IT SEEMS LIKE 2024 has been the year of explosive artificial intelligence (AI). One cannot open social media, YouTube, or legacy news sources without hearing something about AI. But AI isn’t new—it’s been around for decades. It has become part of our daily lives. Smartphones, car GPS, desktop automated music players, and virtual voice assistants like Alexa all facilitate the use of AI. But, for ECPs, the new normal is making AI work to connect your contact lens patients to your practice.

Marketing has multiple components, but perhaps the most important is to remind patients of those things at which you excel. Remind them of updates throughout the year. That way, when it’s time for an encounter, no one is surprised by the new widget or gizmo that you have in your office. The best way to do this is through email newsletters.

While you may not read all of the newsletters that come to you, many patients open them. If the newsletter’s open rate is only 10% and you email 3,000 patients, you have a chance of impacting 300 people. While the content of your newsletter is key, it’s more important that your patients see you communicating with them. Consider garnering their attention several times a year to keep them thinking of you. Seeing your name quarterly or monthly, even if they do not open your newsletter, reminds them of your services.

WHAT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR EMAIL

Consider giving an AI tool a prompt such as this:

“We are a multi-office eye clinic in Anytown, USA, called ABC Eyecare. We pride ourselves in enriching patients’ lives so that they can fulfill their greatest potential. Our key values are generosity, initiative, faithfulness, teamwork, and simplicity, and we want our patients to understand who we are. Our target demographic is mothers of children in grammar and middle school, although we help members of the whole family. Write a single-page newsletter aimed at patients that focuses on three key areas we are highlighting this quarter: the benefit of daily disposable contact lenses, how custom created contact lenses can revolutionize how you see and feel in lenses, and how myopia management is an important issue that parents may not be aware of, but one that we specialize in. Ask the patients call our office at (555) 867-5309 or visit our website—ABCeyecare.com—to schedule an appointment.”

Feel free to copy and paste this text, then modify the prompt as you see fit to match your practice and what you want to share with your patients. Once you have the newsletter, the work is not done. Although AI is great, it is not human. You must read through the newsletter and have one to two people in the office read it as well. Use this as a template and add/subtract from the newsletter as you see fit to make it more personalized, but let AI help you get started.

Consider providing special offers through your practice’s newsletter. Make sure to inform patients that your office provides promotions in these emails, which will encourage them to open the newsletters.

THE VERDICT

AI should only aid you in the things that you do in life. It is no substitute for the real connection that you have with patients, but if it can get you started on a journey to inform them of new innovations, healthier habits, and trends, then shouldn’t we make it the new normal?

Mile Brujic, OD, FAAO, is a partner of Premier Vision Group, a four-location optometric practice in Northwest Ohio. He is a stock shareholder or owner of EyePromise, Percept, and Radius XR. He has received remuneration from Apellis, ABB Optical, Aldeyra, Allergan, Art Optical, Avellino, Bausch + Lomb Health, Contamac, CSEye, Dompé, Horizon Therapeutics, Notal Vision, Quidel, Radius XR, RVL, Sun Pharma, Tarsus, Visus, Visionix, Walman Optical, Thea, Viatris, and ZeaVision. He has educational grants or contracts with Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Dompé, Lumenis, Thea, and Trukera Medical.

DAVID L. KADING, OD, FAAO, owns several practices in the Seattle area. He has consulted, performed research, and spoken and/or written for Alcon, Allergan, Avellino, Bausch + Lomb, BioTissue, CooperVision, Dompé, Eyevance, Eye Promise, Euclid, Horizon, Lumenis, Oculaphire, Orasis, Oculus, Medmont, Novartis, Sun Pharma, JnJ TearScience, Thea, Trukera Medical, Valley Contax, Visus Therapeutics, and Zeiss.