What’s your retail brand? It’s you!
You may be selling eyeglasses, sun wear, and contact lenses. But in eye care, what you’re really marketing isn’t product—it’s you, your professionalism, and your ability to communicate with patients and meet their needs.
That’s why it’s so important to manage and build your image and professional profile. As small business guru Marla Tabaka (marlatabaka.com) puts it, “If you don’t brand yourself, someone else will.”
Tip: If you don’t brand yourself, someone else will.
MARKETING YOURSELF
How exactly do you build that “you” brand? The experts at Nielsen, a global leader in audience insights, data, and analytics, report on nielseniq.com that the majority of retailers (74%) dedicate at least 70% of their marketing budgets to building their brand. Translating that to eye care in general and your practice in particular, it means that 70 cents of every marketing dollar should include building confidence in and promoting you, not just the products you carry.
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
So how do you begin to build your personal brand? Travis Reed, president and CEO of Creative Visionary, suggests asking yourself these questions:
- What is our brand image?
- What words do patients associate with us?
- What are we most known for in the community/to patients?
- What makes us special or unique?
- How do we differ from our competition?
A BIG OPPORTUNITUY
Understanding how to promote yourself can be a journey. Optical consultant Trudi Charest addressed that topic in a Vision Expo East course earlier this month. As shared by Eyecare Business magazine, she says, “I have spent years helping eyecare professionals build and market their optical stores and practices but realized that I was missing a huge opportunity, and that was to market themselves as professionals.”
She continues, “I stumbled onto a statistic [from Rater8, consultants in healthcare reputation management] that said approximately 60% of patients search the name of the practice but 40% search the name of the doctor.
“What happens when they search the name of the doctor or optician is the business website shows up but with the ‘About Us’ page… which patients don’t really care about. In an exercise for this presentation, I pulled up 100 optometrist profiles on LinkedIn, and 98 were almost empty or unoptimized. This is a clear consumer journey moment where we are not showing up.”
Her point? As Eyecare Business magazine explains it, “A strong personal brand can elevate visibility, establish thought leadership, and create new business opportunities.”
To read the article in its entirety, go to: https://www.eyecarebusiness.com/issues/2025/januaryfebruary/vee-personal-brand/
Do you know what your own personal brand is, and do you promote it? Tell us about it and share in the conversation on Facebook here.
