Looking for an October event that raises awareness of your practice, shares the marketing burden, and isn’t expensive to put on? Holding a breast cancer awareness event doesn’t need to be difficult or expensive. Here’s how.
Share The Load With A Partner
Identify your local intimate apparel stores, preferably those that sell high-end bras and perform bra fittings. (Hang tight and we’ll tell you why that’s important later in this post).
- Identify how often each store posts on social media and how many followers they have
- Check out their website(s)
- Do they offer high end bras and other lingerie items?
- Don’t rule out the chain stores!
- One practice did an event with a Macy’s store and another with a non-chain bra store and both were very successful, so don’t rule out the chain stores.
- Call the store and speak with the manager or owner
- Tell them you have an inexpensive October event idea for mutual benefit
- Set a meeting with the owner or manager
Your Goal Is To Hold A Beautiful Breast Event With A Bra Store During The Month Of October
- Mutual Benefit is key
- You will each market the event to your database via social media, eblast announcements, in-office/store signage, and flyers to customers
- You will each offer benefits to those who attend
- “That night only” prices on lingerie and aesthetician services
- Door prizes
- Breast self-examination brochures
- Your presentation about breast procedures (aug, reduction, lift)
- Their presentation about bra construction, fitting, etc.
- If you involve your breast implant rep, they might provide food and beverage for the event
- Consider making a donation to a breast cancer charity for each surgery you book from attendees at this event
- Don’t forget to approach local media (newspapers, TV, radio, etc) for coverage, especially if you’re raising money for cancer research
You Want The Store To Be The Location For The Event
- Logical location for bra fittings and a discount on that night’s purchases
- Exposure
- Daily foot traffic means many women will see event signage in the store
- You will each offer benefits to those who attend
- Store owner/manager should ask mall management to do some of the marketing (website event notification, posters in the mall, etc)
- Women visiting the mall on the night of the event will boost attendance, even if they knew nothing about the event in advance
- Be sure to emphasize these mutual benefits with the store owner/manager
- Staffing
- You won’t need to pay overtime to your staff to attend, as the bra store staff will be there to help, since the store will already be open
Future Opportunities Between Your Practice & The Bra/Lingerie Store
- Reciprocal Relationship
- You offer a discount to their customer base for services at your practice
- They offer a discount to your customer base for retail purchases
- Ask them to sell you one bra at a deep discount for each of your breast surgery patients
- You create cards that say: “Your first postop bra is our gift to you”
- Give a card postop to each breast surgery patient.
- Patient goes to bra store, gets a free first postop bra and the store bills your practice
- This is a boon for the store, as the patient will likely buy several bras to fit her new breast size/position
The Bottom Line
You can create both a present and future profitable relationship with a local business with this October event. The time you spend putting this together might reward your practice for many years.