Dental Marketing Success


Everybody Wants New Patients.
But is Direct Mail the Best Way to Get Them?


By Connie Hazel

A new patient is like a wrapped present under the Christmas tree. Admit it, you can’t get too many! But every new patient — like a wrapped present—begins as a mystery: some will prove more valuable than others. And unlike gifts, most new patients don’t come free. Chances are, you’re going to have to spend time, effort, and money to acquire them.

If you’re in a growth mode (and many practices are), a new-patient-acquisition strategy should be a part of your practice marketing plan. The question we’re asked most often is, “I need new patients — can you do a direct mail for me?”

Would Direct Mail Work For Me?

Well, it depends. It might. And it might not be the best use of your external marketing dollars. We don’t know until we look at your practice—your goals—patients active in your practice now—and, most important, the kinds of people you want to add.

We obtain this information through research: a demographic/psychographic report on households within a five- to ten-mile radius of your practice. The demographic component of the report details the number of families in your area and their overall economic, marital, and lifestyle patterns. At a minimum, it helps determine whether there are sufficient numbers of house-holds in the income bracket you want to target even to warrant a direct-mail marketing effort.

The psychographics component — the most important element — tells us what motivates the groups we’ve just identified to respond. That is, what print, direct mail, broad-cast, or other media they’re most likely to be following.

Direct mail may prove ideal for one target you’ve chosen and totally inappropriate for another. Or, as is often the case, you may need your direct-mail message to change depending on the audience.

Affluent families, for example, are more likely to respond to scheduling flexibility, convenience, and personal service. By contrast, lower or middle-income households are more apt to respond to discounting. That’s why you’re usually wasting money by sending a coupon to an upscale target group, but it might be just the thing for a working class target audience.

So there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Direct mail, I’ve seen, can work exceedingly well. Or not. But it’s always better to do your homework first and find out as much as you can about your target group before deciding on the means to reach them and the message to motivate them.

Dollars and Sense

Before you begin a direct mail campaign, know what the break-even point will be. How many new patients will you have to acquire to pay for the mailing? A simple way to determine break-even is to divide your cost by $550 (the national average net profit on a new patient—although the East/West Coasts boast over $750 per new patient). If your mailing cost is $2500, you’ll need three to five patients to break even—depending on your area.

Too often we hear, “My direct mail didn’t work — I only got seven new patients.” This response begs the questions: How many pieces did you mail? What was your total cost? What method did you use to track new patient calls? Seven new patients may have been a great success, if the doctor only knew the most appropriate way of calculating return on investment.

The next most common question is: “What percent response should I get?” Again, go back to your break-even calculation. Let’s say you do a three-mailing campaign to 2500 people and your total cost is $5500. You’ll need 10 new patients to break even — that’s two-fifths of one percent! Anything over this is pure gravy. We advise clients never to expect more than a quarter of one percent — a half percent, max.

The next biggest mistake in direct mail is lack of a plan. Don’t expect much in the way of results from a single mailing. People need to be hit two or three or more times before your message begins to penetrate their subconscious! Often, dentists fail to recognize that patients don’t show up when they’re needed by the practice—they come in when they need the dental services! The strategy must be: get in front of their face as often as possible, so when they’re ready to make a decision, your name is recognizable and your offer is actionable.

If your telephone verbal skills are good, and you’ve got a great new patient welcome package and identity system, and your team is providing value-added service, those 10 new patients the direct mail attracted will talk about you. Each new patient is usually attached to at least one other person and each has a circle of influence of perhaps 20 people. Your possibilities for referrals are great.If you feel a three-wave mailing for a 1/2 percent response doesn’t provide enough “bang for your buck,” don’t spend money first and wind up disappointed.

And, finally —

Bear in mind, in your quest for new patients, they may be easiest (and least expensive) to get by simply stimulating referrals from you rexisting patient base or reactivating inactive charts.Even while prospecting for new patients, maintain an ongoing strategy to nurture, stimulate and motivate patients who are already seeing you.Remember, the closer you are to your current patients’ hearts, the more likely you are to receive their quality referrals.And a patient referral is as close to a “free gift” as any new patient is likely to be.