Wouldn’t it be nice if you knew with reliability where your numbers would fall each month?
Obviously, there are a lot of unknown factors that can affect production and new patients and if there was a magic bullet to guarantee your goals each month, we’d all be on a beach somewhere sipping a margarita.
But, there is a way to eliminate the ups and downs of the rollercoaster ride many practices experience with their monthly numbers.
It’s all about establishing a predictable and reliable growth process. In our company we have developed what we call the Predictable Patient Growth Process.™ We’ve created this from over 20+ years of working with businesses on just what it takes to make things matter with their marketing and we have fine-tuned this even more for dental practices.
To have a truly sound process you need to cover all marketing areas of your practice. We typically start by taking a look at your internal processes first. This is your low hanging fruit.
You probably have some type of referral program to reward patients who send folks your way. Are your patients even aware of your program? Recall and reactivation are other areas where a solid system and accountability is extremely important. Many practices have weak systems or no systems in both of these areas. We often see these tasks being done when there is a slow down in your schedule making the processes inefficient and incomplete. You want to have easily repeatable systems in place and team members who can track and report on the measurable results.
Once these processes are in motion and working well, there are two other areas to focus on next, both are external forms of marketing. One being digital or online marketing and the other traditional or the type of marketing that has been used by companies for years. First, let’s take a look at what’s really important in your online marketing. If you’re an older doctor you may remember that all you really needed back in the day was a phone directory ad. The internet is now your phone directory but it is a little more complicated than that yellow pages ad. To build an awesome online presence, there are four areas you need to do exceedingly well in to be the “go-to” dentist in your town. These are your website and its search engine optimization, your 5-star reviews, your social media channels and directory listings. Each of these has their own nuances that make a huge difference in whether that prospective patient calls your office or your competitor’s. It is extremely important to get your digital footprint as large and as enticing as it can be, especially before you start spending dollars on paid traffic such as Google Adwords or Facebook Ads or in the next area, traditional.
Many marketing companies just focus on the digital arena; it’s easier. Therefore, many people assume traditional marketing is no longer relative in our lightningspeed world, but this is a false assumption. Traditional marketing done right can yield far more results than paid traffic as an example. Direct mail is one medium that we have seen work in literally every market. There can also be a place for newspaper ads. People still get mail each day and if they subscribe to a newspaper, they probably like to read it.
In the end, all that matters is the ROI of your marketing efforts which should be at the foundation of every dollar you spend. The goal should always be to convert a prospect into a new patient and to retain your existing patients. If that is not happening, your marketing cannot be deemed a success.
