I opened a new eye care practice a year ago and things are going well. We take the mobile phone number of every new patient. What’s the best way to send marketing material to our existing patients and is there a way of reaching people who aren’t yet our patients?

Marketing for small businesses can be expensive and also not productive.

I am considering using a company that specialises in SMS marketing. All mobile phones are SMS enabled and there is a 98% open rate. Far more than email or other forms of electronic communication.

For small batches of simple SMS messages, an in-practice self-service online platform is available while the company can handle larger batches, surveys, and feedback questionnaires.

It is easy to send simple SMS relating to special offers, new frames, and appointment reminders to patients for whom you have mobile phone numbers in your database. But, very cleverly, SMS communications can be sent to people in your locality even when you don’t have their mobile phone numbers.

The SMS marketing company works with mobile providers and can target mobile phones connected to individual masts. What a great way of targeting people who live and/or work near your practice. You can even request the area you want the texts to be sent.

Additional engagement can be driven from within the message itself with click-throughs to web pages. You can track link clicks and page views for clear reporting on effectiveness.

The SMS marketing company provides a service that is hosted, designed, developed, and supported by them.

This system beats sending emails and certainly beats hand delivering practice marketing material by hand to people’s houses which is what I did when I first opened my practice.