Hear and THere

Hear and There
By Batteryjac.com


Another round of postal increases is here and the costs of advertising and communicating with your market and customers are increasing yet again. A simple way to mitigate these increased costs is by using much of the free advertising and communication mechanisms that are available to you. These are e-mail, Craigs List, the blogosphere and press releases.

E-Mail


This is the simplest and most vital link between you and your customers. Many seniors and certainly many of your new patients use e mail on a daily basis. E mail is the “killer app” for the Web. If you haven’t as yet begun to collect e-mail addresses from your patients you’re probably shooting yourself in the foot. E mail can be used to confirm appointments, reminder cards for checkups, periodic newsletters, thank you cards, appointment follow-ups, birthday greetings and even additions to your blog. Also, you can forward to your list pertinent information that may come across your computer.
A couple of inexpensive email “houses” are Microsoft’s www.bcentral.com/ , www.emailfactory.com/ and our personal favorite for small (that’d be most dispensers) businesses is www.intellicontact.com/about/

If you don’t have area in your website for people to give you their e mail addresses and perhaps sign up for newsletter do it now or get your webmaster on it. Make it easy for your patients and potential patients. Instead of using the “Contact Us” link set up a separate page for e mail sign-ups. The acronym KISS applies here. Remember, you must have permission to use a person’s email address for commercial purposes otherwise it is illegal and considered spam. Review legal requirements for all commercial e-mail. It would be well worth your while to visit http://spamlaws.com


Craig’s List


Craig’s List is probably the most under utilized resource for hearing aid dispensers. Probably because when it first started it wasn’t used by our age demographic. It is free for one listing. The only hassle is that you have to renew your listing every week. In some areas or cities you can have multiple listings for a slight charge. Always provide a link to your website.

Just go to www.craigslist.com. Try it. Go to your city and in the “search area” type in “hearing aids” or “hearing aid batteries,” “amplified phones” or what have you. Craigs List is like chicken soup. It can’t hurt.

Blogs

The blogging resource is becoming more relevant to people almost daily. Blogs have been set up by many individuals, groups and of course commercial enterprises. It is a way other than through a website or e mail to disseminate information, opinions, events and most importantly, blogs allow for feedback from your customers.

Just go to www.google.com and insert “blogs” into the search function. You’ll be able to review many group blogs to get an idea as to what is possible. Also, you’ll see a banner ad or a listing for www.blogger.com which is the Google place for creating your own free blog site. Your own blog site enables you to electronically publish many short pieces of information that you would want to get out to your customer base. You always want to keep the blog fresh and timely so that people have the opportunity to always find out something new and perhaps pass it on via e mail. When you have your blog make sure to link it to your website, show it on business cards, practice brochures, etc, etc. The more sources you give your customers and potential customers for information the greater the transparency of your practice and reasons to come to you.


Press Releases

Press releases are probably the least used but arguably the best form of publicity for individual dealers and state hearing associations. Individual dealers generally advertise either in a local edition of dailies or in local newspaper weekly editions. State hearing associations because of their State wide nature would have access to major dailies, periodicals as well as TV and Radio resources. Every state organization should probably have an easily accessible page on their websites for press releases that media outlets can go to for information. Remember that all media is in need of editorial and that many times they must seek information for publication. There is no reason not to provide good information for the public through the media.

Positive releases can only further the awareness of the local or general public for the benefits that hearing aids provide. There are many caveats associated with press releases however. The most important thing to remember about press releases is that they are a premier marketing tool that can position your practice or state organization the way you want it positioned. We would suggest that if you are not familiar with press releases visit www.press-release-writing.com (they have a free newsletter) or if you need or want a professional organization to do releases for you visit www.prnewswire.com.