Person-to-Person Marketing

How are you marketing to your patients of record right now?

If you’re like most practices, this is a painful question – because the majority of dentists haven’t really embraced the concept of internal marketing. By this, we don’t mean having spa services, Otis Spunkmeyer cookies or soothing music/headphones available for patients. Internal marketing and patient perks are certainly in line with one another, but really aren’t the same thing. By internal marketing, we mean advertising that directly targets people who have already bought from you once (and statistics say will be twice as likely to buy from you again). Internal marketing means you never have to buy a list of prospects, simply because you already own the list! It lives in your patient roster, your hygiene recall list and your storehouse of paper or digital charts. What to do with that list, you ask? Well, these are our top suggestions for “real” internal marketing. If shameless self-promotion makes you feel weak around the knees, remember that if you don’t tell the patient how great you/your office are, no one else will; get out there and let the world know how you are different or unique!

1. Ask For Referrals.
We can’t tell you how many times we ask our clients and acquaintances to do this, yet it is terribly overlooked by dentists. Administrators seem more comfortable actually asking for the gift of a referral; doctors (if they ask) get a better response and a better result. We understand your reticence to seem as if you don’t have enough work, but you’re missing the point. Asking patients to send their friends and family to you is a complement to THEM. People love complements and they are a powerful influencing tool. We’ll cover the exact script for asking for referrals on our next TeleForum.

2. Referral Rewards Work, and You Should Use Them.
If your state practice act allows rewarding a referring patient and/or the person they bring to you, you should be doing this NOW. Do not wait. Use a care-to-share card with the reward plainly spelled out. We’ll explain exactly how to give them out, what to do when they come back in and how to maximize the rewards during our class.

3. Leverage Your Alliances.
You are surrounded by businesses that share your patient base - but do not compete against you. Many of these (spas, salons, health clubs, plastic surgeons, women’s health centers, aestheticians; the list goes on) would be happy to send business your way if the relationship was reciprocal. Creating alliance relationships can be the most exciting and fun project of a career. We’ll cover some alliance success stories on our next call, plus give you an exhaustive list of possible alliance partners to work with in the field.

What do alliance partners do for one another? First: no money changes hands! They share lists and work in tandem to promote one another. Occasionally, they share advertising and event costs on target projects. If you want to maximize your marketing dollars, alliances are a wonderful thing.

4. Create internal buzz.
Excitement is contagious, and if a few of your patients get excited about something going on in your office, the word of mouth can be incredible. Think The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. Developing a maven, someone who loves to tell others about your practice, is a goal that every practice has - yet few truly master. Buzz is more than a new gimmick or service because those can be short-lived. True ambassadors for your practice are created out of the sincerity and service you provide not only while the patient is in the office, but also when they aren’t. Where do you start? After-care calls (done consistently by the doctor in the evening after the procedure) are a must. Take it a step further with follow-up calls to patients one or two weeks after a major procedure. Glitz and glam may be the order of the day in dental marketing; what is truly missing is one-to-one service.

If you want to know more about how to create buzz or what gets patients motivated to talk to their friends, family and co-workers we’ll cover more of these ideas on November 27th.

People love to talk. Even so, we know an average person only tells two people if they have a great experience in your office – and a bad experience generates eight conversations!

Contact us to learn more about growing and expanding your word-of-mouth campaign to epic proportions by emailing me; penny@reedlimoli.com.