Gone Fishing?
Some of you might not have noticed Dixie’s hiatus from her marketing tips, but for those of you who did and wondered what the holdup in the kitchen was, we haven’t been gone fishing. If you missed us, we’re glad to hear it and we hope to stay in touch. The thing is, our clients’ projects always come before our own. It’s very important to us to keep our website updated and to keep our search engine optimization from going stale, but we occasionally let our site slide to the backburner to meet deadlines for clients’ websites and to serve them with fresh SEO. The same applies to our marketing tips – we’ve done our best to make them monthly, but our clients come first. After their marketing orders have been filled, then Dixie loves to serve her tips for dessert.
Happy Anniversary, Dixie!
September marks one full year that Dixie has been serving up her marketing tips. We hope you’ve had as much fun reading them and success implementing them as we’ve had putting them together. While we were brainstorming ways to celebrate Dixie’s accomplishment, we got onto the topic of year-end letters. Direct mail is a reliable and effective dental marketing tool, but some situations call for more: more information, more explanation, or just a more personal touch. When the end of the year comes around in all of its holiday advertising glory, dental direct mail goes into hibernation–as it should. But don’t assume that you should freeze your marketing altogether during these months that are icy for dental direct mail, because a year-end letter is a simple and friendly way to remind patients to get in one more checkup and cleaning before their dental benefits turn over at the end of the year.
Dixie's Year-End Letter Special!
To commemorate a year of Dixie’s tips and show our appreciation for your business, we’re offering a year-end letter for only $225 (50% off the regular design fee!) until Monday, November 16th. This includes the design (which will be customized to go with your logo or brand image colors), text in which we will place your office information, and printing coordination if desired (the price doesn’t include printing or shipping costs). We’ll even throw in a return address label sheet setup! And better yet, if you sign up for or renew a full direct mail campaign on or before November 16th, we’ll give you a year-end letter for free! Call or email Jeff or Jen in sales today. In order to be effective, year-end letters need to be mailed in November or early December and, if you can believe it, the holiday clock is already ticking!
Speaking of Staying in Touch
In addition to nudging patients to come in once more before December 31st, year-end letters also provide a convenient and appropriate way to stay in touch and say “Happy Holidays!” Keeping in touch with patients means better top of mind awareness, and being on your patients’ minds leads to more regular appointments and more referrals to family and friends. If you’re feeling a little disconnected from your patient base, here are some great ways to increase contact:
Smile Reminder® Patient Messaging
Smile Reminder reports that through emails and text messages, practices produce an average of $51,232 in electronic recare in the first year. And that’s an average! The Smile Reminder system includes text and email appointment reminders; the option for patients to confirm appointments via text and email; links to Google Maps as well as referral links; electronic surveys; e-newsletters; birthday greetings; and a patient portal called SmileDash™. SmileDash features online bill pay; secure messaging; appointment scheduling; and more! Visit Smile Reminder’s website to sign up now. Demandforce® is another patient communication system that some of our clients use and have had success with.
E-Newsletters
If you sign up for Smile Reminder, you’ll automatically have e-newsletter capabilities. If you have a database of your patients’ email addresses and are looking for more options for an e-newsletter, CampaignMonitor is another company we have some experience with. CampaignMonitor’s email marketing software offers everything you need to create and send e-newsletters, manage lists, and track the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts. We can even help you with a customized design template – just ask us about it! MailChimp® is another company to check out. MailChimp’s “Forever Free Plan” allows you to store up to 500 subscribers and send up to 3,000 emails a month for free!
Messages On Hold
Tel-A-Patient, Inc. was founded by our friend, Dru Tice, in 1986. She wanted to equip practices to take advantage of telephone “hold time” as an opportunity to provide useful information to patients about services. With over 19,000 clients, Tel-A-Patient has the data needed to tailor on-hold messaging campaigns to the needs of different practices. Dru and her team don’t want your patients to feel “sold-on-hold” by messages that sound like commercials, and they don’t want patients feeling ignored by silence when they’re on hold either. Tel-A-Patient’s messages are meant to be warm, personal, and informative.
Videos
Let’s face it, we live in the age of YouTube and viral videos. While dental videos shouldn’t be expected to gain the same widespread popularity as, say, the “Evolution of Dance,” they can still be utilized to make your dental website more interesting and your practice’s reception area more engaging. Smile Reminder has begun emphasizing patient testimonial videos, CAESY® Education From Patterson offers informative presentations through a suite of software programs or on DVD, and Henry Schein® Guru™ offers waiting area videos, operatory video presentations, as well as videos that patients can view on your practice website or via email.
As the 2009 holiday season approaches and getting in touch with family and friends is on people’s minds, consider how you can get in closer touch with your patient base. These are some ideas and companies that we have experience with, and surely there’s something out there that will work well for you and your practice. We know it takes time and effort, but it’s worth it – it will be worth it to you because it makes a difference to your patients.
Changing Things up for 2010...
After a year of pom-poms, pilgrim hats, and pots of gold, Dixie’s taking her own advice and planning to mix things up with her marketing tips. Stay tuned to see what she’s got cooking... We don’t even know yet, but one thing we do know is that we’ll be in touch.
Happy Fall & Holiday Season!