Archive for Dental Office Marketing
Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About….
Posted by: | Comments“Dentist review” sites are gaining popularity – Merchant Circle, Yelp, Angie’s List and others. It’s how many are selecting their dentist, with the help of what existing or former patients have to say about the dentist’s skill, professionalism, office atmosphere and more.
Now, word of mouth is one of my favorite and most powerful marketing strategies. Studies show that over 80% of consumers do research online before making a decision on a product or provider. It’s important to pay close attention to what people are talking about on these review sites. Here’s how:
1) Set up your profiles: Have an administrator from your office set up profiles on each of the popular sites. Having a complete profile looks more professional to users – include photos and your website, where applicable.
2) Use reviews as a marketing strategy: Copy positive reviews into your marketing materials and mention them in your website.
3) Ask nicely for reviews: Shower lots of appreciation on those that take the time out of their busy day to write a review. Encourage other patients to do so!
4) Counter negative comments: The faster you can address this, the better. Be prompt and professional – and offer a great solution to amend the problem. How do you know if angry patients are writing bad reviews? Set up a Google Alert – it’s fast, easy and free – and you will get notices when anything is posted about you.
Did You Keep It?
Posted by: | CommentsMost of us make New Years resolutions each year. In the first few weeks of January, the gym is packed and everyone is in line at the drugstore to buy Nicorette. Aside from the personal resolutions to get healthy, we make professional resolutions, too. We resolve to start doing the things we know we are supposed to do to sustain a profitable, successful practice like hold Morning Huddles and implement our Core Values.
You can make as many resolutions as you want, but that alone won’t make you successful. Sticking with them will. It’s nearly April – a quarter of the way in – and I can bet that you aren’t at all concerned with what you promised yourself on January 1st. The problem with New Years resolutions is that we focus on them only at the start of the year and we don’t set a reasonable path to achieve them. What if we stopped creating them in January and picked another, random day to begin?
Here are my solutions to achieve your resolutions in your practice:
1. Immediately write down a goal and post it someplace where you will see it daily, like the bathroom mirror. This goal should be simple, like: “Write one thank you note a week to a team member” or “Make two patient calls this week to follow up on an extensive procedure.”
2. Give yourself a monthly reward, such as a round of golf at your favorite club or a 90-minute massage.
3. Look at the big picture. This time next year, if you follow the above goals, you will have already acknowledged your staff more than 50 times and over 100 patients would be telling their friends how much their dentist cares about them.
You Aren’t Wal*Mart
Posted by: | CommentsIn an era of Groupon deals and price matching, where everyone wants something half off, some dentists believe that this marketing strategy of deep discounts is the way to go. News flash: It’s not!
In 2011, we live in a discount consumer culture – it seems as though patients no longer care about value and quality; they just want a good deal!
What happens with sites like Groupon is that while your patient may be able to purchase a $500 whitening service for only $250, Groupon takes 50% of the price the patient paid. That means that you are left with $125. You are essentially providing your valuable services at 75% or more off!
I advise my clients not to discount their fees. As dentists and business owners, we are influential professionals and must set the tone for what a sustainable, quality business looks like. This does not mean that we want patients to overpay for oral health care services, but that dentists should charge a fair fee for their service and deliver it with panache.
Remember that if you raise your fees or even simply refuse to discount them – some patients might question you. They might even leave. But the patients that you want to continue to attract and retain are the ones who will gladly pay what is a fair market value for quality dental services.
Note: In my book, Killing the Practice Before It Kills You: How Throwing Out My Business Model Saved My Life, I discuss how I was able to confidently raise my fees and not lose patients in the process. Pick up a copy for more detailed info.
It’s Report Card Time
Posted by: | CommentsDoesn’t that phrase give you a pit in your stomach, remembering that feeling? My wife, Trish, affectionately known as My Sweetness, taught Kindergarten for 36+ years! She routinely distributed report cards to her students. It helped them improve.
We graduate and we instantly forget about those important “progress benchmarks.” What if your hygienist gave you a report card?
Ask your employees to be (anonymously) honest with you in a 360 review. This is feedback that comes from your employees. It also includes a self-assessment. Don’t avoid doing this because you are afraid of what it says. Just like you give reviews to your employees, ask them to review you, too. A secondary bonus is that your employees will know their feedback is valued. It will undoubtedly help you improve.
3 of the Largest Mistakes We Dentists Make
Posted by: | CommentsMost dentists are concerned with bringing more patients – being bigger, badder and better than the next guy. So was I. But I learned that there are 3 areas easily overlooked, when you are focused on marketing to new patients. Don’t make these mistakes:
1) Not paying attention to employees: What if your employees wrote down everything that they thought? This includes what they think about working for you, their Dental CEO; about how they feel about their job culture; and their dedication to your dental office. Does it make you cringe? If it does, take charge of re-defining and shaping your culture, by building trust with your employees. The rest – the patients – will follow.
2) Focusing on selling your dental services, rather than creating friendships: It’s been proven that it’s better to build friendships with prospective patients that you meet – at community events, for example, instead of telling them all about you and how you are so much better than the dentist they currently see. The friendship itself is the reward. They will remember how warm and sincere you are, and come to you when needing their next treatment.
3) Not recognizing lifetime value of a patient: Have you calculated how much revenue a lifetime patient brings? How would that make a difference in how you treat, recognize, and follow-up with that patient? It costs more to market to and bring in a new patient than it does to give extra-special attention to an oldie, but goodie.
4 Ways to Bring in New Dental Patients
Posted by: | CommentsHow will you attract new dental patients to your practice? How will you convince them to drive past the other offices in the neighborhood and right onto yours?
I’ve written before that there is no magic pill for bringing in new dental patients. As THE DENTAL COACH©, I have worked with many clients who tell me: “I just want more patients – without going through a lot of steps or spending unnecessary dollars.”
So what do you need to do as a Dental CEO to bring in new patients? Market with empathy. You have to understand the state of mind of your potential patient, and then they must sense that you know what they need.
1) Most patients pay little attention to their oral health until they really need to. Therefore, using marketing phrases like “Have healthier teeth” is not nearly as effective as “End your oral pain.” Write your marketing messages in plain English and focus on the “pain” (pun intended).
2) Get permission from your current patients and use “Before” and “After” photos to show the impact you make. Visual is always better.
3) Define and locate your target audience. Marketing experts are always telling business owners to “pick a niche”. Identify your patients by their demographic and base marketing messages on that audience. It will also be a more effective use of your marketing budget if you focus on one or two “groups”.
4) Monitor your practice marketing campaign. Make it a team event, and review the analytics and results semi-annually. Make adjustments as needed, by getting input from the entire team. See my previous post on Open Book Management for more ideas on this.
Gifting to Referral Docs
Posted by: | CommentsReferral relationships with other doctors must be valued and nurtured. Doctors such as chiropractors, pediatricians and specialists all need to be cultivated and cared for. A supportive relationship with other doctors referring patients to you will enhance your new patient flow. If you do not show them how you (genuinely) appreciate them, they will stop referring to you!
It used to be that you could get away with sending a gift basket once a year in December. In today’s competitive market, you must stand out. It can be a constant challenge. I want to make it easier for you. Here are my top three ways to stand out to referring doctors:
1) Send a “just because” gift in February, for example. Don’t limit gifting to just the holidays (the fact is, many offices are inundated with gifts at this time and yours pay go unnoticed.)
2) Give something useful. Cookies and candies only last a few days (in some offices – they only last a few hours!). Consider giving a book that will enhance their practice, their professional and their personal life. Check out what some doctors had to say about my book here.
3) Always take the time to handwrite a note. Do not send a generic “Thank you”, and do not have your office manager pen the note. Take a few minutes and hand-write the note yourself. This is the lost art of doing business, and it will be appreciated and noted.
Bonus Tip: Consider putting a section on your web page for “Referring Doctors” to learn more about you, the office’s specialties, your service and why they should send their patients to you for important care.
Turning “New Patient” into “Long-Term Patient”
Posted by: | CommentsWhy do new patients become long-term patients? More often than location or price, it is because they established a great relationship with the dentist and his or her staff. You must over-deliver to these patients when they come to you, or they will vanish as quickly as they appear.
New patients begin forming an opinion of you as soon as they contact your practice. Their first impression is a combination of the appearance of the reception room, the smells, the conversations they overhear and the helpfulness of the staff. This is before you even get to sit down with them in the treatment room and shake their hand. Patients want to choose a dentist that they get to know, like, trust and someone that they have a relationship with. That is who they keep coming back to. So how do you establish that relationship?
Here are my 5 favorite tips:
1) After a new patient makes the initial appointment, send them a hand-written note, thanking them for the opportunity to treat their dental needs.
2) When the new patient arrives in the office, have a staff member personally walk up to him/her and give a warm, sincere welcome to the practice. When the patient enters the reception area, offer a beverage and have the staff member assist with initial paperwork.
3) Use the patient’s name often, show interest in their life.
4) After a challenging procedure, the doctor calls the patient in the evening to ensure there are no problems and to answer any questions they may have.
5) Look for opportunities to send a small gift that says “Thanks for choosing us” like a gas card or gift certificate for dessert at a local favorite.
What Is the Value of a Lifetime Patient?
Posted by: | CommentsIn all of my years of coaching dental professionals to succeed in their personal and professional lives, I’ve learned that most dentists are also savvy Dental CEOs. However, if you asked most of them to give a dollar amount of the value of a lifetime patient, they likely would have no clue.
If they knew this number, however, they wouldn’t be so frugal (okay, cheap!) on getting and keeping patients for a lifetime.
Dental CEOs understand that the cost of getting a new patient in the door (marketing, advertising, etc) is considerably higher than keeping a current one.
Most dentists would be wise to concentrate more of their advertising and marketing efforts on enhancing the relationship with current patients.
Here are my top 3 ways to keep patients coming back:
1) Acknowledge them: Send hand-written cards once a year on their birthday or another special day
2) Show them that they are valued: Tell them how much you value them, and be specific in saying why, by listing the number of years they have been a patient or how you have watched them grow up.
3) Give them specials: It makes sense to give special pricing to your current patients, instead of new patients only. Think of what value-add you can give to your best, long-term patients.
Office Surveys – This Is Not a Test; this is An Answer
Posted by: | CommentsDitch that stale suggestions box sitting at the front desk and begin performing regular patient surveys. These surveys are vital to operating a. Some doctors insist that it’s just more paperwork or that there is no time in the day. On the contrary, when following these tips, conducting surveys are a breeze.
To my I recommend conducting surveys twice a year. I also remind my clients that measuring results and getting useful feedback isn’t as simple as slapping some questions on a postcard size piece of paper and tossing it into a fishbowl at the front desk. Patient feedback surveys must be carefully mapped out and collated at the end.
My tips for how to conduct patient surveys:
1. Know what issues you want to target. Consider: Do you want to know if your patients are referring others to you? Are you preparing to expand your hours? Do you want to know if your phone is being answered like the Concierge at the Ritz? Targeting specific areas of your practice will help guide you.
2. , I suggest a mix of quantitative questions — asking patients to rate their treatment satisfaction on a five-point scale, for instance — should be mixed with open-ended questions to gain a mix of information. For example: 5 of the questions should require a simple “1” to “5” with 5 being high and 1 being a low answer. Example: “My appointment was scheduled with ease.” 2-3 of the questions should be open-ended questions. Example: “How do you feel that the staff treated you during your visit?”
3. Make it easy. Invite your patients to fill out the form while in the reception area, or while in the chair waiting for anesthesia to kick in. If the patient doesn’t have time to fill it out, provide them with a stamped envelope to send it back to you after they complete it at home. And, as always, make the survey anonymous.
4. Get a random sample. Have your front desk receptionist hand out a survey to every other patient, and make sure that you have roughly 100 surveys before you begin to collate and study the results. Also, have patients select their age range, so that you can be sure to get the most effective sample. Give patients of all demographics the chance to express their thoughts on your dental practice.
In today’s marketplace, successful realize that surveys are an inexpensive, sure-fire way to receive honest feedback that – when applied – will improve your dental practice profitability tremendously. Share the results with your entire staff, if applicable, and decide on benchmarks to reach together. Make sure to compare surveys year over year – you will be astonished at how much you’ve improved!
