This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Alcon helps providers increase their online presence
ATLANTA – Alcon is focused on creating innovative partnerships with patients, eye care professionals and students and with organizations that share the company’s passion for eye care, Jonathan Balch, who heads U.S. contact lens marketing at Alcon, said at a company-sponsored press conference here at SECO.
The company has rolled out an eye care provider (ECP) marketing portal for access to information on contact lens products, he said.
AlconODMarketing.com uses Alcon’s expertise from e-marketing and direct-to-consumer advertising and brings the guidance, resources and tools for leverage in ECP offices, Balch added.
“This is a real step to helping offices better communicate and market their practices,” he said.
The marketing portal includes educational images, training for doctors and their staff and tools to enhance their online presence, he said.
“Helping doctors increase their online presence is the biggest request from our customers,” he said.
Brand logos, generic product photography, social media posts and lifestyle photography are included.
The company will receive immediate feedback from customers about what they love and want to improve and update, he added.
“There is also direction on what a positive online presence looks like and how to engage and find patients,” Balch said.
Alcon’s marketing program to make daily disposable lenses accessible and affordable for more patients, launched in 2016, has been “wildly successful,” he said.
“We are able to reach consumers or patients who are interested in eye care in a directed and targeted way where they are already being active online. It allows an efficiency that 3 or 4 years ago would have been impossible,” he said. “This has been incredibly effective.”
“We are driving 15,000 visits to the Dailies Choice website per day and we’ve driven 150,000 downloads of the rebates to date, and the redemption rate is increasing by the week,” he reported.
Nearly all of Alcon’s rebate processes have moved online, which ECPs and consumer prefer, he said.
“Practitioners can recommend daily and monthly modalities that are now accessible to their patients,” he said.
“It also gives us an advantage, as we now know what is working and what is not in real-time,” he concluded. – by Abigail Sutton
Disclosure: Balch is employed by Alcon.