marketing matters

Health Fairs Step-by-Step

by Karlen McLean, ABOC, NCLC

Participating in local or regional health fairs can ramp up a practice's visibility in the community and therefore increase profits through helping others. The staff of Wilson Eye Center in Valdosta, Ga., finds quite a benefits in a health fair, note operations manager Shirley Enfinger, LDO, and marketing director Heather Gaskins.

■ Seeing people who may or may not have a routine eyecare provider and those who may not have the finances to visit a practitioner to start routine eyecare.
■ Targeting a lot of people in a short amount of time with little cost involved for the community, organizations, and companies.
■ Getting answers to questions regarding vision or medical questions for patients outside of the office between normal visits.
■ Building and growth experience for staff members outside of the everyday routine.
■ Increasing awareness of what the practice offers.
■ Growing the number of patients who use the practice.

PLANNING

The steps in planning for a health fair include:

1 Scouting the location for the health fair to determine how to organize your participation. "Is it at a hospital, manufacturing plant, school, or non-profit organization?" Gaskins queries. "By determining this we know our target audience. For example, if it's a manufacturing plant, we plan to take, along with auto refraction and NCT screenings, safety glasses and OSHA and other related materials. For a community health fair geared toward families, we take auto refraction and NCT along with brochures pertaining to school-age children's vision and eye disease pamphlets."

2 Researching the number of participants the health fair had in previous years or finding out how many people are expected to attend. The number of attendees determines what screening and testing practice staff is able to do in the allotted timeframe.

3 Determining your draws. In other words, deciding how to get people to and involved at your booth. Draws include:

■ LITERATURE: Brochures placed on the front table with staff conversing with attendees. "Ask questions such as when their last eye exam was performed, if there are any eye health disease that run in their family, or if they'd like to sit for a free auto refraction and glaucoma check," Enfinger advises.
■ DECORATION: Have attention grabbers to attract visitors, such as balloons, flowers, and ribbons that also make your booth attractive and appealing.
■ PROMOTIONAL ITEMS: Offer handouts, such as toys for a school health fair or calculators and pens for a business health fair, as well as practice-related handouts such as magnets, mugs, and cleaning cloths with the practice's information.
■ PRIZES: Offer contests, such as drawings and raffle prizes. "The raffle ticket give away prompts people to stop and register with us," Gaskins says. "For summer, we offer a prize basket containing a pair of sunglasses, a beach towel, water bottle, and other accessories."
■ REPAIRS: Feature a booth section offering free minor repairs and adjustments for eyewear.
■ INSURANCE: "If the health fair is held or attended by a certain company, then we determine our healthcare benefits to better answer their questions about their insurance," Enfinger adds.

COSTS

Cost to the practice depends on the crowd the health fair is targeting. Generally, health fair booths are available at no charge.

One major plus about health fairs is that limited budgets don't mean limited success if you draw on internal and external resources, plan ahead, and think creatively.

Prior to health fair participation, the practice should have considered these expenses:

1 Handout costs (e.g., pens, calculators, coffee cups, cleaning cloths, eyewear repair kits, magnets, and candy). Include ancillary give-away costs, such as gift bags.

2 Contest prize costs—grand prize and other awards.

3 Cost of transporting equipment, ancillaries, and staff to the event. If staff is being paid to man the booth during the event, include those costs.

"Staffing depends on the size of the health fair, but our staffing average is four staff members in the morning and four in the afternoon," Enfinger says. "We choose our energetic and professional staff to work the fair." Morning staff could be in charge of booth set-up and afternoon staff could be in charge of break-down.

4 Ancillary staff costs, like uniforms or t-shirts, nametags, meals and refreshments, parking, and transportation reimbursements.

5 Cost of renting a table, tablecloths, chairs, wastebasket, and other furnishings if the practice can't use its own. Also consider additional setup item costs like electric cords, surge protectors, tape, and staplers.

6 Printing costs for banners, signage, and brochures. Also printing costs for press release, evaluation, and other forms, follow-up letters and postage. EB