Invest In Building And Targeting Patient Niche In Your Marketing Strategy

In a previous post we emphasized the important of marketing to a niche by providing the example of Iris Photography for photographers who want to work on developing a niche and knowing that being everything to everyone is not as profitable as building and serving a niche. When it comes to business niche in Optometry, you will find many examples. Your choice of a niche differs across locations based on what niche is most profitable but also which niche is most in-demand. You don’t want to end up working for a niche that doesn’t have any audience. Most of the practitioners I know made a condition they suffer from or a condition very common among family members a niche: for example keratoconus, specialty lenses, glaucoma, etc. While it is known that you must be specialized and an expert in your niche, it not necessary to be an expert to start a niche, make profit, and grow successfully. You need to be passionate about the niche you are working on moreover, it all comes with time as long as there is profit and demand!

With the increasing demand in specialization and niche due to more practitioners leaving primary eye care behind, the power of niche is getting more and more discovered, and entrepreneurs in Optometry are recognizing that the opportunity of a niche does not have to be the same as another Optometrist niche. To choose your niche market make sure that you have all three conditions to start with:

What am I passionate about? Patient is the final referee, and as you discover what your are most passionate about, remember that making yourself the go-to practitioner for a specific condition relies on mastering every aspect of this condition and being relevant to the patient;

Who do I want to treat? You often should start by defining the patients you don’t want to serve before you start creating personas for the patients you will serve. Being able to identify what you will not do and who you will not serve helps you focus time on researching and studying ways to serve your target customers and patients in the niche;

Who is my ideal patient? Once you know your target audience, you should be prepared to visualize your perfect patient and what makes your value proposition unique to this patient. Knowing your ideal patient after having answered the first two questions leads you to the first step in building a strategy that is based on what unique value proposition the patient is interested in.