at their before and afters, and we create somebody who represents a good chunk of the people that you see coming through.

We identify if somebody is, a millennial or if they’re 30 years old; if they’re highly into sports, if maybe they’re in a sunny area, if they surf, if they do this or read this, if and where they go and what restaurants they go to. We get a good view, a good read on who this person is, and then we say, “Great!” this person will likely get SMILE or they might get PRK, but we don’t know what they’re going to present with, but we have a range of services that might fit them.

We speak to them and what they want as opposed to offering them a procedure upfront, because until they’ve had the consult, we don’t really know what procedure they want, but we know they want something after.

Creating avatars to represent cataract surgery and premium lens patients

So we really look at the foundation for the avatar. Similarly, with cataract patients, we look at where they live, What they do. If you’re trying to attract more premium lens patients, we look at that, what kind of money might they be bringing in? So we get a good sense for who these people are, what they might read, where they might go online so that we can start to speak about that after and attract them in and basically get people who are qualified leads for that specific thing that you’re looking to sell.

Creating avatars to represent presbyopes

Similarly, with the presbyopic market, this is a great way to expand a practice.

Again, looking at the age range of the person, looking in the fact that they’re probably looking to read again without glasses, wind back the clock 10 years and get rid of the hassle of glasses. That’s a huge group of people that do not fall into a typical LASIK candidate area, and yet these people, if you offer some kind of a solution for the younger sort of 45 to 55, you might have something like Presbyond, PresbyMAX, that sort of thing. For the people who are a little bit older, you can start to get into the lens options.

But, we don’t talk about that because we just want people to recognize, “Yeah, I do want to get rid of the hassle of these reading glasses. I really, really don’t like them.” Because if you like them, that’s not a candidate for you, right?

So you’re trying to get somebody to raise their hand and say,

“I have a problem and I am interested in a solution if one exists,” and might not even know if one exists?

But then as soon as you’ve identified it, “Yes, people in this age range with these challenges and frustrations are people I can start to talk to,” that changes the game entirely. So, take your services off the table, start to look at your avatars, and really gear your marketing around your after states.

And then at the consultation, start to provide them with your professional, expert recommendation on what it is that best suits them. Don’t let them make the decision. That’s your job. Your job is to just let them know, “Hey, we got you. You have this problem. I can help you get to the end state, to finish with the after, the life that you really, really want.”