Beyond Eyedeas: Content Marketing for Year-Round Growth in Your Eye Clinic

Hello and welcome to the show. I'm your host, sales coach and business development consultant Tavis Shima, Aidi. And today we're going to be looking at a case study on how we can come up with content marketing ideas or rather content marketing strategy for an eye clinic. Now that sounds fairly specific and it is by design. So the reason why I'm doing that today is because I OK, well, there's this eye clinic that we use that's me and the kids.

OK, Well, me and my older son, we both use glasses on my wife, but both of us, that's me and my older son. We use one clinic in particular and they don't have a deliberate approach either to e-mail marketing or content marketing or things like that. And so at this time of the year, this is the time when we start receiving all those messages. Valentine's Day was two or three days ago. So last week we started receiving those Valentine messages and currently we Catholics are in Lent.

So soon we're going to start receiving those Easter messages. So the eye clinic in question, not just them but a whole host of other Nigerian businesses just fall into this habit where they build their content marketing or their activities on social media. They build it around seasonal promo campaigns. And I've been making arguments over here on the podcast that this is not a good way to promote your business relying on this whole seasonal promo thing.

Now one of the reasons why this is not a good idea to run your business this way is because the whole point of social media or rather the one of the chief benefits of social media for U.S. business people, self-employed folks is that it's supposed to give us an Ave. where we can continually remain top of mind with our audience, with our past clients and with our potential customers. There has to be a way that people keep seeing us from time,

from time to time and know who we are, what we do, so that when they are finally in the market, they think of us when they pick up the phone to to make that call. If you're going to build all your promotional activities around seasonal campaigns. Easter, Christmas, Ida Maloud, Valentine's, what else? OK, Halloween. Some Niger people have started doing Halloween. If you're going to do that, then you only have. That's what.

OK, well, I lost count. Let's say maybe you have 10, 10 or 11 times during the year where you can keep in touch with people around certain stuff and that is just not enough. So let's see if we can come up with some ideas now for content marketing and strategy for an Eye Hospital. Also, another reason why I was jumping at the chance of doing this is because for most people don't think Eye Hospital sounds boring. What kind of ideas could we possibly have for content marketing or for using social media?

So if an Eye Hospital is as boring as it gets, I figured that that's a good candidate to see how we can flesh out ideas for content marketing strategy and using social media and things of that nature. So of course, any good campaign, well, if you've been listening to the podcast for any length of time, you know that any good campaign, we need to start off with the target audience or with the ideal customer profile with the customer avatar, whatever it is that you call it.

Now the reason why we have to start off with that is because from a sales and business development perspective, if you do not know who it is that you're chasing, then you're going to run all over the place. You're going to dissipate your efforts, You're going to waste time and you're going to waste money and you're not going to have an effective campaign. Sorry, one moment. I have to turn this off. Yeah, my wife was watching day,

day. It's a one of these telenovelas. It's a Ghanaian telenovela. And yeah, she left you running when she went to go and have a bath. So the thing just picked up. That's where the noise came from. So where was I? OK, yes, I have. So I was talking about the target audience, ideal customer profile, customer avatar, basically. We need to figure out that question. Who are we running after? Who are we chasing? Who are the people that might be interested in our product or service?

And who are the people that could benefit most from what it is that we offer? So we have to start off every, And when I say every, I mean every, every single marketing, campaign, sales, motion, whatever it is you want to call. We need to figure out who's the target audience. Now since I am not an IA professional, all the things I'm going to say here are just speculation. But of course I'll try and use common sense and make sure that my speculation is on point.

But for those of you who are in the medical space, the eye medical industry, you know, ophthalmologist, optometrist, opto, whatever it is that you guys call yourselves, I'm sure you guys will be able to use your professional opinions and come up with much more. What's the word accurate anyway? You get the point. You're eye people, you're the professionals. So whatever ideas I put up here, this is just me freestyling and using my best, you know, common sense knowledge as and everyday average layman.

So my assumption is that since we're talking about eye hospitals here, that the primary audience is going to be adults who are concerned about their eye health. So young men like me who are beginning to lose certain parts of their faculties of sight, you know, because once you get close to 40 and above, there's this thing. What is it called? I can't remember what it's called again, but it's this thing where you, you, you start.

Most of us start. We need reading glasses to be able to read because we either lose peripheral vision or some vision in the front or some vision in the back. So people go through that. So my guess is adults concern about eye care. Those are our target audience or adults who are already experiencing vision problems or maybe even people who are considering corrective procedures like laser surgery, you know, old folks, you know,

doing cataract surgery and things like that. OK, my mom had surgery last year. I can't remember, but I don't think it was cataracts, but I can't remember. But you guys get the point. So my guess is that is going to be the primary audience when we are talking about content marketing ideas. For those of you who work in eye hospitals or who run eye hospitals. Now, the secondary audience I I'm assuming are going to be parents of children who need eye exams or who need help in managing chronic eye conditions.

If I remember correctly, I think people who have diabetes can cause some complications in children's eyesight. I hear also that some kids can have glaucoma. I think. I think glaucoma is that the one that has to do with the eye pressure of the eye or something like that. You up to metrics up to people. Forgive me if I use any terms wrong here, I'm just freestyling then yeah. So I think those are the two classes, primarily adults who have eye issues, folks who need corrective procedures and then parents of kids who have eye issues or who need eye exams and then things like that.

So I'm assuming that's who we should be chasing when it comes to content, our content marketing strategy for the Eye Hospital. Now of course we need to have our goals, we need to know what it is that we are trying to do. So I'm assuming that some of the goals that we can have for the Eye King, it could be to increase brand awareness or increase perceived authority in people's eyes, you know, so that they know that this hospital is legit, it's the best, this is where we are, things like that.

And then of course, I'm assuming that the goal of these sorts of campaigns would be to generate leads. Now a lead is just anybody who raises their hand to say I might be interested in what it is that you offer. So we generate leads doing in different ways on in the online space like most people do these days. OK, let me just go back to the actual messages that I received from the Eye Hospital. You know, that whole Happy Valentine's thing, If you want to see your love clearly coming for a night checkup or something, something, something.

So you send out a bunch of those messages around Valentine's Day and let's say a bunch of guys respond to that. That is lead generation. You put out some content and then some people raised their hands. So those people are leads. So part of the goal of the campaign could be to generate leads and get people to come in for appointments and consultations. And from there, procedures. And a goal could also be to educate people about eye health.

Let's see what else? Yeah, those those sorts of things. Basically then other content ideas that we can use can include patient testimonials and success stories. We can also share those sorts of things on social media. OK, we're sorry. Before we get to that now, specific things that we can be doing. OK, well, of course this is a specific thing that we can do when it comes to content marketing. We can use blog posts and write blog posts around common eye conditions.

So blog posts around cataract surgery, around glaucoma, around what else? Conjunctivitis. Yeah, I think that's one that we used to call Apollo back in the day. So if you're creating blog posts around these things, this is Apollo. This is how to prevent Apollo. For those of you who have children in primary school age, this is how to prevent this. This is how to deal with this, deal with that. You can see that these are already ideas that we can have for putting up content much more.

What's the word? I mean, you put it out at the steady cadence instead of waiting until Valentine's or idol, Maloud or Christmas before you start sending things out to people. So these are excuses for used to be in people's Instagram timelines. If you use WhatsApp business, it's also a good excuse for you to be in WhatsApp status, you know, continually. And this is part of the process of keeping top of mind with our potential audiences.

So think blog posts about the eye conditions that we've mentioned so far and think about it. I am a layperson and just by spitballing here, freestyling, we've really thought of glaucoma. We thought of laser surgery, we thought of Apollo. I think Apollo is what we call conjunctivitis and we thought of what else. I can't remember. But bottom line, those are ideas for blog posts that we can we can probably call maybe about 10-8 or ten blog posts in one month.

And this is just me spitballing here. For those of you who are in the profession, I'm sure you guys are going to be able to come up with greater ideas, especially since people coming to the clinic every week and you might not get a sense of this eye condition is becoming much more popular amongst this age of people or amongst children of this age or stuff like that. And those are much more ideas for content that you can put out.

Blog posts, videos, what else? Things all over on social media. And these are ways that we can keep top of mind with our potential audience. Especially if you're in that situation where, you know, there's people sending me messages about Valentine's and trying to crack jokes about seeing your beloved one and this and this and that and that. So instead of waiting for Valentine's, you know, these are ideas that you guys can try out.

So apart from blog posts, infographics. Yeah, infographics. There was a time that infographics were big on on what's it called, Instagram. Now people do info graphics on LinkedIn. Yes we can do stuff like that, blog post infographics and you can do that also to explain complex topics in very friendly way. Also to address, you know the common eye conditions that we mentioned here. Then another possible idea is QA sessions with doctors on social media platforms.

I'm sure some people wouldn't mind if you, as the hospital owner, you start advertising that, oh, in two weeks time. And when you do Instagram Live, anybody can come up and ask me questions and we will answer. And at the end of it, we're going to offer free consultation for the first five people or for 10 people who has the most interesting questions or something like that. I'm sure you should be able to garner some attention around that.

It doesn't have to be that particular idea, but it takes a while for you to get these things right. So you just fool around, come up with different ideas. So yeah, live QA or live webinars, things like that. And what did I I spoke about something, yeah, patient testimonials. Yeah, So you can share patient testimonials and success stories. You know, daddy came in on social so and so this is how bad it was. This is 6 months post op and this is how successful it has been.

It has improved his quality of life. This is the reason why you should be coming in to check yourself periodically so things don't get this bad. So if you have the father who's living in the village and you know you're concerned we are offering 50% on adults on a senior citizens consultations between this and this and this, you know bring them in on social Swans. So. So you see how patient testimonials and success stories could also lead to you throwing out and calls to action that try to get people to come in to try and generate leads.

You know, people to raise their hands to say I might. I am interested or I'm curious then let's see, what else, what else, what else? Patient testimonials. Kind of this idea I had. Yeah. Behind the scenes, yes. Now behind the scenes. Now, I started off as a wedding photographer A decade and a half ago. And behind the scenes that used to be a big thing for we wedding photographers, you know, would have somebody take the the phone and do a Instagram reel, you know, showing us doing crazy stuff hanging from here or doing all kinds of positions, things like with that, you know, with the camera.

The whole idea was that we would seem more relatable, I guess, if we showed the behind the scenes on the actual day of shooting the wedding. So it's something that people in the hospital space can do as well. Or for virtual tours, you know, you have somebody, maybe the facility manager, walk through the hospital facilities and start talking about specialized equipment. You know that, oh, at ABC Eye Clinic we have, you know, the best of this and this and that.

This is our state of the line, XYZ 33000. We just imported it from Germany. It's top of the line. It helps us to look at people's eyeballs through to the cranium to help us detect ocular pressure and blah, blah blah blah, blah. So doctors, please stop cringing. I'm just making stuff up, even if some of those things don't make sense. But you you get the point. So it doesn't have to be sophisticated camera crews. Somebody can just take their phone.

The facility manager can take his phone or her phone and walk around the hospital and make a couple of these things. Yes, maybe if you walk around for 30 minutes and you do that thing you try and execute like this, maybe half of it may be crap. But The thing is, you'll be able to find 5 or 10 minutes that you can use for good content on the Instagram handle or on LinkedIn. And you can also do a similar thing to highlight the expertise of doctors or the qualifications of doctors.

It's something that I've seen a mobile, what do you call them? There's people that have stores in in shops and they sell phones like Samsung and things like that. I've seen some people do that on on Instagram. You know, somebody takes the phone and walks around and says, oh, that this is our staff highlight of the day. This is Belinda. Belinda is the techno, is the techno Sales Rep She has five years experience and blah, blah,

blah, blah, blah. Oh Melinda, why don't you introduce yourself? Melinda introduces herself and then she talks about the new, the latest phone, the whatever, her own recommendation for the day, blah blah blah. You get the whole point. You're just trying to highlight the expertise of the people that work with you to show that these people are legit, they're professionals, and they are able and willing to help. So all this behind the scenes stuff, these are also good ideas that you can use to keep coming up with content and you don't have to keep waiting for Valentine's to come around.

And then you start sending people messages about seeing their beloved. In fact, I can't wait for Idel Malou to come around. I think Idol Malud, I think that's one for the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. So I honestly how they're going to spin that one, whether they can come up with content for for that one, especially since I suspect that the owner of the hospital is a Christian. So let's, let's wait and see what they are able to spin for Idol Malud.

Then let's see what else. But I'm sure that you guys are beginning to get the idea about how we don't have to keep waiting for Christmas, for Easter, for back to school, for all these things before we come up with content to promote our business. So let's stop waiting for seasonal topics. Let's stop waiting for trending topics. Although trending topics can help in this case since there's like like a National eye health Month.

What else? OK, back to school exams. OK, that one happens at least in Abuja. That one happens routinely then. Allergy season? Yes, OK, that happens a lot in Abuja as well. So that season of the year, like is it before or after the Hamilton where there's contractivities and then children rubbing their eyes and things like that. So yes, we can make content around all these sorts of things, but me here, just spitballing here, you've seen how we can come up for ways to remain top of mind and continuously be in front of our potential customers and people that we have done business with in the past.

So just exercise your creativity, sit down with a pen and paper. I'd like to recommend pen and paper because we can think of all kinds of brilliant ideas. But then if we don't write it down tomorrow when we wake up and it's time to execute, we don't know where to start from. So get a pen and a paper. Or, you know, whip out your iPhone or whatever, pull up your note function. Maybe you can even use your voice note as well.

And then start writing it down so there are different distribution channels. You can think about your website where you can publish blog posts that I mentioned earlier, infographics. You can put up downloadable resources over on the Internet, you know, educational guides, things like that. Then of course, there's social media. You guys can set up a Facebook page, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, what else? OK, e-mail marketing.

OK, hospitals are not good at that. In OK, let me not say Nigeria. Let me say Abuja, because I don't know about other parts of the country. So e-mail marketing can come up with the hospital newsletter. There's also paid advertising. You can run targeted ads on social media. In fact, there's an optometrist. I think, forgive me, I don't know the difference between an optometrist and an ophthalmologist. I know that both of you guys deal in eyeballs, though.

So there's an optometrist that I want to interview for the podcast later on. And for our own practice, that's essentially how our practice is built. It's built around targeted social media advertising, particularly Facebook adverts and Instagram adverts. And I'm curious because it's the those businesses are really, really few and fine between, you know, Nigerian businesses where they can say, look, this business is built solely off of Instagram advertising and nothing else.

So whenever I run into people like that, I'm really fascinated and I like having a chat with them. So when I'm able to book a time with her, I'll share the insights over here on the podcast then. Gosh, well, it's over 20 minutes, so let me not let me not overflog the issue, but that's it. Basically, we need to look for ways to come up with content back in the strategy so we can be in front of people on top of Mind 247 for the whole year instead of just coming up on Easter and Christmas and Valentine's Day.

Of course, look at content performance because you're trying to figure out what works. You might realize that they're putting lots of effort into social media in general, but then it might look like LinkedIn content is paying as in as per people are getting in touch with you through LinkedIn. Then you guys might decide that you know what? Instead of wasting time on Pinterest and Instagram, let's just focus on LinkedIn.

Because we did this over the last three months and this is the amount of money we made. And we can track X percent of this coming through LinkedIn. So it'll give you an idea of where to double down on so you don't have to be spread yourself thin on social, social media all the time. So sorry, not social media. Spend your time across all channels so you don't have to be on all channels. Then let me see one thing I forgot to mention.

I was thinking about this thing. Influencers, Yes, you can partner with influencers in the health and Wellness space because there's been a rise of some of those folks. There's a aproco aproco Dr. I think he's based in the East, but I'm sure that there are also local alternatives. You know, maybe some Instagram influencer in the medical space who is big in Abuja or big in Lagos. You can do some research and find these people.

So this is a much, much, much, much, much better approach to promoting your business than waiting for Valentine's Day to start the business promo. So we're now done with Valentine's Day. Next thing people will be thinking, oh, OK, Easter, They're now coming up with Easter ideas after Easter is Idel Maloud. And I'm trying to come up with Idel Maloud ideas and Halloween ideas and then stuff like that. So let's stop being episodic and let's look for ways to remain top of mind with our audiences all the time.

So my challenge to you, whether you run an eye clinic or not, is just sit down with a pen and paper or with your phone or whatever. Try and think of ways to come up with a similar framework for your business. You can rewind the episode and as I was coming up with ideas, you can try and jot down what might apply to your business, but give it a hard think. How can this apply to your own business if you're not an eye person?

So if you sell chickens, if you sell cement, whatever it is, it can be done. And that is why I was excited to use an eye clinic because for most people you will think eye clinic, what can we possibly do to promote an eye clinic online? And you see that in 20 minutes. We've come up with enough ideas for six months of content. That's if we're to outline everything on a sheet of paper. I'm sure the ideas we've come up with so far could last us about six months of promotions on LinkedIn, on social media.

So think about how it applies to your Business Today. Also, connect with me on WhatsApp. My phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234 for those of you hitting me up outside the shores of Nigeria. Also connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm your host, Tavishima Ayde. You can confirm the spelling of my name from the link. We're currently listening to this episode, so thanks for your time and attention. I'll get you guys at the next episode.