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AIM Marketing
Do Well By Doing Good: what a concept!
Do more for your cause while growing your business. What a concept!
What if there is a practice-building technique which involves: no selling, costs little (or nothing) to implement, is an especially terrific value during lean economic times, attracts new patients, encourages referrals, builds team camaraderie, positions you as a coveted media source, leverages your giving, and is a lot of fun?
Would you want to learn more? If not, you may stop reading now.
The technique goes by various names: I will refer to it here as cause-related event marketing (CREM).
The What and Why of CREM
I like to define cause marketing as the process by which an individual or business seeks to achieve one or more business objectives as a consequence of supporting some form of philanthropy.
“Cause marketing is often sidelined because the impact can be hard to measure.” Says Todd Wilson in his Mediapost.com article Bringing Cause Marketing Forward
*www.mediapost.com/publications/article/237895/
bringing-0cause-marketing-forward
Bringing-cause-marketing-forward
Yet, a Nielsen Study** found that: fifty percent of those surveyed had a more positive impression; eighty percent would pay more; and eighty-five percent would actually switch allegiances if the product or service in question were sold by a company with a demonstrated commitment to social responsibility. These numbers are even higher for so-called Millennials; further evidence that ‘this ain’t no fad’: it’s a trend!
Strength In Numbers
The power of CREM lies in its ability to encourage stakeholders to ‘do well by doing good.’ Each person or business, by virtue of its willingness to help support your event, receives the direct benefit – as with any sale, there are elements of science and art: the art in CREM is in helping prospective supporters visualize how they will benefit.
Following are examples of how various potential partners in your event stand to gain by their participation:
Attendees at your event have a good time, meet new people, learn about the cause you’ve chosen to support, and appreciate that your practice not only good at what it does: it also has a heart.
Merchants, by agreeing to donate or offer at deeply discounted rates, food, entertainment, facilities, decorations, prizes, etc., gain exposure to a new group of prospective customers.
The Media get a ‘feel good’ story to share with their readers, listeners, or viewers.
Your chosen charity receives far more in donations than if you simply wrote them a check out of your own pocket – there is strength in numbers!
You and your practice benefit, not only because of the ‘good feeling’ and heightened appreciation participants have for you and your Team, you also have the chance to spend non-clinical ‘quality time’ with current and prospective patients. That’s really when the magic happens.
All of this adds up to that elusive but desirable phenomenon known as leverage.
That’s why CREM does not simply make sense: it also makes dollars.
And How!
The first step is to gain ‘buy-in’ from your Team concerning the event. You’ll want to ‘paint the picture’ that is …….choose your cause.
- Plan Event
- Begin w/end..
- Current
- Prospective
- Bus
- Schools
- Media
- Engage Audiences / Steps to Success
- Kick-off/follow up meetings
- Confirm Tasks
- Assign Committees
- Winning examples
- LSAC in support NSCIA
- ADM in support of CFAC
Doing well by doing good is a time-honored practice. Unlike Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand,
which holds that society benefits as a consequence of pursuing one’s own personal interests,
cause marketing assumes the opposite. Engaging in an activity whose primary intention is to help others unavoidably helps grow your practice.
That’s why I hope you will choose to embrace cause-related event marketing and leave your world that much better than you found it.
HuB Institute http://sarasotaday.com
Dental Website Visitors Follow-Up Campaigns
By Daniel A. Bobrow, MBA (University of Chicago) & MBA (K.U.L. Belgium)
Success with Web-Based Dental Marketing
This is the third and final of three Issues devoted to success with web-based marketing.
Synopsis of Three Issue Series
Success at web-based marketing means implementing strategies, both conventional and Internet-based, which direct qualified prospective patients to your website. It also means having a website that encourages visitors to willingly share with you their contact information. Finally, it means giving the market segment we call Caterpillars and Tire Kickers the means and motivation to remain in communication with your practice. This represents an especially fertile opportunity for practice growth because few of your colleagues bother to keep in touch with this market segment. By capturing visitor information and communicating with them over time, you are, in essence bringing your website to them, and it means you have the potential to dominate this highly profitable market segment.
Remember: today’s Tire Kickers are tomorrow’s Trigger Pullers!
Generating the Qualified Patient Lead (QPL) And Converting them into a Patient
As we have discussed, a good-looking website and qualified visitors are certainly necessary, but insufficient, to guarantee success. Even if your Internet Marketing Performance Assessment confirms your site is doing a good job attracting and impressing the visitor with its content, it must also generate Qualified Patient Leads, that is, motivate them to contact you, or at least initially, request to be contacted by you.
Of Tire Kickers and Trigger Pullers
Website inquiries may be classified as follows:
– 20% will take action immediately (we call these the ‘Trigger Pullers’)
– 20% will not buy at all (the DNRs for ‘do not resuscitate)
and
– The remaining 60% will buy from someone within 12 months. We call this group the ‘Tire Kickers.’
Many people are surprised to learn that this third category is potentially as important as the first because, if they are communicated with correctly, they represent a highly profitable source of new patients. The key is to run the race at the prospective patient’s pace.
More on QPLs
The home page of your website needs to cater to both the Trigger Puller as well as the Tire Kicker. For those visitors who are ready to appoint, be sure you have a Request an Appointment Form on your Home Page, and a Unique Telephone Tracking Number. Both allow you to track the new patient as originating from your website, which aids in evaluating your dental website marketing investment, as well as your Team’s batting average (learn more about mastering the Art of First Impressions).
Converting Tire Kickers into Trigger Pullers
To capitalize on this segment of your market, your website must offer opportunities for the visitor to learn about your practice without having to commit to a visit. Offer special content, which results in a high perception of value to your website visitors. In so doing, you convert anonymous surfers on your website into valuable QPLs. Below are some examples of how to achieve this:
Use Sign-Up Forms And Graphics On Your Home Page and Throughout Your Website
New Patient Special:
Free Consultation When You Come In For A Cleaning
and Full X-Rays
Call Now!
123-456-7890
Cosmetic Dentistry – Crowns – Bridges –
Veneers – Dentures – Whitening
Beautiful Smiles Begin Here
domainname.com
Next Steps
Now that you have delivered on your first promise to the QPL, that is, the Special Report, continue to deliver timely, valuable, and frequent (but not too frequent!) communications. Here’s a sample Schedule:
Day One – E-mail Special Report
Day Five – Audio Post Card
Day Fourteen – Email Smile Secret #1
Day Twenty-Eight – Video Postcard
Day Forty-Two – E-mail Smile Secret #2
Day Fifty-Six – Email Smile Secret #3
Day Seventy – Mail Invitation for Free Consultation
Day Eighty-Four – Email Smile Secret #4
Day Ninety-Eight – Email Smile Secret #5
Day One Hundred Twelve – Video Postcard
And so on for the rest of the year…
And here are examples of possible communications:
Direct Mail Sample
We recommend a combination of invitation and post card style mailings. The design should be similar, so you reinforce your practice brand in the mind of the QPL. The key to success with this is memorable simplicity.
Email Sample
Emails should include links to your photo gallery, testimonial pages, and other compelling reasons to keep in contact with you, such as attractive Special Offers.
Audio Postcard Sample:
Audio postcards are colorful emails that also include a recording of your or a staff member’s voice. This is another way to subtly create a sense of familiarity and comfort in the mind (and emotions) of your QPL.
Communications should continue for up to a year, which is what our research shows can be the ‘gestation period’ during which the Tire Kicker metamorphoses into a Trigger Puller.
By regularly and professionally following up with your website visitors, you have positioned yourself as a trusted expert in the field so, when they do decide the time is right, it’s you they’ll call.
By the way, if you already have a website, all you need to do is add the forms to your existing site, and be sure the visitors who complete them are automatically fed into your communication campaign.
Our next Issue is the first of three concerned with Communicating With Patients of Record.
Sincerely,
AIM DENTAL MARKETING
Daniel A. ‘Danny’ Bobrow,
President
Dental Website Marketing
By Daniel A. Bobrow, MBA (University of Chicago) & MBA (K.U.L. Belgium)
Success with Web-Based Dental Marketing
This is the second of three Issues devoted to success with web-based marketing. Each Issue addresses one of the three keys to success, namely:
• Effective Dental Design
• Effective Dental Marketing And
• Effective Follow Through With Website Visitors
In this Issue we tackle the second key to a successful website, namely, Attracting the visitor. Before your website can encourage patients to visit your office, they first must find your website. For this to happen, you need to position yourself so that, when people and businesses in your community are searching for dental care, it’s your website, or a page within your site, that they find.
Access Paths
A simple way to attract people to your website is to include your website address (URL) everywhere prospective patients will see or hear it: on stationery, business cards, external signage, your on-hold message and, of course, all conventional marketing channels such as; direct mail, TV, radio, billboards, etc. Another way to get your website noticed is via online search or search engine marketing. Online search is sub-classified into SEO (search engine optimization, also called organic search) and paid (sometimes termed pay-per-click) search. The advent of social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, Twitter, etc.) and online review sites have revolutionized the way consumers learn about and select a vast array of products and services, including dental care. The goal of all online search tactics is to get your website ranked high on search engine listings when the web surfer looking for dental care enters words or phrases (called keywords and key phrases) that are a match for what your website (presumably, as an accurate representation of what your practice) offers. It is also vital to ensure the ad copy, that is, the verbiage comprising your ranking on search engine results pages is compelling, and that it directs the visitor to the appropriate page on your website. If the visitor does not find what they are looking for very quickly, they’re unlikely to spend much time looking for it (at least, not on your website). This is where the art and science of effective website marketing come into play. Online search, while not new, is assuming an ever greater “local” character. It is also rapidly gaining in importance. Even analysts who work for the Yellow Pages reported way back in 2006 that individuals used the Internet 70% of the time vs. only 30% for the Yellow Pages when searching for a local service.* That percentage is now closer to 100% in favor of Internet Search.
*Targetem tm
Pay To Play?
A reasonable question to ask is: Should I employ a pay-per-click strategy and, if so, what should my investment be? Anyone is permitted to set up a pay-per-click program. However, it can be a complicated and tedious process to build, maintain and update the list of terms that reference your site. More important, if managed by anyone other than an expert, it can be unnecessarily costly, especially when the wrong terms are selected, and the price paid for the correct terms is too high. When done by a professional, high-quality patient leads are captured by purchasing ads with Google®, Yahoo®, Bing® (formerly MSN) , and perhaps other search engines. As a practical matter, most online search is performed on Google, so that’s where most paid search specialists focus. This lets you target people within the desired radius or other boundaries of your office who are searching for the dental services you offer. These are qualified prospective dental patients by virtue of the fact they have taken the time and effort to find you. Your goal with a pay-per-click campaign is to maximize qualified site visits by directing local individuals and families searching for dental care right to your practice website. When a potential patient searches for, say ‘(your city) dentist’ on a search engine, your site must show up at, or very near, the top of the SERP (search engine result page). This was always important, but never more so than now. Just ask yourself how often you click past page one of search engine results and you’ll get the idea. And you’re not only competing with your esteemed local colleagues. There are dental products, search directories, specialists, insurance companies, and more with which to contend. As many of these represent large commercial interests, they have, often on staff, professionals specifically trained in search engine marketing. The bottom line on paid web advertising is that it can be a great way to quickly get your website noticed. Even if your site already ranks high for certain search words and terms, it can also help get you ranked more highly for additional terms and phrases of relevance. The only way to know is to try it. Fortunately, there should be no lengthy commitments and you should be able to increase or reduce your monthly outlay with a single phone call or email.
Web Marketing, Take 2
(Excerpted from an interview with Bradley Epstein, Campaign Manager at 1&1 Internet). At the core of…sites qualifying for the moniker [Web 2.0) are simple, yet compelling, designs with well-chosen visuals, and…tools that let users interact with, and construct content in, unique ways. In addition to creating useful sites, the principles behind 2.0 can be used to increase organic traffic to your site, retain visitors and convert those visitors to customers, hence, Web 2.0. Incorporating a well-structured Web 2.0 design into your site will improve search rankings by both improving the informational architecture of your site (cleaner, simpler code makes your site more easily indexed)…(it)…also improves the probability that high-quality sites will link to you. A simpler, more streamlined design will make your site easier to read for engines and users as well…Now, more than ever, you can please both “search bots” and visitors by keeping Web 2.0 principles in mind when designing your site.
Getting visitors
With limited space on a site, especially ‘above the fold’ (what a visitor sees without having to scroll down), you should aim to maximize the effectiveness of the visual communication: each graphical element should convey a message, and the textual content should be concise. The more logically organized your site is, the easier for both search bots and web visitors to find relevant information. Specifically,* a simpler 2 or 3-column, central layout structure will convey a simpler, bolder message that communicates more clearly with your visitors. The central column is the ideal place for your key message, with highly targeted and compelling text.
* Use your top header section to clearly present your site and navigation options to draw in your
visitors with a bold, opening statement on what they can find on your site.
* Keep your navigation simple: this will create a logical structure for your visitors, and translate
well into a clean sitemap, which search engines can use to index your site.
Local, Local, Local
Search engines continue to focus more of their attention on their local search directories. As noted earlier, Local Search is growing exponentially, and so is your need to be sure the search engines know the location of your practice, and the community to which it caters.
Whoever markets your website should be adding it to the local search engine maps and directories, and devote significant time and resources to ensuring that your Google My Business (GMB), also called Google Local site, is optimized. Our company had, until recently, used a list of local web directories we compiled over the past years to be sure our Health Partner (Client) sites were listed locally. We have discarded that list as we now use a resource that constantly updates its listing of local directories. We also focus heavily on optimizing our Health Partners’ GMB. The need for this is demonstrated by Google’s announcement of its commitment to help consumers locate and compare local services of all kinds. Here is an excerpt:
“Many people come to Google.com to navigate the web, but are you aware that you can use it to navigate the real world as well? Over the past few months, we’ve been hard at work making it easier to find and compare local businesses and services right from the standard web results page. Here’s what we’ve come up with: Find and compare local businesses.“
This development actually dates back to 2007, and Google’s commitment to assisting consumers connect with local businesses has steadily increased. You now see the Google Local Listing every time you search for a business or other local information. “In addition to providing the basic contact information and map locations for several choices at the top of the page, we also show ratings and provide one-click access to reviews on the search results page so consumers can make more informed decisions about where they want to go.” What it means for you dear dental practice owner is this; if you are not listed in Google’s local business directory, you may not receive prominent placement at the top of its search results. To test it out, type your city, state, and service in Google and you’ll see the big map they created and are emphasizing. The businesses that are in this local list are the sudden recipients of a huge gift from Google – qualified and desirable traffic to their site. A recent article in Clickz.com cited a keynote address by the Internet media and marketing, managing director for Piper Jaffray who had some interesting points, among which are that local search was second only to e-mail in importance on the web (though, as of this writing, text messaging may well have surpassed email in relative usage). He continued that satellite mapping will (has) become an integral part of local search marketing.
Two Down, One To Go
While a nice-looking website and even high traffic are necessary, alone they still cannot guarantee success. The next key link in the success chain is what happens once the patient finds your website. But that will need to wait until our Next issue.
Sincerely,
AIM DENTAL MARKETING
Daniel A. ‘Danny’ Bobrow,
President
Dental Website Design
By Daniel A. Bobrow, MBA (University of Chicago) & MBA (K.U.L. Belgium)
Success with Web-Based Dental Marketing
This is the first of three Issues devoted to success with web-based dental marketing.
Each Issue addresses one of the three keys to success, namely, effective:
•Dental Website Design
•Dental Website Marketing
and
•Follow Through With Website Visitors
In this Issue, we present the first of these key steps: effective website design.
Value Defined
We all want and deserve to receive value for our investment. Of course, value means different things to different people. For instance, one might value getting his or her website up and running quickly, while another might be more exacting and patient. One practice might value appearance more highly than function. Still another might prefer quantity over quality of website visitors. Whatever your “relative value preferences,” there are certain characteristics that you, as a dentist, should require not only from your finished* product, but also from the process.*In reality, your website should be viewed as a living and evolving instrument in a number of respects.
Accountability
To ensure an error-free implementation you, or someone you trust, must take complete responsibility for coordinating all tasks and resources This is the case whether you plan to perform the strategy internally or with the assistance of one or more vendors. Be careful about “laterally promoting” say, your scheduling coordinator to the role of website coordinator. If you choose to manage the process internally, be certain the person to whom you assign this important responsibility is competent, and has the time and resources to take on the challenge.
Confidence and Competence
It is reasonable to expect that whomever you retain to design your website can demonstrate his or her competence so you can have the confidence that your site will be delivered on time, on budget, and as specified. This means that your designer will ideally have experience in the dental website design field, or at least be able to show you sites he has created for other clients, which possess the aesthetics and offer the function you require.
Our goal is to create an online extension of the practice. We strive to ensure that the ‘look and feel’ of all practice communications, including the website, are consistent, and are designed to accentuate the goals, presentation, and ‘voice’ that make a practice unique.
In general, the firm you retain will be willing and able to listen as much as or more than they talk about your website design because, only by listening, will they be able to truly ‘get’ the look and feel you desire. In like manner, if you are seeking advice, your design firm should be able and willing to present different concepts, which embody different approaches, so you may make an informed decision concerning the appearance of your site.
Function
In deciding upon the functionality for your site, imagine your website from the perspective of all who might use it, namely, your current patients, prospective patients, staff, the media, and yourself. Most practices are primarily concerned with current and prospective patients, so we briefly elaborate on these two groups here.
Current Patient Audience: If you want your website to be used by your patients of record e.g. to ask questions, request appointments, receive appointment confirmations, surveys, offer suggestions, complete paperwork, etc. be sure the firm is experienced with handling such ‘back-end’ functions. You may also choose to work with a vendor of such patient follow up services. Issues XI, XII, and XIII will elaborate on these.
Prospective Patient Audience: Issue XI discusses this audience at length. For now, just be aware that most websites lack a means for capturing contact information on prospective patients and an automated means for communicating with this audience during the ‘gestation period’ when they convert from ‘tire kicker’ to ‘trigger puller.’ But to learn more about how to implement this all-important success strategy, you’ll need to wait until Issue XI!
General Design Considerations
Here’s a list of things to consider:
- Secure your domain name. Careful consideration should be given to the naming of your site. If you have already established a strong practice brand, the name of your website will, ideally, be a close match for your practice name. If you select a URL matching your personal name, remember that, when it comes time to sell the practice, your successor may not value it as highly as you do.
- In structuring the layout of your site, you will need to consider not only the format of your home page, but also any ‘landing pages.’ Consider having a landing page for each of your services as well as a:
- Meet the Dentist(s) Page
- Meet The Team Page
- Photo Gallery
- Schedule an Appointment Page
- Assign a unique telephone number so you can track and calculate the return on your website marketing investment
- Add Forms that visitors may complete receiving a report on a topic of interest and relevance to them
- Be sure to include an automated direct response communications campaign (more on this in Issue XI)
- Be sure your website firm offers the flexibility of unlimited e-mail addresses
- Your chosen firm should also offer cost-effective web site hosting, as well as a Dental Marketing Dashboard, and reliable technical support to, thereby, act as your Single Point of Contact
Who should build your website
Look for a firm which:
- Builds, or converts to Fully Responsive Technology using the WordPress Platform so it is fully viewable and functional from all mobile devices
- Can incorporate an Online Chat Feature to engage visitors who may not be ready to call your office
- Specializes in Dental
- Guarantees Results
- Guarantees Delivery within a reasonable time frame (but remember: you must be an equal partner in this process. Your design firm cannot deliver if it is waiting for feedback from you!)
- Has the ability (and willingness) to test your existing design for Maximum effectiveness. The better design firms offer ‘A/B testing’ whereby a given variable e.g. headline, is altered slightly, then every other visitor is exposed to the alternative version. Once a sufficient number of data points have been collected, the version with the “statistically significant” superior response, if any, is selected, and the next variable is tested
- Offers robust, but user-friendly, Reporting
- Offers References
- Will, upon request, assist with selecting and securing an appropriate URL (name for your website)
Do you get the sense the person is listening to and understands your needs, or are they reading from a canned script? If the latter, you may expect to be treated as a commodity, which probably is not what you want. In general, trust your gut.
Free To Choose
If you already have a website, you probably know that there are perhaps as many approaches to website design as there are website designers.
As mentioned above, we usually get what we pay for. The cost may be overt e.g. it will cost me $4,612.40 for web designer A’s services. However, there may also be an opportunity cost in not working with that designer. We see this most often in the case where the doctor chooses to have a friend, relative, student, or someone else perform the project for free, at a greatly reduced rate, or ‘on trade.’ Human nature being what it is, the person who agrees to these ‘terms’ will prioritize accordingly. Put another way: might it have been worth paying an extra $1,500 to get the same or equivalent website 6 months sooner?
The Post-Purchase Experience
You can pretty well rest assured that, once your website goes live, you will want to make changes to it. You might even experience ‘technical difficulties from time to time. It can be a frustrating experience not to have these concerns and requests addressed to your satisfaction or within the promised time frame, so ask for references and specifically ask what their experience has been with post-purchase service.
Caveat Emptor
If you haven’t received mail from companies with names like Liberty Names of America or Domain Registry of America, you probably will. Don’t let the “domain name expiration notice” fool you. Although the expiration date of your domain name may be real, it is NOT a real invoice. The document looks official and leads many intelligent individuals to send a check for domain name renewal. This is a form of “slamming,” which changes your service to another company without you realizing what you have done. The words “this notice is not a bill” seem to get lost in the verbiage. Liberty Names and Domain Registry are actually the same company, and they are attempting to have you renew your domain name through them, rather than your current domain registrar. Sending a check “gives them permission” to change your service. They are not the only culprits, but their presence and success are significant.
To protect yourself from having your domain slammed, “Know who your registrar is, and if you’re not sure, visit www.whois.com. At this site, you can simply type in your domain name, and then your registrar (the company that owns your domain name), along with other important information, will appear.
Check it out (and off)
Here’s part of a checklist we use to evaluate an existing site’s performance, but can also be useful in judging when your new website is‘ready for prime time.’ Some of the items below are admittedly subjective, but should assist you in developing a framework for evaluating your website.
- Navigation bar at top makes pages accessible and easy to find
- Site Layout is organized in a familiar pattern with important section at top and left and main content in center
- Professional and clean Look ‘n Feel
- Page Width not more than 800px (max printable width)
- Contact Information is ‘above the fold’ for quick viewing and access
- Quick load time e.g. not too much use of Flash and other animation, which is also a distraction to visitors
- Interactive features e.g newsletter sign up, free consultation, etc. allows practice to efficiently build prospective patient contact list
- Free offer for visitor to further encourage completion of a Form
- Follow Up System in place to communicate with registered site visitors
- Means to capture site visitor contact information
- Site ranks in top results in Google for city and ‘dentist’ demonstrating ‘relevance.’ Goal is to rank in top 3 results as these listings receive over 70% of clicks.
- City name is included in the title bar, which is one of the simplest and easiest steps to take.
- Site meta information included (such as keywords and description) that would assist in search engine optimization
- Important words on site are not in graphical images, which search engines cannot understand. They should be in text format.
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) program in place for web site.
- Links do not send visitor to the home page but more specific landing pages where the visitor is more likely (and quickly) to find what they are looking for
- PPC ads using ‘best practices’ i.e. are managed by a firm certified to manage the program offered by that search engine
- There is a visible form of measurement for the number of visitors per month
- Based on website design, SEO, and PPC analysis of similar websites, will there be a steady amount of traffic?
- Based on usability and design analysis, will the site generate a regular stream of new patients?
Issue IX focuses Marketing Your Website, that is, how to be sure your website gets noticed by compatible prospective patients.
Sincerely,
AIM DENTAL MARKETING
Daniel A. ‘Danny’ Bobrow,
President
Dental Practice Branding
By Daniel A. Bobrow, MBA (University of Chicago) & MBA (K.U.L. Belgium)
Synopsis
There is an overwhelming consensus that effectively branding one’s practice is one of the most important practice growth activities in which one can engage. Branding is an ongoing process. Ultimately, it is the extent to which the practice delivers on the promises it makes through its branding strategies that determine overall success, It is, therefore, essential that systems, processes, and expertise are in place to ensure quality And consistency.
To build and maintain a strong practice brand, the practitioner and team must first identify what differentiates them from their competition. Next, the practice will determine its market position. Only when these have been achieved can the practice proceed to decisions concerning the outward expression of its brand, that is, its professional identity. The practice should choose a name and logo that offers memorable simplicity along with consistency and function. It need not be literal, as its purpose is to remind people of the positive experience they associate with your practice. Equipped with a powerful professional identity and market position, you then implement your marketing plan. All tactics comprising your plan should be measured against your positioning statement to ensure consistency with your brand identity. Ongoing monitoring through surveys, and a willingness to continually evaluate all systems and communications, will ensure the strength and vitality of your practice brand.
The goal of Issue VII is to bring some clarity to this nebulous concept known as “branding” and to place in perspective this essential ingredient for creating and managing an effective dental practice marketing plan.
What, exactly, does it mean to build a brand? While there is an overwhelming consensus on the value of building and owning a strong brand, most of us would be hard-pressed to agree on definitions for concepts related to it.
For this reason, all terms requiring a clear understanding of branding and the branding process are hyperlinked to our glossary of terms. I encourage you to consult it any time you want clarification of terminology.
The goal of a brand is to differentiate, that is, to provide current and prospective patients with one or more unique reasons for becoming and remaining a part of your practice. Fortunately, to successfully brand your dental practice, you do not need to be different from every dentist in the world, or even the country, state, or necessarily city in which you practice. Your goal need only be to positively differentiate yourself from those practices with which you compete.
Misconceptions
People often equate a brand with a logo. While a logo is an important ingredient to an effective brand, it is but one, albeit a very important one, of a number of methods of conveying the impressions, feelings, expectations, and emotions that comprise your brand identity. Branding is about far more than a neat logo, catchy name and clever ads. It is about everything you do to fulfill the promise of a superior patient experience.
One of the most common misconceptions about branding is that it is something one chooses to create. The fact is that your practice already has a ‘brand.’ The question is the extent to which you control its consistency with your desired message. Branding is an ongoing process, occurring in every interaction between your practice and its various audiences (current patients, prospective patients, referral sources, the media, etc.
Whether one should brand one’s practice reminds me of what author Elie Wiesel said when asked if he believed in Free Will. His answer: “Of course I do. I have no choice!”
Because one’s brand is such an intangible asset, it is often forgotten or ignored. As David A. Aaker points out in his book, Managing Brand Equity, “Everyone understands that, even in bad times, a factory must be maintained…because maintenance needs are visible.” By contrast, the maintenance of an intangible asset, such as your brand, is more vulnerable to neglect, to the detriment of your practice.”
Ironically, it is the very intangibility of a brand that gives it so much value. While individual experiences with your practice are transient in nature (indeed, your services offering will most certainly change over time), your brand is an enduring symbol in the minds of your patients as a unique set of feelings and impressions. This enduring value is also important when it comes time to sell the practice, as it means the goodwill associated with it does not leave when you do.
A strong brand bolsters relationships with current and prospective patients because brand loyalty arises not so much out of rational consideration, but more on the basis of an emotional affinity or personal connection that is typically stronger than any single negative experience.
To illustrate this resiliency, think of a product or service with which you have a strong, positive association. It might be a soft drink or other beverage, an airline, restaurant chain, automobile, or something else. If you should have a negative experience with that brand, for example, a flat, warm 7-Up, a delayed flight, a poorly served meal, etc., you will probably nonetheless continue to have a positive association with the brand in question.
Benefits
For prospective patients, your brand helps to ‘humanize’ your practice by presenting a face, a personality, in the form of a symbol. This humanizing function can aid in the eventual formation of a trusted relationship, which is the glue that binds your practice to its patients, both current and prospective.
It’s also a great way to ‘immunize’ your practice against being viewed as fungible, thereby securing patient loyalty, as well as a means to consistently attract new patients (not to mention a premium for your services).
Successful branding has benefits beyond the formation of a strong, cohesive, and positive association in the minds of your patients. By articulating what sets you apart from your competition, it can also force you to think about important internal and strategic issues, such as your practice vision, immediate and long-term goals, and professional values.
Your Brand becomes a trusted messenger for your practice, much as your mail carrier is for the USPS. You are favorably predisposed to hearing and considering whatever is being offered. As mentioned, it also helps “immunize” against adverse publicity or experience.
Branding Begins at Home (or the office)
It may surprise you to learn that creating your Brand Identity is actually the second phase of your practice’s brand-building strategy. To successfully portray your practice to your audience, you must first establish what comprises your individuality, in other words, your identity.
Although in marketing terms “identity” is commonly understood to mean the visible symbols of an organization, product, or service, it consists of much more than just a logo, name, tagline, color(s) and type style. These elements are merely the outward expressions of an organization’s core identity, which will, ideally, represent all your practice hopes to stand for. And to identify the practice’s Core Identity, it must identify and express its Core Benefits.
Your Core Benefits are all the positive and important experiences your patients have come to expect from your practice. Opportunities for practice differentiation are limited only by your imagination and commitment, and include the following:
| Attribute | Benefit(s) |
| Needle-less Anesthesia | Patient Comfort Reduced Anxiety |
| Digital Radiography | Less Radiation/Able to View Images ‘on screen’ |
| Laser Dentistry | Reduced Risk of Infection Reduced Healing Time |
| Snap-On Smile tm Lumineers tm | Cost-Effective Alternative to Other Cosmetic Procedures; Reduced Loss of Healthy Tooth Structure |
| Brite Smile tm Zoom tm | Whiter Teeth Fast |
| Invisalign tm | Straighter Teeth Without Embarrassment |
| Mercury-Free Fillings | Prevents Contaminants |
| Extended Hours | Convenience |
| No Wait Policy | Convenience |
| Specialists On Staff | Convenience |
| Cerec tm | Convenience |
Note: create a table similar to this as part of your practice identity exercise
Here’s a Template for you to use in defining your practice’s core values (just fill in the blanks):
OUR PRACTICE’s core values are ___________, __________________, and ____________________. These are values worthy of a great practice, and we believe should serve as anchor points in every decision we make. Our core values provide us with a means of not only guiding, but also evaluating our operations, our planning, our communications, and our vision for the future.
Another great way to differentiate is by creating for your brand a benefit that is “off-core”. What you are looking for is a benefit that is intuitively important to the consumer, but not (yet) generally associated with dental practices in general. An example of off-core differentiation is the commitment at the heart of the strategy of practices, which support Dentists’ Climb For A Cause or some other worthwhile cause, or that offer ‘spa dentistry.’ Still another example is illustrated by the dental practice of Steven Rinaldi, DDS whose Massachusetts-based practice hosted an art gallery in the practice, featuring the work of grade school students. Students’ artwork was hung throughout the office. 180 people attended the showing. This one Event directly resulted in new families joining his practice, notwithstanding the fact that the activity bringing them together had nothing to do with dentistry!
Additional opportunities for off-core differentiation include: education focusing on the links between oral and systemic health, nutritional counseling (e.g. eliminating free radicals through supplements), and diagnosis of risk factors for cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes
Note that today’s off core benefits may become tomorrow’s core benefits: an illustration of the process of brand extension.
In this way, successful brands enjoy “immunity from imitation” because they have created a community based on more than simply delivery of quality dentistry.
Positioned For Success
The next step in branding your practice is crafting your practice’s position. Your position is a kind of abbreviation for all that makes your practice unique within its service area. The goal is to distill this into two sentences, one beginning with “To” and the second with “We are.” For example, our company’s Positioning Statement is:
TO : Private practice dentists in the United States wishing to maintain or accelerate the growth
rate of their practice
WE ARE : The nation’s most experienced full-service dental patient marketing and
communications firm emphasizing transparency, accountability, value, and flexibility,
which constantly strives to exceed our Health Partners’ (Clients”’ expectations
Armed with your Identity and Position, meaning you have identified your one to three core messages, you are now ready to develop your Professional Identity System , which is the outward expression of your Brand.
Key ingredients of your Professional Identity
When developing or revising your professional identity, be sure to keep the following in mind:
Memorable Simplicity
People tend to use “shorthand” to summarize and deal with all the external stimuli, so don’t expect people to retain or share detailed descriptions about your practice.
To cut through the communications clutter and leave a memorable impression, one must jettison the ambiguities, and oversimplify the message. This is especially important for clinicians to “get” because so many of them feel the need to explain in minute detail everything about a given procedure, their credentials, expertise, etc. The goal is to lay claim to a single quality, attribute or benefit that no one can – or will – dispute. Examples include: “ouchless” for Curad, “safety” for Volvo, and “fewer cavities” for Crest toothpaste.
Think for a moment about your days in high school. Do certain personalities stand out most in your mind? Do you associate a long, detailed, and subtle description of these kids? Or are your memories a tad more succinct e.g. The Brain, The Jock, The Nerd, The Dork, and The Bully? Right or wrong, fair or not, one of the keys to a successful brand is memorable simplicity. Good, friendly, clean, safe, caring, and comfortable (or perhaps some combination of these) is the “best” you should hope for.
Consistency
Be certain to apply your brand consistently across all expressions of it as, only through repetitive and consistent exposure of your brand will it achieve and maintain what is known as mind share, that is, retention and recognition by your target audience. Just consider how many times you need to see the same TV commercial before even knowing what they’re selling, and you’ll get the idea.
Function
As you choose the final form for your professional identity, be sure to address such seemingly mundane, but nevertheless important considerations as:
Logo Dimensions: Will it fit everywhere e.g. available signage, website, direct mailings, etc.? If it is too detailed, longer than it is wide, etc. you may have problems placing it where you want it
Color Choices: Be sure color choices are consistent with those with which you presently associate your practice. Select colors that are commonly available, and easily reproduced by your printer.
Backgrounds: Be sure for example, that the colors you have chosen for background on your website, walls in your office, signage, etc. do not “wash out” parts of your professional identity
Access To Artwork: Be sure you have a strategy for storing, accessing, and editing your artwork, as well as resolutions suitable for both print and web applications.
Designers, who are given carte blanche to create your identity, may not give necessary consideration to such ‘real world’ matters as noted above, which can result in a costly, and even unusable, design. Sometimes very important considerations are “hidden in plain sight.” This occurred with a client whose current identity, while professional, failed to make explicit reference to the fact he is a dentist: people we asked thought he was an attorney, accountant, or M.D., but not a dentist. The best prevention for this is to ask people, ideally, those not related to dentistry, to look at your professional identity during its development.
Delivering On The Promise
When your brand succeeds at causing your audience to perceive it as being in alignment with their beliefs, the result will be a desire to join your community, in other words, to make (and keep) their appointment and accept treatment. Once they join, your challenge is to keep them.
Be aware that every time the following occurs, your audience is forming an impression of your brand:
- The manner in which an incoming and outgoing phone call is handled, both during and after office hours
- What patients hear when placed on hold, and how long they are kept on hold
- The time it takes to answer the telephone, and how it is answered.
- The appearance of the Reception Area
- Wait Time
- Handling of insurance, billing, and other paperwork
- Treatment Presentation
- Professionalism, Attitude, and Enthusiasm of the Team
- The appearance of the practice (treatment and reception, lavatories, exterior) and Team
These impressions over time build identification with a certain perception or perceptions that are not only retained by the one who experiences it; they are also communicated to others. Note too that a person will share good news with a few people, and bad news with many. This illustrates the “ying yang” of branding in that the brand generates interest, retention, and positive expectation, your practice experience reinforces these sensations, and viewing the brand reminds the patient of the positive experience. The circle is complete.
Certainly, the quality and consistency of the service you deliver will determine the extent to which your brand may be trusted to supply the promised benefit(s) to current and prospective patients. Only solid business management, and interpersonal and clinical skill can guarantee this. Until a branding strategy is firmly in place, the rest is, at best, a well-kept secret.
Issues 8, through 10 introduce the keys to establishing and maintaining a successful web-based dental marketing strategy.
Sincerely,
AIM DENTAL MARKETING
Daniel A. ‘Danny’ Bobrow,
President
Dental Assistants: Improve Your Income, Patient Outcomes
Many thanks to my good friend and co-founder of www.IgniteDA.net Kevin Henry for inviting me to speak with dental assistants about how to:
Improve Your Patient’s Outcomes and Your Practice Income!
I was asked to speak about the dental assistant’s role in marketing the practice and how maximizing the value of the practice to the patient, and the value of the patient to the practice, are two sides of the same coin.
As IgniteDA reminds its members: you’re not just working in a practice … you’re working in a small business. Every employee of that small business should be as empowered and mindful as possible regarding how he or she can improve the bottom line because, when the practice grows, everybody should be a winner: the owner, the patient, and you!
I was asked to share several novel ways the assistant can help the practice deliver more value by: embracing a ‘whole-person dentistry’ health model, enhancing team telephone skills to convert more calls into solid, kept appointments, connecting with current patients to make them ‘practice ambassadors’, and ‘wrapping the practice in a blanket of caring’ by adopting the concept of cause marketing.
Following is a printed excerpt. You may listen to the entire interview by clicking here.
Kevin: Good evening everybody. This is Kevin Henry. My guest for this evening’s webcast is Danny Bobrow. Danny is president of AIM Dental Marketing®, executive director of the Dentists’ Climb For A Cause/SmileTree Foundation, founding executive committee chair of the American Academy for Oral Systemic Health, and Founder and Lead Coach of The Art of First Impressions Telephone Skills Mastery Curriculum.
ADM is the nation’s most experienced full service dental marketing agency, and has helped thousands of dental practices to take aim with their marketing. Danny is here in Colorado and, since we’ve not seen each other for too long, I invited him to IgniteDA’s studio, my back patio overlooking a golf course here in lovely Longmont. Danny welcome to the program.
Danny: Thanks Kevin.
Kevin: Danny, in chatting prior to tonight’s webcast, you shared your thoughts on the various opportunities today’s dental assistant has to contribute to the success of their practice while also finding fulfillment in their own career. You mentioned specifically the dental assistant as “Idea Champion.” Would you care to elaborate?
Danny: Every idea needs a champion. Someone with the passion to ‘infect’ other Team Members and the practice owner, with the vision to help see it through to success. Among other credible sources, the Bureau of Labor Statistics describes the Dental Assistant as performing a multitude of tasks, which run the gamut from delivering patient care to coordinating the patient schedule and keeping records. The scope of the DA’s duties is in part determined by the state in which they practice, as well as the particular office in which they work. In other words, the D.A. is potentially the Team’s most versatile and valuable player! Of course, the degree to which the assistant is able to exercise that versatility depends upon the particular office in which they are presently employed, but it is important to recognize that, with the right approach and talent, the dental assistant can, to a large extent, calibrate and optimized their position to match their unique talents and interests. That’s a rare and, I think, enviable characteristic profession to be in!
Kevin: You shared your company’s Vision, Mission, and Core Values statement, which also presents your various Pillars of Support for practices who share your vision of helping improve the health and longevity of people in the U.S. and the developing world. Perhaps you could share some of those Pillars with our audience, and how they might choose to use one or more of these to grow their practice while in the process advancing their career.
Danny: Sure. This speaks to the earlier point about being able to mold ones position to maximize your value to the practice. The first step is to understand your practice’s position, that is, its unique slice of ‘mental and emotional real estate’ it occupies in the area it serves. Once you’re clear concerning who you are, what you do, for whom you do it, and why, you may then proceed to identifying those actions which enhance and reinforce your market position. When we work with a dental practice we refer to successful practice growth as being a three-linked chain. The three links of the chain being to Attract the Lead, Convert the Lead, and keep or exceed Promises made to the lead (a lead is a prospective patient).
We like to begin with the end in mind, that end being Delivering On The Promise. Two of our Pillars of Support that help achieve that objective are adopting an oral systemic practice model and embracing cause marketing as a means for ‘wrapping your practice in a blanket of caring.’
Kevin: How do you help practice with that middle link of the success chain, namely, Converting the Lead? Danny: We help the Team master The Art of First Impressions. Kevin: Finally, how do you help practices Attract the Lead?
Danny: We do that through a number of tactics, which run the gamut from direct mail to public relations to digital marketing, including SEO, PPC, and Social Media. (I’ll focus on things the D.A. can do to help in this regard e.g. capture Patient Testimonial Videos, generate Patient Reviews, post relevant content to social media, etc.).
Tools to Make Reliable Marketing Decisions III
Part 3 of 3
By Daniel A. Bobrow, MBA (University of Chicago) & MBA (K.U.L. Belgium)
To date, we’ve presented five of the seven keys to success with implementing your dentistry marketing strategy:
1. Identify Your Objectives
2. Determine Your Budget
3. Perform Your Benefit/Cost Evaluations
4. Select Your Target & Frequency
5. Select Design and content
In this Issue, we present the Final Two, Implementing Your Strategy and Program Tracking and Evaluation.
Taking The Leap
Strategy Implementation is the “test,” which shows if we’ve done our “homework.” I often remind people that, when in school, scoring 95% means an “A” while, in Life, a similar score means FAILURE. Either it’s all right or it’s all wrong!
To ensure an error-free implementation you, or someone you trust, must take complete responsibility for coordinating all tasks and resources This is the case whether you plan to perform the strategy internally or with the assistance of one or more vendors.
When we implement a direct mail strategy for a Health Partner (client), we open a Health Partner Processing Checklist and Target & Schedule. To view modified versions of these for you to use click here and here.
Of course, your actual strategy tracking will vary, depending on what resources you use, which are implemented internally vs. externally, the tactic(s) in question, etc. The point is that, whatever your strategy, be sure you’ve considered (ideally, with input from other interested parties) the steps required to implement and maintain an effective Strategy. And speaking of tracking…
Track It!
If you think asking “Who may we thank for referring you to our office?” or words to that effect, constitutes a reliable marketing results tracking system, please think again.
Human nature dictates that people will typically provide the last place they saw your practice name as “the source.” Why, you may ask, does it matter? Consider that, if your direct mail program is causing recipients to consult their preferred provider directory for your name or, someone sees your billboard but does not recall the telephone number so they consult the Yellow Pages, and then cite that as “the source,” you are undervaluing the importance of direct mail and billboard advertising for your practice, which could lead to an incorrect decision to terminate a strategy yielding a positive return on investment.
A recent study we conducted showed that, for every patient attributed to direct mail as “the source,” another two patients actually received a direct mailing from the practice.
While it may not be accurate to credit 100% of the response to the mailing, it deserves at least partial credit. This also illustrates that people need to receive several impressions or “touches” for the same message before responding. To see this for yourself, just consider how many times you watch the same television commercial before you even know what’s for sale.
So how does one enhance tracking accuracy and reliability?
One way is to compare the addresses of all new patients with the addresses to which you are sending direct mail. Another way is to assign a unique telephone number to each marketing strategy. That way, the phone bill is your tracking device.
Sincerely,
AIM DENTAL MARKETING
Daniel A. ‘Danny’ Bobrow,
President
Practice Perfection: Dr. Cortés on Epigenetic Orthodontics
Epigenetic Orthodontics – Gene-Derived Facial & Dental Aesthetics, is the topic of a presentation delivered by Dr. Martha Cortés that I was honored to host at www.PracticePerfection.com.
Dr. Cortes is a general and cosmetic dentist, as well as one of the very few fully certified neuromuscular dentists and fellows from the prestigious Las Vegas Institute. She is also a fellow and master of the International College of Cranio-Mandibular Orthopedics. Dr. Cortes was the first certified provider and instructor of the Epigenetic orthodontic program for the DNA Appliance ™ in the United States. She is past president of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry-New York Chapter, and past chair of the international AACD and a fellow of the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery. She is also an accredited member of the American Society of Dental Aesthetics and a diplomate of the American Board of Aesthetic Dentistry.
Her professional affiliations, honors, published works, and executive and faculty positions are too voluminous to list here. Those who are interested may learn more at her website www.CortesAdvancedDentistry.com
Epigenetic orthodontics uses a person’s natural genes to correct and straighten the teeth and jaws painlessly using biomimetic appliances. It is aimed at the overall health of the craniofacial region by providing appropriate treatment protocols that address the underlying etiology of signs and symptoms of malocclusions.
Changing the bite affects the spatial relations of the opposing teeth, which have lost their normal occlusal contacts. These changes are detected by mechanoreceptors in the periodontium and periosteal cells. Consequently, remodeling occurs due to signal transduction, in accord with the Spatial Matrix Hypothesis (put forth in 2004 by David Singh . another PracticePerfection™ presenter).
Various conditions including head and spinal position impact aesthetics as well as overall health. The use of novel biomimetic appliances can actually alter the current state of the skull and facial features, leading to e.g. the reduction or total elimination of disordered breathing. For this reason and more, we deemed her presentation to be consistent with, and wholly appropriate as a topic for mastery of the oral systemic health model
In attendance were a rather broad cross section of dentists, physicians and team members, which no doubt led to the stimulating Q&A session which followed. Some of the questions posed to Dr. Cortes included:
- What do kissing tonsils & extended uvula indicate to you about your patient?
- If a 15-year-old patient has impacted canine teeth – do you think they can be erupted and positioned correctly without surgery?
- What does a diminished vertical dimension indicate to you about a patient?
This enlightening, stimulating, and truly motivational presentation may be viewed here.
Other Practice Perfection webinars can be viewed here.
Tools to Make Reliable Marketing Decisions II
Part 2 of 3
By Daniel A. Bobrow, MBA (University of Chicago) & MBA (K.U.L. Belgium)
In the last Issue, we began our presentation of the 7 keys to successfully implement your dentistry marketing strategy. We have already covered:
1. Identify Your Objectives and
2. Determine Your Budget
In this Issue we tackle:
3. Performing and Evaluating Your Benefit/Cost Calculations
4. Selecting Your Target & Frequency
and
5. Choosing Design and Message
Start off on the right foot, and on a path of your own making
It is surprising how many dentists embark on a given marketing strategy without first “crunching a few numbers,” that is, determining what constitutes an acceptable response, and return.
In most instances, an attempt is made at calculating program cost. However, without a reliable indicator of the benefit, stated most often in terms of average patient value, the measure is incomplete.
Remember: to perform a benefit/cost calculation, you need to divide Benefit by Cost so, without knowing the benefit, you’ve only got half the story.
Benefit:
Calculate YOUR Average Patient Value
There is a simple and reliable way to determine the average patient value for your practice (the one exception to this is if you are opening a new practice, in which case you may need to rely on profession-wide or (if available) area-specific averages until you build up a sufficient patient base to perform the calculation).
The method involves randomly selecting thirty patients who have been with the practice for at least a year, adding their hygiene and non-hygiene production totaling these two production types across the entire sample, reducing the product by a certain factor to reflect costs associated with delivering service (labs fees, supplies, etc.), then adding the two production types and dividing by 30 to get your Average Annual Patient Contribution to Overhead aka AAPCO.
To receive a worksheet, which both clearly illustrates the process, and may be used to actually perform the exercise send an email to DBobrow@AIMDentalMarketing.com.
Bear in mind: this is a very conservative measure of patient value, as it does not take into consideration referrals or re-care beyond one year.
Armed with this information, you can now proceed to other essential measures of strategy effectiveness such as Patient Acquisition Cost, Break Even Quantity and Percent and finally, Return on Investment (ROI). The above-referenced worksheet can even perform these calculations for you automatically.
Target & Frequency (Scope)
Now that you have the requisite tools of analysis in hand, you now need to determine who to target and how frequently to reach them, also known as the scope of your strategy. This, in turn, depends on any one (or possibly more than one) of the following: Expected Response Rate of the strategy in question, Excess Capacity, that is, how many more patients per month can your practice absorb, & Budget.
Expected Response Rate
There are several ways to arrive at what constitutes a realistic expectation for the response rate from a given marketing strategy. If, for instance, you’ve employed a direct mail strategy in the past, and do not plan on deviating too much from you did before (assuming no major changes in demographic makeup or competitiveness of your area), you should expect a similar result. However, if you are changing one or more variables, you may need to adjust your expectations accordingly. For instance, you may have relocated to an area whose demographic significantly differs from your former service area. Or, you may have targeted only new residents in the past, but now wish to broaden your efforts to include current residents. Still another example of why you may need to reassess your expectations is if you are using a channel you’ve not attempted before, in which case, you’ll want to rely on “industry standards,” ideally adjusted to reflect the characteristics of your Service Area.
Let’s say your research has determined that a reasonable expected response rate for the strategy in question is .25%. Multiplying any given number of placements by that expected response will yield the expected number of new patient opportunities. Let’s say your direct mail strategy is intended to target 5,000 resident households. Employing the above statistics yields an expected number of new patient opportunities of 12.5 (5,000 exposures times .0025).
Armed with the above, the next consideration is how many additional patients your office can comfortably absorb. Let’s say you’d like an additional 10 patients per month. If the only strategy you plan to employ is direct mail, and you are comfortable with the .25% estimated response rate, you’ll want to mail to 4,000 households. Of course, there is a point at which the return may be expected to diminish. If you wanted to attract, say, 200 patients in one month, according to the above formula, you’d need to send 80,000, which is fine, unless to capture that many households, you’ll need to target way beyond the distance a typical patient would be willing to travel to experience a new dentist’s care.
The last step in the process involves determining your budget. Let’s say you’d like to attract 25 new patients, your expected response rate is .25%, your per mailer cost is $.35, and your monthly budget is $2,000.
To attract 25 new patients you’ll need to invest 25/.0025*$.35 = $3,500. In this case, you’ll either need to revise your desired new patients downward or your budget upward.
Frequency
Extensive research can be performed to determine optimum frequency and interval but the most important thing to understand is this: frequency matters. Just ask yourself how many times you need to be exposed to the same television commercial before you a) know who they are b) know what they are selling and c) know what they’re asking you to do. Consider this, and you’ll ‘get the picture.
Suffice to say that it is a fundamental principle of marketing (and psychology) that people need to be exposed to a given message several times before taking action. In terms of direct mail marketing for dentists, we’ve found that a minimum exposure of once quarterly for four consecutive quarters yields a positive return (once a month for twelve consecutive months, budget allowing, is even better).
Another principle to remember is message consistency. Do not make the mistake of thinking you need to vary the message to keep from boring your audience. Your objectives are more modest: a) get them to recognize you b) get them to trust you & c) get them to respond to you. Before what we term saturation and fatigue become a cause for concern, your marketing program will need to be highly aggressive: most dentists never reached that level.
Having more than one strategy in place simultaneously should, if executed in an integrated manner, result in that elusive but desirable phenomenon called synergy, where the whole (response) is greater than the sum of its parts.
Design & Message
As with frequency and interval, a great deal of research (as well as trial and error) can be committed to determining your optimum message and design elements. It is made even more challenging because what was new, exciting, and appealing yesterday may be old, boring, and uninteresting today.
That said, there are certain design elements, which more or less transcend time, and fad, and have proven to be fundamental to, and essential for an acceptable response rate. Depending on your objective, your design will be general or specific, passive or aggressive, bold or understated. For examples of these various design elements: click here (for currently tested, proven, and recommended designs, text, and offers, contact your marketing specialist).
Our next Issue will conclude this section by covering the two remaining topics of Scheduling and Implementing Program Tracking Systems.
Sincerely,
AIM DENTAL MARKETING
Daniel A. ‘Danny’ Bobrow,
President