The first trunk show I ever saw was a disaster. During my first year of optometry school, I was working as an optician at an older optical in the Chicago Loop. With very minimal marketing to announce the event, the rep of an obscure frame line came to the office at 10:00 a.m. and proceeded to sit in the corner with her frame trays. She nibbled on some food with the staff and then packed up her cart early and left without a single frame being sold.
If you’re having a show, then put on a show! Make your office look festive with balloons, music or flowers—whatever will create a nice, relaxed, fun mood that’s a little different from the usual.
Unfortunately, this awkward and non-productive exercise is exactly what a lot of optometrists think of when they hear the words “trunk show.” Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. Trunk shows can be exciting events that both the patients and the staff look forward to having. And more importantly, they can be very profitable.
Don’t be confined by the mental image of a “trunk show.” There are many ways to have a trunk show. Feel free to make your event as big or crazy as you want, as long as it is consistent with your office mission statement and your event goal.
What is your event goal? Okay, first step back and think of the big picture. What are you trying to accomplish with the event beyond simply selling frames?
As with any event, planning is crucial. Yes, we all get busy, but a show that is thrown together the week before will not be successful. “The key things to keep in mind, like any marketing-related project, are planning and goals,” says Gary Gerber, O.D., of the consulting firm The Power Practice. “Set the goal of what you hope to achieve, and then plan and budget carefully to maximize the odds of hitting those goals.” In fact, planning is so important that some optometrists hire an event planner or public relations firm to help.
You must get the staff excited! They are on the front lines with patients. When they help plan, their enthusiasm will be infectious. Not only will they come up with great ideas, but they also will be more willing to execute them on the big day. Ensure there are people in the office by booking a full schedule of exams; if not as many people attend the show as you initially anticipated, there will still be patients around to fill the room. It also helps to book more optical patients that day while limiting the typical contact lens and medical follow-ups.
Ideally, you want to begin getting the word out about the event at least a month before it happens—which means that you actually need to begin planning three to four months ahead of time. Ask yourself: When is the best time to hold the trunk show? How are you going to brand this event? What kind of budget are you working with? The answers to all of these questions will depend on two factors: your past experiences and your patient base. For example, holding a sunglass show in the spring is a good idea, but holding it during the local school spring break may not be such a good idea.
Partnering With Vendors
Fortunately, you have partners who can help in many ways. When you work with a frame rep to organize the event, you have access to more ideas and resources than you may have on your own. Any seasoned rep has attended both good and bad trunk shows, and has an incentive to make yours a good one.
Top Reasons to Hold a Trunk Show
“One of the main things when doing a trunk show is to get vendor support,” says Kevin Whaley, office manager of The Eye Doctors, in New Tampa, Fla. “Ask your best-selling product vendors if they can provide items you can raffle off or free giveaways like hats, T-shirts, lip balm and pens for a gift with purchase.”
Optometrist Sam Teske, also of The Eye Doctors, agrees. “We used to pay for goodie bags and food. Now we ask the vendors for their support and you’ll be surprised how much they help out,” he says.
Similarly, work with your neighboring businesses by asking them to donate door prizes or offer services. Patients love supporting local small businesses, and the businesses will help spread the word about your event. Everyone wins.
Get the Word Out
You hold a trunk show to benefit your office, but it won’t be successful unless you can make it genuinely appealing to your patients. Think about what they want to get out of it. Sometimes you may want to target “A+ patients” who are loyal and who have spent money on glasses in the past.
Other times you may want to target patients who haven’t purchased in a while and are likely to need glasses now.
Don’t simply put out displays and hope for the best. Be prepared to answer questions and quote prices on the spot. Have vital information at hand and create price list “cheat sheets” ahead of time.
The easiest patients to reach are the ones who are already in your office. Internal advertising is the most direct and cost effective approach. Start by placing flyers and signage at highly visible spots in the office. Also develop a short script that staff can say as patients are scheduling appointments or checking out.
In order to reach as many people as possible and hopefully ensure that your target audience sees the message multiple times, promote the show through multiple channels. While adapting marketing pieces to each channel, try to stay consistent with the theme and feel of show.
• Print ads and postcards. If local print advertising has been effective in the past, consider newspaper or magazine ads. Similarly, direct mail items, such as postcards and newsletters, are often effective. If you want to supplement your current patient base, address lists are available for purchase to very targeted demographics. With all of these, remember to leave enough lead time for both printing and delivery before the show.
We have found that postcards work well when targeted to women between the ages of 20 and 60 who have visited the practice within the last three years. Many people actually bring the postcard with them to the show. Others tell us that it reminded them to make an appointment, even if they couldn’t come to the show. Extra postcards are also great to hand out or bring to networking events. Usually our budget for postcards is less than $500, depending on the reach we are targeting.
• Social networking.
Definitely promote the upcoming show online and email patients as well. Feature the announcement prominently on both your website and your online appointment request system. Drop hints and teases, and follow up with the full invitation on the social networks you use (e.g., Facebook and Twitter). In my office, the blog is truly the core of the online marketing effort, so I always have at least one blog post about the show, including a short YouTube video, with an open invitation to attend.
Why Do Patients Want to Go to a Trunk Show?
• Face-to-face networking. While social networking is valuable, don’t forget good old-fashioned networking. If you are part of any local business associations, Chambers of Commerce or networking groups, invite them to attend and also see if they want to participate in some way.
Additionally, let friends, family, church groups, moms groups, or any other groups of people know about the event. Invite all of the office staff’s family and friends. Having more people always makes a more exciting environment, thereby making it more profitable.
During The Show
Make the place look festive with balloons, music or flowers—whatever will create a nice, relaxed, fun mood that’s a little different from the usual office atmosphere. Providing food isn’t an essential part of the trunk show experience, although coffee and bottled water seem to be well accepted by patients. Because we’re in Florida, we’ve also found that if we have a crowd of people in our office, it gets warm. Adjust the heating or air conditioning appropriately ahead of time.
Ebb and Flow of a Trunk Show
At times, the event will be busy; other times, it will be dead. Your staff should have a plan for the busy time—to take orders quickly, have enough available computers and help patients with their selections. Use your rep to help show frames, but leave the lens selection to the staff. Also have a plan for the slow times—process earlier orders, clean up and rotate staff breaks.
Ideas to Make a Trunk Show More Fun
Have vital information prepared ahead of time: How do you price frames that you’ve never carried in stock? How do you calculate a discounted price quickly? Make up cheat sheets! Sometimes the frame rep can send price lists ahead of time, and you can make up a spreadsheet with wholesale, retail and discounted prices. Also make up a cheat sheet for quick pricing of lenses.
Remember, patients usually won’t be able to take home the frame from the rep’s case (some exceptions for sunglasses), so frames will need to be ordered after the event. Consider having the rep provide goodie bags so patients can leave with something to take home!
Continue the Success
Just because everyone has gone home and you’ve cleaned up the cups and plates around the office, it doesn’t mean that you’re all done. You don’t want to spoil the success of the event by having something go wrong with your patient’s order—so have a plan. Your staff will (hopefully) be ordering a lot of frames, and mistakes can happen. It helps to have frames drop-shipped from the manufacturer to the lab, but your staff will need to be organized and work with the frame rep to ensure this happens correctly.
Continue promoting the event even after it’s over. Have doctors and staff talk up what a good time it was, and how the local businesses and vendors all participated. Make online announcements about the winners of the contests. And, most importantly, share the best pictures of the evening.
Finally, start planning your next event. Have at least the date and theme of your next event and start promoting it soon!
Dr. Bonilla-Warford is in private practice in Tampa, Fla., specializing in vision therapy and orthokeratology. He frequently lectures and writes about social media in eye care. Find ways to connect at
http://about.me/NateBW.
