Hitting the target in Halifax

Thornton & Wright Opticians is an independent practice located in a suburb of the West Yorkshire town of Halifax. Optometrist Andrew Thornton started the practice in 1991 and was joined by DO John Wright five years ago, when the business relocated just 200m to a larger modern unit. With eight multiples and eight independents within five miles, competition for new patients is strong.
As well as a convenient location and personal recommendation, Thornton & Wright's marketing activity plays a key role in attracting and retaining patients. Having identified the desired prospective patients and catchment areas, the practice targets them directly by sending communications five times a year. Mailings consist of newsletters and leaflets from marketing companies and suppliers, sent out via household drops, a marketing database and the practice's own patient database.
For Wright, the frequency of mailings is an important factor in their success: 'Communicating only once or too infrequently with even well identified and appropriate catchments has little effect. It has also has no effect when a dissonant message conflicts with our practice image, so we take great care in the choice of materials. There is such a thing as bad publicity,' he observes.
Appropriate communication, targeted correctly and sent regularly, makes a noticeable difference to the generation of new business, says Wright. It also refreshes the practice profile among existing patients within the catchments, who receive mailings every 2-3 months as well as their normal reminders. Other marketing methods, such as single adverts in newspapers, Yellow Pages and doctors' surgeries, have been less successful.
Key performance indicators direct many of Thornton & Wright's business decisions. One of these is the number of patients lost to the practice each year compared to the number of new patients, which is extracted using the PCS computer system. Wright says that patients lost remain steady at around 15 per cent, so new patients must exceed 15 per cent if the practice is to thrive. Annual marketing spend (excluding reminders) is consistently around 3 per cent of turnover.
So does this marketing activity work? Wright cautions that, even after several years, new patient response rates may sometimes be only 1 per cent of the number of communications sent. His advice is to set a realistic budget and not to expect instant results. 'It takes resolve to continue investing in marketing when initial returns seem slow. But in an increasingly saturated and over-advertised market, it can make the difference between growth and stagnation, or worse.'