How to Make the Most of Your Marketing

Sometimes clients call me and ask me how they can make the most of their marketing. They’re getting a good number of inquiries from their Internet marketing and/or their custom magazine and they’d like to increase their scheduling ratio.

I usually refer them to our Internet Marketing Manager or Print Distribution Manager for help. We’ve developed a checklist of points to look out for and actions to take to improve the return in investment. Many of these points we discuss with the client before we even launch the website or send the custom magazine out. These points apply to any marketing a dentist does, whether ours or another company’s. I thought I would share some of the main ones with you.

It starts with the your phone messages – your hold message and your answering message – their content, length and call to action. Also, is there someone answering the phone during business hours at all times, including at lunch time?

Then your front desk. How do they answer the phone? Are they friendly? Do they know how to guide the conversation so that the inquirer makes an appointment? This one is critical. We provide phone and email scripts based on listening to many hundreds of calls and isolating the most successful patters. We keep track of the results of your marketing and monitor your calls for your scheduling statistics. If the scheduling ratio is low, we check that we are reaching the right demographics and tweak our Internet campaigns or distribution as necessary. Most of the time the problem is with the front desk, and we invite our clients to listen to the calls. If the scheduling ratio still stays low over a long period, below 50 percent, we recommend a front desk training program. We have listened to many calls where the receptionist basically is driving the new patient away.

Once the new patients are coming in the door, it’s up to the doctor and the team to help the person to sign up for the dentistry they need. Treatment coordination and acceptance is an art not taught in dental school and there are many programs available for the dentist to come up to speed on them.

These are the basic mechanics of the new patient treatment acceptance line. Our job is to make your job as easy as possible by creating marketing for you that will attract, interest and engage the target audience. Make it so that the prospective patient is eager to come to your practice for your dental services.

If you’d like to give me a call and talk to me about how your marketing can be improved, please drop me a line or make an appointment with me at 855-743-6310.