The Wave of the Future — Direct Internet Marketing
But it's not the future yet!
I find it very interesting that so many dentists think that they can do all their practice marketing on the web. I think it's because they believe that it costs less. In today's marketplace there is no one right way to market a practice. Why? Because people still have different ways of getting information. A direct mail campaign that directs the recipient to a practice website with great information can be very effective.
For marketing to be successful you need as many ways as possible to get your audience's attention. For those who prefer to get their information from the web, your website is listed on the mailer. And for those who rarely or never use the web, the direct mail piece does the job.
Effective marketing is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. You need to know who the people are who fit your need, people you'll want as patients in your practice.
Buying zip code lists or postal route lists—the addresses of every household in a zip code area—is not a wise use of your money. You need to spend your marketing dollars on the RIGHT people, not all the people!
Many methods can determine the demographics of a practice area. Demographics, most of the time, are just statistics about an area: number of people, number of households, income level, education level, age of residents, how employed, etc. Demographics are good to know before starting up a new practice—or moving an established one.
You can get minimum, basic demographic information from the internet. You can also get a demographic report, crafted just for dentists, which tells you a whole lot more—like how much competition per capita exists in the area, the growth rate of the population, and who is likely to choose to travel to your practice based on your location. This material, while often fascinating, can't help you identify the right people to target—so don't spend too much of your budget to acquire it. You need more facts!
Once you have the demographics for your practice, you need to know how to apply the information. That's where psychographics comes in. Psychographics tells you about each group of people in your practice radius. They make decisions based on their income, education, age, employment, type of housing, etc. These are the reasons they choose you.
With demographics and psychographics you can cherry-pick the right patients for your practice. You can send them the right message and offer the right incentive. Plus you can save big bucks by marketing to just the people you want as patients—not the whole zip code.
The direct mail campaigns we do for Hycomb clients are always targeted. We have a demographic/psychographic study done before we ever begin a project. Who the target audience is determines what direct mail piece will be designed and what the incentive offer should be to attract those people in the doctor's target market.
By targeting your list, we greatly reduce the cost of a mailing. You won't spend money on households that aren’t right for your practice. Or ones that don't have enough income to accept treatment. The purpose of direct mail is to introduce our clients to prospective new patients. The direct mail piece should tell a bit about the dentist, the practice and the services offered.
Direct Mail isn't right for every situation. Based on the psychographics of an area, it may be wrong for some practices. If you specializing in dentures or implants and want just those patients who want those procedures, then direct mail is probably not the right medium. And our experience has been that big cities (New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles) have a lower response rate. Plus the direct mail piece needs to be designed to send the right message to the audience the client wants to attract.
Hycomb has produced newsletters for dental patients for 30 years. We have an expansive article library of over 2000 articles on dentistry and general health. We gear our articles to appeal to patients in all walks of life. So we can offer a dentist any message he or she wants to convey. And we help guide the client when the newsletter is to be used for direct mail.
But newsletters are not the only direct mail piece Hycomb offers. In some markets we recommend sending postcards based on the socio-economics of the area. We also offer our All About You product, a custom brochure about you and your dental practice. All About You appeals to a very up-scale market. Give Hycomb a call—talk with Melinda about what’s right for your practice.
In these pages you'll discover how to improve on what you're doing right and how to avoid marketing traps—set yourself apart from the competition—target the patients you want most—deal with those inevitable changes outside your control, and affect the positive changes you desire. 