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Patient Attraction Episode 1151

I’m a small business owner, and I know that it often feels like larger forces are trying to knock my company around. As business owners, there’s not much we can do to influence macro-economic factors. But there is something we can do to safeguard our businesses. That something is to adopt a model for attracting new customers that is both effective and sustainable. When we come back, I’ll tell you how dentists can take their future into their own hands.

– I’m Colin Receveur, founder and CEO of SmartBox.

– Thanks for watching the Patient Attraction Podcast.

– It’s not an exaggeration to say that a dental practice’s future depends on the quantity and quality of its new patient stream.

– And realistically, a practice needs both kinds of patients:

– A certain number of short-term patients and a good number of long-term patients who represent a much higher lifetime value.

– The vast majority of dentists promote their practices by advertising low price, specials, and insurance acceptance.

– Sure, there’s information on their websites about the services and comfort features they offer, but that’s mostly background information.

– The main thrust, and the major marketing expense, goes toward advertising to bring in new patients right now, or at least soon.

– It’s an approach that works fairly well, except when it doesn’t.

– That’s the way most successful dental practices operate.

– Their success level depends on market demographics and the level of competition they face.

– So there are variables that are pretty much out of their control.

– But what about the really successful practices?

– I’m talking about practices that are on a strong growth trajectory – practices whose bottom lines are consistently fatter month after month.

– And practices whose new patient stream is constantly improving in terms of both quantity and quality.

– Those practices are doimng something very different.

– They’ve decided to take a different approach to getting new patients.

– Rather than focusing on price and insurance, they’ve chosen to become the only logical choice for dental prospects.

– Dr. Katie Post in Rochester, Minnesota, is one such dentist.

– She said,  “Since 2002 to 2008, my practice was slowly growing.

– “Unfortunately, when you looked at the total collections for the practice, it had been at 2.1 million when I came and slowly had dropped every year.

– “And the year I bought in, it was at 1.8 million.

– “SmartBox has been very instrumental in the growth of our practice going from 250 to 300 to 350 new patients per month …

– “… contributing ideas to us on marketing techniques, helping us evaluate the effectiveness of how much money I’m spending …

– “… and where I should effectively spend that to make it the most effective.”

– Dr. Post brings up a good point.

– You can throw a lot of mo–ney away on multi-channel marketing that doesn’t work.

– Research shows that dental patients are very bad at recalling which advertisement motivated them to pick up the phone.

– You might have 4 or 5 marketing channels working, but only 2 are returning enough new patients.

– Practically no dental practices can afford to waste marketing dollars.

– So if you’re not tracking your marketing to determine which channel is giving you the highest return on investment, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

– SmartBox provides phone tracking for our dentists, like Dr. Post.

– And our team of Call Quality Analysts listens to every recorded phone call every month.

– We know which channels are producing and how well.

– And we can advise dentists when there’s a problem with their front office’s phone technique that’s costing them new patients.

– It’s all part [...]