Make Brands Visible and Leverage Their Power
 Brands are all around but that doesn’t mean that consumers understand what that brand really stands for and the power that it might have. To leverage the power of brands, make the brand real, make it visible, use displays at point of purchase, have sufficient inventory (critical mass), use logos on ads and direct mail, put signage in windows and on doors and link it to SOUND BYTES with training.


Add the Things that Make Brands Real
If selling a high fashion name like Versace, have vendor approved materials, designed to tie in and leverage the power of the brand to dress the window along with frames. Be sure that the material is up to date for images and models. Refresh the displays continuously and tie them to that designer’s campaigns. Make the brand real with items that are a signature of the brand.

Use Manufacturer Logos
Successful logos have characteristics that make them popular and memorable. Use them like sound bytes. Make them visible and representative of the products and designers that are most popular. Use branded products that enhance differentiation and add to the timelessness of the product lines so that they are long lived. Successful logos stand the test of time: they look fresh and attractive and give a distinctive feel to a company’s image. Also, if the brands carried are not able to evoke emotion, they will be meaningless to patients. Successful brands evoke desired images in a patient’s mind. That’s the power of a brand.

Displays and Point of Sales
Place displays in strategic spots to enhance and freshen the appearance of the office. They also grab a patient’s attention or can be referred to when they are making an eyewear purchase. For example, a display with a sample AR or polarized lens helps to demonstrate the benefits and enhance the eyewear for the patient. This is important especially with new staff since they don’t always know or remember all things that a patient may benefit from and this gets attention and acts as a reminder.

Brand Signage
Include brand signage on doors, in ads and collateral that communicates with patients. Using a powerful brand’s signage identifies the office as a source for that brand and adds significantly to the marketing of the practice. Since every practice loses patients each year (almost 19% of the population relocates each year) and most patients live or work very close to the practice, those lost must be replaced. All forms of visibility are important and the use of brand signage lets new people in the area identify your office for the brands you carry. The quickest, easiest and most economical way to attract new customers is with signage.

Sound Bytes
Build a library of sound bytes that cover frame and lens brands. Have a contest in the office for the best sound bytes. Reward staff with bites (lunch) for bytes. Assign each staff member a brand, material, design, treatment, lens, etc. and the task to create a short, memorable and fun sound byte. Record and print them on cards, post them on cabinets and reward staff again when you catch them using it and it results in sales as well as the patient benefiting from it. Sound bytes operate for other brands.

Virtually everyone loses his or her intermediate. The fun is explaining how to give it back in progressives or near variable focus lenses. The original sound byte “We have new no-line bifocals for all distance vision” is now taken for granted but still works.

Teaching the Use of Sound Bytes
 With a toolbox filled with brand power and all mouths filled with sound bytes, training staff is critical so that the implementation is more successful than expected. Practice and role-play brand and product sound bytes. Critique each other about what was said after patients leave. Adopt the attitude that the end product i.e., the patient’s eye health, eye care and eyewear is what’s important. That way, you can have fun introducing this new technique of optical sound bytes.

In-Store Events
In-store events help put some mystery into your business and certainly increase sales. It adds excitement to staff and patient alike. It also gets you closer with vendors and that’s important because a store constantly needs to bring new items to its customers. Be sure to link all the facets of the event together i.e., enough staff, vendor reps, advertising, space, and the point of sale and sound bytes needed to talk professionally. Make it personal by calling those customers or patients that are well known. Every office staff member has special customers in mind.

Linking
Lastly, be sure that the timing and actions of everything done that affects patients, links together the right brands, logos, displays and training. That means ad campaigns, direct mail; recall cards or ads placed in the yellow pages, the sound bytes and the training about them are thought of as the links of a chain. Each relies on the other for the total strength. Contact your vendor for the latest collateral and possibly hold a trunk show.







Verification Steps
ANSI Z80.1 — 2005
American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is a private, nonprofit organization that administers and coordinates voluntary standardization guidelines for a large number of industries. The Z80.1 committee is made up of a group of optical and ophthalmic organizations and associations and the government. It works to ensure that an agreed standard is provided to protect the patient yet able to be manufactured economically.

This is a summary of the principal optical and geometrical tolerances, ANSI Z80.1-2005, American National Standard for Ophthalmics—Prescription Ophthalmic Lenses. The full version of this document is available online and can be purchased from the ANSI eStandards Store.

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