Marketing Plan
Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute
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This marketing plan will attempt to offer practical suggestions for Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute to respond to its current challenges and address existing questions.

Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute
Marketing Plan

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
PCLI’s excellent surgeries and compassioned concern to customers has made it the best eye surgery clinic in Northwest LASIK surgery market. However, PCLI had challenges from stiff national and Canadian competitors who had been aggressively advertising low-priced eye surgeries to attract a significant growing number of customers. Encountering competitors’ low-price strategy, PCLI will have to come out a strategy to respond to its competitors and increase its ability of attracting customers. However, PCLI has the ethic concerns of advertising and regulations in the industry. The major questions need to be solved for PCLI to continue are:
Whether or not to complete on price? How?
Whether or not to advertise? How?
How to increase market share and attract more customers?
This marketing plan will attempt to address all these questions outlined above. Firstly, instead of completing on price with the compensation of quality, PCLI will maintain its current price for surgeries and offer a variety of price options of before and after care to better satisfy customers with different budgets. Secondly, instead of advertise aggressively, PCLI will manage word of mouth and launch campaigns to increase its brand awareness. Lastly, PCLI will cooperate general ophthalmology clinics and expand partnerships with eye physicians to generate higher volume of customers and increase market share.

SITUATION ANALYSIS
Introduction

PCLI was founded in 1985 by Dr. Robert Ford and specialized in medical and surgical eye treatment. PCLI was a privately held company that operated a total of 11 clinics throughout the northwestern United Stated and provided a range of medical and surgical eye treatments including laser vision correction. The company relied heavily on the referrals of partner family ODs.

PRK and LASIK are the two major types of eye surgery performed to reduce a patient’s dependence on glasses or contact lenses by reshaping a patient’s cornea. The procedure takes approximately five to ten minutes. The application of these types of laser eye surgeries had been widely accepted and available in Europe and some countries including Canada for over a decade. However, these technologies were comparably new to the US customers. The use of PRK in United States was approved in 1995, and LASIK was permitted to use as an “off-label” laser procedure by FDA.

Market and Customer Analysis
Market Size

The market potential of LASIK procedures is tremendous, and just begins to take off. Over 150 million people wore glasses or contact lenses in United States and about 12 million people were qualified to improve their vision surgically. The number of refractive surgery candidates is estimated to grow five times as the FDA approves more new procedures.
Target Market

PCLI targeted in customers who have median and higher income and family members. These customers concern more about surgical quality than price. In addition, families usually pay a lot more attention to vision correction of the young and older members. They are willing to pay more for higher quality surgeries.
Consumer Behavior

Customers are attracted by low-price surgeries.
Customers are lack of concerns of the quality of surgeries.
Customers are lack of knowledge of LASIK surgery and its risks.
Customers would travel to Canada and have the surgery performed there because of low price and poor coverage of medical insurance on optometric surgeries.
Competitor Analysis

PCLI in Spokane faced stiff competition from clinics in both the United States and Canada. There are three types of competitors, and they are general ophthalmology practice, eye surgery center