Planning, Marketing and Executing a Successful Optometry Trunk Show Event

Member Spotlight: Accent Eyewear

As an eye care practice operating in today’s fast-paced, on-the-go environment, it can be difficult to stay engaged with patients beyond their annual exam, let alone get them to engage with you!

That’s why the team at Accent Eyewear in Hillsboro, OR decided to host an end-of-year trunk show to stay top-of-mind for current patients and showcase their current frame board, reach potential new patients as well as generate additional revenue for the practice.

Planning the Event

We started planning in July of 2019,” explained Brenda Buchanan, Practice Administrator, “although the real work didn’t start until September.

“We selected our participating vendors in September (we always try to reach out 12 weeks before the event), and chose Etnia Barcelona and Shwood to bring into our office to showcase and sell frames to patients during the event. We always ask our participating vendors, both frame and lens vendors, to donate to our raffle. We offered two grand prizes this year which consisted of a complete pair of glasses for each winner.”

“In October, we worked with a local graphic artist to create fliers and postcards. We ordered the materials from a local printer and started our social media campaign,” added Brent Jacobs.

“Then in November, we started handing out fliers to patients at dispense, mailing postcards to select key patients, and mass e-mailing our patient base.”

“In December, Dr. Ashley Hibbert created content and posted on social media daily, and sent a show reminder e-mail the day before the event,” Brent explained.

Marketing the Event

“Our advice to other PECAA Members is that you need to have a solid plan of attack for marketing! Marketing to current patients also drew in additional individuals to the event because they bring people with them,” explained Brenda.

Accent Eyewear followed this marketing schedule:

Pre-Event:

  • Passed out fliers to patients at dispense
  • Two month pre-event social media post
  • One month pre-event social media post
  • Two week pre-event social media post
  • Daily social media posts the week of the event
  • Mass e-mail to patients two weeks before the event using Weave
  • Mass e-mail to patients the night before the event using Weave

Post-Event:

  • Sent thank you cards to all attendees after the event

“For our next event, we’d like to focus more marketing efforts on our patients that did not
purchase eyewear with us that came in for an exam in the last quarter,”
Brenda added.

Executing the Event

The Accent Eyewear team estimated that over 175 individuals attended the event, which ran from 9:00am – 4:00pm.

“The response was incredibly positive,” Brent explained. “It was a party atmosphere and patients were happy.”

The entire team got jazzed up about the event, with Dr. Ashley Hibbert and Dr. Bobin Mont both baking cookies to add to the raffle prizes.

“One thing we’d like to focus on for our next event is the workflow. Because of the amount of people that showed up to the event, patients did have long wait periods to try to see the optician. Next time, we plan to cross-train staff to take measurements and collect fees to help with the coordination of patients,” added Brenda.

The trunk show was a huge success – the event doubled in sales any previous trunk show Accent Eyewear has hosted.

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