IcareLabs Blog

Looking to grow your business? You might want to consider focusing a portion of your selling floor to the millennials. After all, in a few years they will be the majority of the population and more of your target market.

Let’s look at how millennials, a.k.a. ‘Gen Y’, shops and buys today and what you can do to sell to them.

Let's start with a definition: people born between 1981 – 1997 who have grown up on the Internet. This represents about 75-80 million young people, nearly one quarter of the total population of America.

Blue light and the health hazards of HEV, High Energy Visible light, have become available to ECPs wherever they turn. They find information in the industry news media, class credit articles, seminars, conventions and on the Internet when looking up vision health concerns. It is everywhere.

Even though the industry may be aware of the HEV health concerns, the general public may not be. This is the reason every vision health professional should make HEV part of the discussion with every patient. It is our job to educate and inform our patients of the dangers of HEV.

What is blue light?

The spectrum of natural sunlight includes the high-energy wavelength that humans are attuned to. It affects our sleep cycle, alertness, mood, cognitive functions and sense of wellbeing. Depending on the study³, there is a range in the blue portion of the light spectrum that has hazardous affects. The peak threshold of the blue color cone photoreceptors is 463mm, with a range of 400-500 nm. They can penetrate into the eye causing retinal damage, which is cumulative.

There is an abundance of research available on how taking vitamin and mineral supplements to improve our health and energy level. One issue that is of particular interest to eye care professionals is improving eye health through supplements. And, one question that keeps coming up is how can supplementation help with eye health overall. There are some eyeglass stores that promote eye health supplements to their patients. If you don’t, perhaps this information will be helpful and might inspire you to do some research on your own.

It All Starts With A Healthy Diet

As the name itself implies, taking supplements are to go along with a healthy diet. No amount of dietary supplementation can provide all the nutrition a body needs to be healthy. Poor diets and unreasonable amounts of junk food are associated with many serious health issues, including vision loss. On the other hand, there is some research that indicates certain vitamins and nutrients can be beneficial for maintaining eye health and good vision.

As you review an organization, look into what have they done within your local community. Prevent Blindness.org is a national non-profit organization that has coordinated events, medical information and collateral to help your business bring attention to a good cause. There are opportunities for you to promote support for Prevent Blindness. Your office can show your customers that you are supporting their community. Find out through local organizations, churches or schools what local need there is to help.

Other states passed laws previously forbidding Managed Care Insurance Companies requiring eye doctors to use their labs. Now, Texas joined them in June, 2015 as Texas Governor, Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 684 (Click here) into law.

This Texas law allows private optometric practioners to fulfil patient’s eyeglass prescription for their lab of choice, instead of being forced to use the managed vision care company lab. The law goes into effect in September 2015. Contracts entered into or renewed on September 1, 2015 and after the date will be covered by this law.

Marketing for ECPs (Part 2)

If you’re an eye doctor or an optician, you probably did a lot of studying about eyes, optometry, chemistry, biology, anatomy and biochemistry. However, if you’re like most eye care professionals (and other doctors, chiropractors, pharmacists, lawyers, etc.), you may have only had one or two marketing classes.

So, you’re an expert at taking care of people’s vision. But, how do you get patients in the door? Where do you get marketing ideas for eye doctors, opticians and optical stores? Where do you learn about marketing for eye doctors?

This series of articles contains excerpts from our e-book entitled, "Marketing Boot Camp for Eye Care Professionals." For more information, click here.

Optical Sales Coach: Speak Human!

As part of my position here at IcareLabs, I enjoy visiting with many of our eye doctors, opticians and optical store staff. Often, I am asked for advice in improving optical sales while balancing professionalism. We are a medical-driven industry and how we handle sales is important.

Marketing for ECPs (Part 1)

If you’re an eye doctor or an optician, you probably did a lot of studying about eyes, optometry, chemistry, biology, anatomy and biochemistry. However, if you’re like most eye care professionals (and other doctors, chiropractors, pharmacists, lawyers, etc.), you may have only had one or two marketing classes.

So, you’re an expert at taking care of people’s vision. But, how do you get patients in the door? Where do you get marketing ideas for eye doctors, opticians and optical stores? Where do you learn about marketing for eye doctors?

This series of articles contains excerpts from our e-book entitled, "Marketing Boot Camp for Eye Care Professionals." For more information, click here.

At IcareLabs, we get many questions from our eye care professionals about how to increase their bottom line. We’ve been providing quality prescription lenses and eyeglasses as an independent optical lab since 1968. Here are some basic ideas we’ve observed over the years on how to increase revenue in your optical store.