Unlike a hearing aid, a cochlear implant is a device which is surgically installed in the inner ear and bypasses the damaged parts of the auditory system to directly stimulate the hearing nerve. This allows a severely hearing impaired or deaf person to receive sounds.  Hearing aids make sounds louder, which in some cases is a good thing. People who have lost their hearing at a later age in life are better candidates for hearing aids and younger individuals such as children are more likely to do well with a cochlear implant.

As many as 59,000 people worldwide have cochlear implants according to the National Institute of Health and approximately half of them are part of the pediatric population. The number of hearing impaired and deaf individuals around the world, who may use hearing aids, is harder to put a number on.

According to the Better Hearing Institute (BHI), the latest research, published in July 2005, put the number of hearing impaired or deaf individuals at roughly 31.5 million Americans. They break it down as follows – one in six baby boomers (ages 41-59) or about 14.6 percent have a hearing problem and most of these people are still members of the workforce. One in 14 ‘Generation Xers’ (ages 29-40) or 7.4 percent are already experiencing a hearing problem and at least 1.4 million children (ages 18 and younger) are having hearing problems.

It is not the hearing aid prices that keep people from wearing hearing aid devices; it’s the inconvenience and the simple fact that many people are vain. They don’t mind wearing eyeglasses when they know the glasses will help them to see better in addition to enhancing their look; however, people who get a hearing aid think it makes them look older or feeble and this is why people who need hearing aids are against them.

Hearing aids give people the opportunity to hear a lot of what they have been missing; birds, dogs, the difference in people’s voices and the list goes on and on.

A hearing aid company could use several Internet marketing methods to help boost their sales and increase their revenue even though they are real world brick and mortar style business.  All companies, no matter what they sell, should have an Internet presence in order to reach those consumers who use the Internet to find what they need or want.

The Internet is fast becoming the place to search for businesses over all other media combined.  The phonebook is an obsolete piece of media because it offers only one way to receive information and that is to work for it by dialing a telephone number.  Newspapers and magazines only offer slightly more information and radio and television advertising, which offer the most information, are typically reserved for big budget productions of major name brand merchandise and are cost prohibitive for smaller businesses.  The Internet offers the most information and is quicker to retrieve the information for the consumers. 

A hearing aid company could also use their Internet web presence to place hearing aid reviews and comparisons on their website in order to allow hearing aid consumers to comparison shop before they ever enter a real world brick and mortar store.  Many customers like to comparison shop and do research through the Internet before they step foot in a real world store.

One of the ways a hearing aid company could attract more targeted customers is through the use of search engine optimization or SEO.  Search engine optimization is the act of placing keyword rich articles on a company’s website in order to attract the three major search engines - Google, Yahoo!, and MSN.  These three major search engines send out their “feelers” so that they might locate the keywords and keyword phrases within the articles and among the websites and then rank the websites according to a special formula.  Keywords and keyword phrases are the words potential customers place in the search boxes on the search engines in order to find what they need or want.

Once a keyword rich article has been written for a hearing aid company’s website, it could be used again on an Internet news website.  Internet news websites are always looking for well-written and informative articles to help inform their readers about products and services they might not have otherwise heard about.  For example, a hearing aid company could write an article about hearing aid prices and place it on an Internet news website to help consumers who need hearing aids but don’t know the first thing about the prices of these helpful devices.

Using the Internet to draw in more customers to a real world brick and mortar style business is a smart move on any companies part because the majority of people are now turning to the Internet to find what they need or want.