Marketing

Demonstrate Safety Features When Marketing Sports Eyewear

By Keshav Bhat, OD

Did you know accidents involving common household products cause 125,000 eye injuries each year? Every 13 minutes, an emergency room treats a sports-related eye injury. And, 43 percent of sports-related eye injuries are to children ages 14 and younger, according to the National Eye Institute (NEI) at the National Institutes of Health. Here are some other facts from the NEI that you can use to help educate your patients about why their family needs protective sports eyewear.

With an estimated 30+ million children ages 5-18 playing organized sports, and parents spending upwards of $5 billion a year on their involvement (excluding gas and travel expenses, estimated at another $7 billion), marketing your eyecare practice to tomorrow’s sports heroes is a great approach.

Positioning yourself as a “sports eyewear provider” means placing your office front-and-center in the minds of parents and your local sports community, and can be accomplished with a three-pronged approach:

Get the Facts Out There
To see a child in spectacle correction for the first time may elicit a compliment from friends, but if the same kid shows up for a game with eyeglasses, it may not be received the same way. To help parents prevent this awkward situation, start by educating them on the importance of proper protection.
Here are the facts to pass along to parents:
• Most eye injuries among kids aged 11 to 14 occur while playing sports.
• Each year in the US, more than 100,000 eye injuries are estimated to be sports-related. More than 42,000 of these sports-related eye injuries require a visit to an emergency room.
• One-third of sports-related eye injuries involve children.
• Sports such as baseball, basketball, soccer, softball, wrestling, volleyball and gymnastics lag far behind in injury protection for girls and boys.
• The leading cause of sports-related eye injuries among 15- to 24-year-olds is basketball.
• Sports-related eye injuries cost $175 million to $200 million a year.
• Hockey face protectors have saved society $10 million a year.
• Use of protective eyewear can decrease insurance costs.

Share this expertise with your patients, and inform them about the importance of wearing eye protection.

Work with All Influencers
Coaches, parents and the athletes themselves all need to hear from you on this issue. When you get each audience talking about eye protection, you’re going to start a discussion about why every athlete needs to be wearing it. Do an extra-special job of catering to the specific interests of each audience.

A reasonable knowledge of sportswear features comes in handy.

• Discuss with athletes how most sport frames can accommodate both prescription and non-prescription lenses. Sport frames are constructed of highly impact-resistant plastic or polycarbonate, and most come with rubber padding to cushion the frame where it comes in contact with the head or the nose area.
Some sports styles are contoured, wrapping slightly around the face. This type of goggle works well for biking, hang-gliding and sailing. Contact lens wearers, especially, benefit from the wraparound style, as it helps keep out wind and dust.

Click HERE for an excellent guide on selecting the right sports eyewear

•Coaches always want to keep their best players healthy and on the field, so talk about the importance of protective eyewear with this group. This audience also needs to be aware of the performance-enhancing properties of a sports goggles.

•School administrators enjoy keeping their schools out of the “bad news” category. Show them how making sports goggles mandatory can save their school from the headaches of lawsuits and other expenditures.

Understand and Leverage Annual Media Triggers
Here’s another opportunity for you to capitalize on your knowledge.

Offer yourself up as an expert when youth sports begin, or whenever you hear a story about a local or national sports injury. When such events occur, the media is always clamoring for a local angle. Be that expert people want to hear from.

•To find starting times for leagues near you, visit http://www.eteamz.com/ for a directory of leagues in a variety of sports throughout the country.

No kid wants to go through school looking like a 1970s-era hockey star, and no parent wants see their child hurt or injured. You can help your child look stylish while keeping their eyes safe. As they say in the Nike commercial, “Just do it.”

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