Want to really hit the ground running with your Dental Marketing in 2020?
These great tips will help!
1. Make sure your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is clear.
In the mind of the Patient, the often think there is no difference between dental practices, and in the majority of cases dentists don’t try very hard to convince them otherwise. This is why your “unique selling proposition” (USP) can be very important, it helps patients understand what it is that differentiates you from the competition, and why it would be more beneficial for them to choose you. Just a simple phrase to outline this will work wonders.
Ask yourself and your team what it is that makes you and your practice unique, here are some good questions to begin with:
• Could we offer some kind of guarantee that would encourage patients to want to use our services over our competitors?
• For many people the inbuilt fear of going to the dentists is very real, is there any way we can either solve or at least reduce that for them? the pain they go through isn’t always the predominant factor these days, long wait times, too many follow-up appointments, and so on could also be a factor.
• Could we offer a current niche service that is trending or in demand? something that other dentists in our area don’t currently offer?
Creating a USP that is completely and unique is going to involve rolling up your sleeves and getting out there doing some in-depth competitor research, find out and completely understand what services your competitors are offering, pricing, wait times and so on.
Once you have answered the questions relating to what it is that makes you unique, it’s then time to get to work on writing your USP. Be very clear and direct and definitely emphasise your exclusivity! A good template to adapt for your USP would look like this:
The only dentist in [your location] that [your USP].
2. Targeting your ideal prospective patients.
In all businesses no matter what the industry is, knowing who your ideal prospects and targeting them correctly is critical to success, what do you know about your ideal patient? do you know the areas they live in? what do they do for a living? are they male or female? all of these questions are important, if you don’t know find out, data is key.
Everyone at some point needs a dentist. But you only want to incur costs to reach those who would prove to be the most qualified potential patients. Create a complete avatar and ‘profile’ of your ideal patient that covers even the smallest details, what do they do for work, what books/magazines do they read, what do they do for fun, what are their pain points in their life. Obviously, this isn’t a person, but the clarity you get by creating and working on this avatar can really help you understand what kind of marketing message you need to send to these prospective dental patients.
3. Benefits, Benefits, Benefits.
One thing many companies do wrong when it comes to marketing their business is focusing too much on the features of their services, and not enough on the BENEFITS of what they are selling, if nothing else remember this – Benefits sell, Features don’t! For example, “Same-day service” is a feature. “All dental emergencies fixed in one day” is a benefit. there is a big difference, the latter is the one that will grab the potential patients interest and sell them on your service.
When you only focus on the features people consider you are just trying to impress them. when you focus on the benefits it will help people understand your service will improve their lives, and ultimately this is the most important factor – the ‘what’s in it for me?’ question is answered with benefits.
Also be sure to write at the level of the patient you are hoping to gain, baffling them with technical information or jargon won’t help, it will just put them off, plain, easy to understand language is a much better idea.
4. Do not over-exaggerate or make false promises.
Honesty is always the best policy in life, don’t promise things you can’t deliver, and don’t over-exaggerate the benefits your services provide, for instance, don’t go promising a “100% pain-free experience” and don’t state that you return calls within 24 hours if it takes often takes you longer.
Always be crystal clear about what you will do for your prospects, how it will benefit and improve their lives, how you will commit to them as a patient once they choose you. Killing expectations by not delivering on them will cause a negative impact on your business.
5. Work on your call to action (CTA).
Don’t assume your potential patients know what to do next when you are exposing them to your marketing materials, you always need to spell out for them what the next steps are for them to take, people don’t always know what that might be.
That’s where your call to action comes in, it’s your way of telling them exactly what they need to do next “Call this number to book your appointment” or better still tie in your call to action with a special offer you might be running “Call us today for Free Teeth Whitening”. Using a CTA will make a big difference to whether or not they take action.
6. Make sure you have a follow-up strategy in place.
One thing we see a lot in our clients’ businesses when we first onboard them is the lack of a follow up strategy, they send out a ton of emails, letters, postcards, but then never follow up to discuss. This is wasting a lot of precious time and money.
Make sure you have a strategy in place to monitor your campaigns and have a follow-up sequence – email or direct mail, followed by another email or a phone call is a good place to start, lots of businesses have at least 6 or 7 different techniques for consistent follow-ups, and they work.
7. Track what’s working.
It constantly surprises me how few of my clients do not track their efforts, it’s a simple process to implement – a well-trained receptionist asking the question “how did you hear about us?” and noting it down on a sheet is easy to put in place, in the case of paid ads tracking code can be added to ensure you know exactly where the enquiries have come from.
Once you have identified what is working, do more of it! scale it up, and cut down on what’s not working, you would be surprised how these small changes can rapidly increase your growth.
8. The 80/20 Rule.
It’s been proven to be the case around 80% of your income can come from 20% of your customers, so make sure you utilise this, your current patients are the perfect audience for upselling higher end services to, they already trust you because they have used your service, build on that trust and make sure you keep contact with them to develop and build the relationship.
We hope you have liked these tips, as with anything in life the key is to actually get out there and implement – if you do nothing, you won’t see any results, constant action will lead to your growing your practice and increase your turnover.
