Can Your Dental Marketing Plan Be More Successful?

Always! Here are five ways you can improve your marketing results!

Frequency. Patients need to hear from you outside your practice more than for an appointment reminder. A direct non-administrative message sent 4-12 times per year will keep your name and service in focus. Most successful dentists send a combination of quarterly mailed patient newsletters and monthly email campaigns. And a monthly direct mail schedule will skyrocket acquisition results (with the right targeting, offer, and content). 

2.       Quality. Is the quality of your marketing and advertising actually costing you patients? Take a critical look at all of your mailers, email newsletters, brochures, social media content, websites, internal handouts, call handling… If the message isn’t consistent, if there isn’t a perceived value in everything that represents your practice, your brand and reputation for excellence in dentistry may be being negatively (albeit subtly) impacted.

3.       Targeting. Analyze your market and your patient base to find more of your ideal patients. Upsell/Cross-sell/Reactivate. Are you confident that 100% of your patients are aware of all of the services you offer? Have you created compelling offers that resonate with your market and make it easy for patients to respond?  

4.       Push. The idea that patients will find your practice on their own is what SEO companies sell on. When patients have a need (or pain) they may look for someone like you. That’s a type of “pull”marketing … where you’re waiting for someone to knock on the door – not at all targeted and very passive. On the other hand, when you “push” your brand and services in front of people you want to attract, you create demand. You take control. You trigger interest, you initiate a relationship, and you draw those ideal new patients to your practice on your timeline.

5.       Media Mix. An effective marketing plan employs a variety of tactics including direct mail, Internet, email, and more. The most reliable and dependable medium is mail. It can be highly targeted, it will reach 100% of your audience with a very high readership rate, and it’s trackable. Internet and PR activities are very important too. On the less targeted (and more expensive) side you have newspaper, magazines, radio, & TV.

Ideally we all need a combination of internal and external marketing programs that employ a combination of push and pull marketing tactics. When setting our marketing budgets, we should allocate our biggest percentage on methods proven to work, and then if desired, test a smaller component on less-reliable tactics. Always budget for the right amount of frequency and make sure that the quality of every campaign reflects the quality of your practice.

Every dentist has existing patients that are primed for upsell or cross sell. They have ideal prospects and inactive patients that are ready to take advantage of their dental services. However, without the right marketing plan and approach, this revenue can be delayed or permanently lost. Folks either don’t do anything (because they don’t know about the services they should desire) or they may call a competitor because of an advertising piece or because they found another site when they surfed online. A more comprehensive marketing approach will help you capture revenue now and continue to increase it over time.

Every practice has a huge opportunity to upsell existing patients. Every practice has a tremendous opportunity to better engage patients and attract ideal new ones. Talk to your Account Manager about how we can help streamline your marketing image and improve your marketing strategy so you can become more successful and more profitable.

For additional information on Dental Marketing from Patient News call 888.377.2404 or visit www.Patientnews.com.

Source- http://www.patientnews.com

How Did You Become A Great Dentist?

Listening to the Rosie O’Donnell Radio Show last week struck a cord. Rosie was talking about how to become a great standup comedian. She said comedians would “practice their routine over and over and over, change a syllable here, a word there, try a new tag line, and finely, finely, hone it over time. Practice, practice, practice. Do it over, do it over, do it over.” People often ask her, she said, how to become a great comedian and her response is always, “How do you become a great surfer? Get in the water.”

That’s exactly how you became a great dentist, and that’s exactly how to become a great marketer. And that’s why you can count on Patient News to drive results to your practice. We’ve done it over and over and over. 18 years, 35,000 campaigns. We’ve changed more than syllables, words, and tag lines, and we know what works.

Why Direct Mail Will Work For You

Direct mail provides 100% reach to your target audience, and when well prepared, there’s so much research to support that it’s virtually indisputable that North Americans are compulsive consumers of print. Most people – and by most people we mean the majority – about 85% open and read these materials as soon as they get them – across every demographic. What are they reading? Well, let’s just say it’s no accident that the top 5 magazine marketers, from Proctor & Gamble to Unilever, are in the fields of personal hygiene, nutrition, beauty, and health.

According to Trendwatching, good health is now an important status symbol and increasingly, healthcare consumers expect prevention and improved quality of life rather than mere band aid solutions.

The Hartman Group in Reimagining Health and Wellness 2010 reports that consumers are increasing spending on products for health and wellness…

• 73% of US consumers consider being physically fit important to being “well,” with 74% also including feeling good about themselves.
• 19% of all monthly spending in the average household is on product categories that have a “wellness halo.”

How can you take advantage of this research in your dental practice marketing? A highly customized, personalized, and relevant direct mail program is a terrific medium for applying these triggers to educate patients and prospective patients and to promote your practice.People want a quality source of information – it gives them something to talk about with their peers. You’ve got all that to share: wellness, prevention, quality of life, nutrition, and the mouth-body connection.

In addition to readability and communication, numerous studies show that direct mail has other marketing advantages…

• households with higher income receive and read more advertising mail
• 94% of consumers surveyed say they took action on promotional offers received via direct mail over the past year
• 40% say they have tried a new business for the first time because of information received via direct mail

Effective marketing and communication is about more than just numbers. But it’s good to know that all that research supports the wisdom of your direct mail marketing campaign.

Feel free to call Patient News for immediate expert advice and more free information on developing content and marketing your dental practice. We respect your time. Our experts are available for a live call between 8:30am & 6:00pm EST. Outside of these hours your inquiry will be returned within one business day.

Source- www.patientnews.com