Snapchat and Geofilters
Do you think that the latest Internet phenomena, Snapchat, doesn’t have a place in your practice? Think again! Here is your chance to make your marketing fun and even more effective in reaching both parents and their tech-savvy children, your patients, to whom the Internet is already an integral part of their daily lives. Guess what? There’s an app for that! Its name is Snapchat, a mobile app that allows you to send self-destructing pictures and videos. Now you see them, now you don’t.
Is Snapchat just a fad?
If you are still thinking that it is just another, “here today, gone tomorrow” fad, you couldn’t be further from the truth and really need to consider incorporating Snapchat into your marketing program. A large, online independent gadget news and reviews site, Pocket Lint, recently reported that, as early as “May of 2014, its app’s users were sending 700 million snaps a day.” Its use has grown exponentially since that time and there is no end in sight.
What are Snapchat Geofilters?
It’s all about branding, building the name recognition of your practice. Snapchat’s latest addition to this fun way of instant communication is called a geofilter. It is a handy overlay for the snaps that, as of February of this year, were made available for business use. As a branding tool, these geofilters are unbeatable.
Once you create your geofilter, or have one professionally created for you if you don’t have the time or technical acumen, when one of the Snapchat users sends a snap with your overlay imprinted company logo on it, its potential viewership is only limited by your patient population.
Consider the market a single Snapchat with your geofilter can potentially reach. A patient snaps a “selfie”, adds your filter, and makes it available for friends and family to see. Since the filters are both unique and relatively new, the market has yet to be inundated with them. It is an eye-catching way to catch people’s attention!
Who uses Snapchat?
Are any of your patients “millennials” – ages 18 to 34? They comprise a significant segment of the Snapchat users, hundreds of millions every day. Is this a market you can afford to overlook? You can be sure that your competitors will be embracing this new phenomenon soon, if they haven’t already.
Don’t forget any segment of the population in your preparing your Snapchat marketing program. If any portion of your market is today’s youth, you need to get the ball rolling with Snapchat and your custom geofilter. At the same time, you can’t afford not to include the 30% of the older generation who are already using Snapchat as well as the millennials who spend 40% of their time on it.
As previously noted, creating your cutting edge geofilter on your own may not be your “cup of tea.”
Considerations include initial cost, size, orientation (portrait is most effective), pre-testing for visual appearance, visibility and the availability of your logo, and number of pixels, to name just a few. More than you want to tackle? There’s an economical solution.
Snapchat and the geofilters offer you an outstanding way to increase your practice’s visibility in the vast, ever-expanding Internet market. On the cutting edge of today’s Internet technology, we are here to help. Call today and we will have you well on the way to capturing your targeted Snapchat market with your own fun, custom designed geofilter.
