Before investing in a marketing campaign, consider what you are trying to achieve. Explore three common goals other practices have, and what you can do to achieve them.
What are your practice marketing goals for the remainder of 2021? The goals you are trying to achieve determine the marketing techniques that will work best in attracting patients to your office. Let’s take a look at three common goals practices have, and what you can do to achieve them.
Boost New Patient Numbers
If your goal is to attract more new patients, you may want to consider a new patient special for uninsured patients, which provides a discount for their first visit. Or you may want to consider becoming contracted with an insurance company which is offered to a large number of employees in your area, providing that the fee schedule is competitive and acceptable to your practice.
Increase Higher Production Cases
If your goal is to have more patients with high production cases, you may want to target patients who show interest in cosmetic dentistry. You could add some questions to your patient questionnaire to find out who may be interested, such as, “Do you like the way your teeth look?” and “What would you change?” If a patient answers that they would like their teeth to be whiter, you could discuss teeth whitening options. Or if they answer they would like their teeth to be straighter, you could discuss orthodontics.
Expand Patient Demographics
If you are trying to gain more patients from different demographics, such as additional patients from a particular ZIP code, you could purchase an advertisement, like a banner, for a local youth sports team. That would give your practice name recognition in the neighborhood, so when potential patients think about which dentist to see, your office will come to mind.
If you want to target a specific age group, such as school-aged children, you could focus on school presentations for Dental Health Month to help teach children good oral hygiene techniques. Send the children home with your practice business card and maybe a toothbrush with your office name and logo. When the children are excited about the dental office school visit, it may prompt the parent to make an appointment at your office.
Once you have focused your practice marketing strategies, it’s important to track referral sources in Dentrix to see which campaigns have been successful. A successful marketing campaign that attracts patients to your office may be worth repeating in the future.
You can require that a referral source is selected when adding a new patient in Dentrix. This will ensure all new patient referrals are tracked and eliminates the possibility of forgetting to add a referral source.
Generate referral reports monthly so that you can evaluate which marketing campaigns have been most successful for your practice.
Before investing in a marketing campaign, consider what you are trying to achieve. Are you trying to boost your monthly new patient numbers? Do you want to do more cosmetic and orthodontic cases? Or are you trying to attract a particular demographic, like a specific age group, to your office? Your marketing goals will determine the best type of campaign for your practice.
Learn More
For more ideas about marketing your practice, read The 3 Most Important Marketing Secrets, Ever and 3 Ways to Attract New Patients Online.
By Charlotte Skaggs
Certified Dentrix Trainer and The Dentrix Office Manager columnist
Charlotte Skaggs is the founder of Vector Dental Consulting LLC, a practice management firm focused on taking offices to the next level. Charlotte co-owned and managed a successful dental practice with her husband for 17 years. She has a unique approach to consulting based on the perspective of a practice owner. Charlotte has been using Dentrix for over 20 years and is a certified Dentrix trainer. Contact Charlotte at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.
