Buena Vista Optical opened its doors on February 14, 2005—Valentine’s Day—which is a fitting date because our practice has been a labor of love from that first day. We chose a community on the south side of Chicago that was dear to our hearts and deeply underserved in eye care. It’s a largely Spanish-speaking neighborhood where patients had nowhere to go for eye care that truly spoke to them, in every sense. We grew steadily, our schedule stayed full, and we never spent a single dollar on paid advertising. Not one.

Then, for the first time in 2 decades, the schedule softened and we noticed the landscape had changed around us. There was more competition, more noise, and more channels competing for patients’ attention, so we did what any practice that has survived 20 years learns to do: We adapted.

This article is about everything we do to grow eye exams and eyewear sales at Buena Vista Optical: the strategies that have worked for 20 years, and the new ones we have added as the world around us evolves. Some of them cost nothing, and some require investment, but all of them require intention.

Your Website Is Your First Impression—Make It Count

In today’s world, a patient’s first encounter with your practice rarely begins at your front desk. It begins online. Before someone picks up the phone or walks through your door, they have already visited your website, scrolled through your social media, and read your reviews. By the time they reach you, they have already decided whether you feel like their kind of place.

That is why our website is not simply a digital brochure. Rather, it is a reflection of who we are, who we serve, and what patients can expect when they come see us. The design aligns with our warm, community-rooted, and bilingual brand identity, the copy speaks directly to our patient community, and every page has a clear call to action: Book an appointment. Not someday; now.

For any practice looking to strengthen their new patient flow, your website is the place to start. Ask yourself honestly: If a stranger landed on your homepage right now, would they know immediately who you are, who you serve, and how to reach you? If the answer is anything less than yes, that is your first opportunity.

Recalls: The Patients You Already Have Are Your Greatest Asset

It is far easier to retain a patient than to find a new one. We invest in staying connected to the people who have already trusted us with their eye care through a layered recall system that uses email and text messaging, and staff writes handwritten thank-you cards after a purchase.

Those emails and texts keep us efficient and timely. They remind patients when they are due for an exam, alert them when a new specialty service has arrived, and complete follow-ups after visits. However, in a world of automation, our handwritten notes stand out. Patients save them. They mention them. They come back because of them.

Recalls are not just a scheduling tool; they are also a relationship tool. Every touchpoint after a visit is an opportunity to remind patients that we are thinking about them, not just their prescription.

Social Media: Show Up Before They Need You

Social media has become one of the most consistent ways we stay visible to both current patients and potential new ones. We regularly share educational content, showcase our frame collections, and highlight the services that make our practice unique on Google, Facebook, and Instagram.

We’ve also found that one of the most effective tools in our social media strategy is going live. There is something about live video that cuts through the noise in a way that static posts simply cannot. When a new frame collection arrives, we add a new service, or we want to introduce wearable technology or a new lens option, we go live. Patients tune in to ask questions in real time and they feel like they are in the practice with us.

Social media done well is not about selling. It is about showing up consistently so that when someone in your community needs an eye doctor, your practice is already familiar to them. You are not a stranger. You are the practice they have been following for months.

Community Presence and Physician Partnerships

Some of the most meaningful patient relationships we have built began not inside our practice but in the community around it. We participate in local health care fairs where we offer complimentary vision screenings and educate community members about the importance of eye health. These events introduce our practice to people who might never have searched for us online, and they give our community opportunities to meet us first as neighbors, rather than as a business.

We have also developed referral partnerships with local family physicians. Primary care doctors see patients every day who need an eye exam but have not yet made the connection. When those physicians trust us enough to send their patients our way, it is because we have invested in that relationship and demonstrated the quality of care their patients will receive. Community presence and physician partnerships require more time than financial investment, but the return is patients who arrive with a strong foundation of trust because they were referred by a provider they already know.

Inside the Practice: Where Education Becomes Opportunity

Once a patient walks through our door, the experience itself becomes the most powerful tool we have. Two strategies in particular have made a measurable difference in how patients engage with our services and eyewear.

The first is our waiting room video loop. Rather than leaving patients to sit in silence or scroll their phones, we play a curated stream of educational content on our waiting room television. These are short videos that explain what happens during a comprehensive eye exam, as well as introductions to the frame brands we carry, spotlights onspecialty services like myopia management, and patient-friendly explanations of common vision conditions. By the time a patient reaches the exam room or the optical, they are already informed and curious. Conversations happen more naturally and our recommendations land with more context.

Our second strategy for patient engagement is the Vision Report—a printed, full-color brochure that every patient takes home after their exam. The doctor marks any relevant findings—myopia, astigmatism, presbyopia, dry eye, and others—and QR codes link to short educational videos in both English and Spanish. Patients leave with something tangible they can reference and share whenever they need to.

We have noticed that the Vision Report does not stay in a patient’s bag. It ends up on the kitchen counter or on the dining room table and introduces our practice to spouses, parents, and children who also live there and may be due for their own eye exam. It is, quietly, one of the most effective tools we have for generating referrals within a household.

Know Your Niche and Own It

One of the most consistent drivers of new patients at Buena Vista Optical is something that is simply part of who we are: We are bilingual. Serving a largely Spanish-speaking community on the south side of Chicago with the ability to offer care in both English and Spanish is not a marketing tactic, however. It is a genuine expression of who we are and who we serve. Still, it functions as a niche, and we lean into it fully. Our website, social media, educational materials, and in-office conversations all reflect the community we belong to.

Not every practice has a bilingual team, and that is perfectly fine. The principle applies universally: Every practice has something that makes it distinctly theirs. For some, it is a specialty—myopia management, dry eye treatment, sports vision, or prescription safety eyewear. For others, it is a deep connection to a specific community, industry, or patient population. Whatever it is, that is your niche. Make sure your website, your social media, and your patient conversations all reflect it consistently.

Patients are not just looking for an eye doctor. They are looking for their eye doctor—the one that feels right for them. Your niche is what tells them they have found it.

When Word of Mouth Is Not Enough: Entering the World of Paid Advertising

For 20 years, every patient who walked through our door found us through word of mouth, a Google search, a community connection, or a physician referral. We never paid for an ad. Our reputation was our reach, and for a long time, that was enough.

Then in 2025, for the first time in our history, we found ourselves facing a genuine challenge: filling our schedule. The landscape had changed to include more practices that competed for the same patients’ attention, and the organic strategies that had served us so well for 2 decades were no longer sufficient on their own.

So, in October 2025, we launched Google Ads, and then in February 2026, we added Meta Ads on Facebook and Instagram. Both campaigns are still in their early stages, and it is too soon to draw firm conclusions, but the intention is clear: To make sure that when someone in our area searches for an eye doctor or comes across an ad for eyeglasses, Buena Vista Optical is visible and findable.

What 20 years of practice ownership has taughtus is that advertising can open a door, but it cannot build a relationship. A well-placed ad might bring a new patient in for their first visit, but it is the experience waiting for them—the warm greeting, the Vision Report, the optician who listens before recommending—that determines whether they stay. The ad is the invitation. The practice is what makes it worth accepting.

The Strategy Is the Sum of Everything

It is never just the website, or just the recalls, or just the social media that grows a practice. It is all of it, working together: a layered, consistent strategy that meets patients wherever they are and guides them steadily toward your door and back again.

Some of what we do at Buena Vista Optical is specific to who we are within our community, but the principles behind it are universal. Show up online with intention. Stay connected to the patients you already have. Be present in your community. Create an in-office experience that is worth talking about. Know your niche and communicate it clearly. And when the landscape shifts, be willing to adapt.

The practices that thrive are not always the biggest or the best funded. They are the ones that show up consistently, thoughtfully, and with genuine care for the people they serve. Twenty years in, that is still the strategy we trust most.

Your Turn: Find the Way That Works for Your Practice

Every practice has a story, community, and something that makes it uniquely theirs: a specialty, a philosophy, a way of caring for patients that no one else can replicate. You do not need to do everything on the list that I’ve explained here. What you need is intention: a clear sense of who you are, who you serve, and how you want patients to feel from the moment they discover you online to the moment they walk out of your practice.

Start with 1 thing. Sharpen your website. Send a thank-you card. Go live on Instagram to show off the frame collection that just arrived. Partner with the physician down the street who sends patients everywhere except you. Show up at the next community health fair with a genuine desire to help.

The best way to promote your eye exams and eyeglasses is not the loudest or the most expensive. It is the most authentic one that reflects who you truly are, both as a practice and as your patients’ friendly neighborhood eye doctor. Find your way, own it, and then show up for it every single day.OM

Diana Canto-Sims, OD is founder of Buena Vista Optical in Chicago, Illinois, and cofounder of Latinos en Optometry, a nonprofit dedicated to equipping doctors to better serve Spanish-speaking communities and developing the next generation of diverse eyecare leaders.