Three options. Only one actually works for your business.
Specsavers wins on logistics. The independent wins on clinical depth.
Independent optometry practices fight on two fronts: a bulk-bill eye-exam base that pays the rent but lock-steps with Medicare-rebate economics, and a higher-margin clinical specialty business (myopia management, dry eye clinic, OCT-led glaucoma monitoring, paediatric optometry) that's where the actual growth lives. Specsavers and OPSM dominate the first front through scale; you dominate the second through clinical depth. The marketing job is to defend the bulk-bill base while building the specialty side, simultaneously. Almost nobody does both because the work that grows specialty (clinical content, paid acquisition for myopia management, OCT explainer videos) is the work the principal optom can't do at 6pm after a 12-exam day.
Good optometry marketing has three layers: a Google profile and SEO base that wins 'optometrist near me' searches in your immediate catchment (you're not going to outrank Specsavers, but you can sit in the map pack), a clinical-specialty page library that wins 'myopia management [suburb]', 'dry eye clinic [suburb]' and 'paediatric optometrist [suburb]' searches, and a frames-and-lenses conversion environment (post-exam emails, lens-upgrade explainers, frame-styling content) that lifts the exam-to-frames spend. Each one is independent of the others; you need all three running for the practice to grow.
Six agents, working in your accounts.
Account Lead, Web, SEO, Advertising, Social Media, and Content. One platform, one bill, you approve the work.
Sets the plan around two parallel tracks: defending the bulk-bill exam base in the map pack and growing the clinical-specialty revenue (myopia management, dry eye clinic, paediatric). Briefs the other agents so the specialty pages, the high-intent ads, the clinical authority content and the exam-to-frames conversion all push toward each track's growth, not toward Specsavers-style broad acquisition you can't win.
Imports your existing site, ships a clinical-specialty-plus-suburb page library, builds a proper online booking flow that captures appointment type (general exam, myopia consultation, dry eye assessment), and keeps the optometrist bios and specialty pages up to date with one-tap uploads from the practice.
Owns whether you appear in the map pack for 'optometrist near me' and the clinical-specialty searches. Complete Google Business Profile, specialty-page schema, review prompts after every exam, and the technical fixes that keep you indexed. Auto-applies low-risk fixes like services lists and category corrections.
Runs Google Ads on the clinical-specialty searches (myopia management, dry eye, paediatric optometry) where Specsavers doesn't compete. A small Meta retargeting layer catches parents browsing myopia content who haven't booked. Never bids on 'cheap glasses' or 'eye test' broad terms; the budget isn't there to win those.
Turns every consented clinical moment into a post in your voice: a myopia-progression update, a dry eye explainer, an OCT-led glaucoma case, an ortho-K success. Builds the clinical authority that justifies the specialty pricing and the frames-and-lenses upsell. You snap a practice photo with consent, agent drafts the caption, you approve.
Drafts the longer-form pieces parents and patients search for: 'is myopia management worth it', 'difference between an eye exam and an OCT scan', 'when should a child have their first eye test'. Two a month, in your voice, that pull the consideration-stage search and convert the parent-of-myopia-child into a high-value patient.
Your first 30 days.
- Existing Squarespace site imported, legacy hosting torn down, Optomate or Sunix booking widget re-embedded
- Two-track plan set by Sam: bulk-bill map-pack defence plus myopia management and dry-eye specialty growth
- Google Business Profile primary category corrected to Optometrist, services expanded from 5 to 20 including OCT and behavioural optometry
- Myopia management, dry eye clinic and paediatric optometry clinical-specialty pages indexed and ranking
- Back-to-school paediatric optometry calendar push staged for the January and February intake
- Behavioural optometry suburb pages live in the postcodes with the most parent-search volume
- Post-exam frames-and-lenses follow-up sequence wired into Optomate or Sunix, conversion visible in practice reports
- Consented myopia-progression and dry-eye case-study Reels queued in the optometrist's voice
An independent optometry practice grows by being a clinician where Specsavers is a logistics company. The marketing that actually delivers this builds the specialty page library, the high-intent ad layer for myopia management and dry eye, the consented clinical content that demonstrates the depth, and the exam-to-frames conversion environment. All of it is weekly work that has to happen forever and almost nobody does it.
Agencies are too dear to actually do this work for $4k a month. Tools are cheap but the new-patient ad you mean to launch sits in your Asana for a year. In-House is the third option: for $299 a month the agents ship the specialty pages, run the high-intent ads, post the consented clinical content, and convert the exam into the frames sale. You snap one practice photo, approve the week, done.