With dental practices having an abundance of marketing channels available to them, it can be difficult to know what works and what doesn’t. But sometimes it’s the tried and true strategies that get you the best results, like direct mail marketing.
Direct mail marketing is a great way to connect with high-intent patients, spread brand awareness, drive prospective patients to take action, and focus your resources where they are most likely to yield results.
Here are 10 reasons why you need this proven marketing channel to grow your dental practice:
- People love getting mail
Everyone loves to get mail, especially in our currently socially distant world. A USPS study indicates that 61% of respondents found that “mail is extra special during this time of social distancing” and 54% of respondents found that communication via snail mail fostered a “more meaningful connection to those they sent mail to.” People get excited over a nice letter or postcard, which hardly applies to emails. In fact, people often feel overwhelmed by their overloaded email inboxes, making the less common and more personalized touch of postal mail more likely to increase patient engagement.
- You easily get to reach your target patient
One of the many amazing benefits of direct mail marketing is the ability to target a specific area. MVP uses advanced technology like heatmap targeting, which makes it easy for you to reach high-intent patients. Heatmap targeting identifies your hottest neighborhoods based on your existing patient profile and improves results for your offline and online marketing. By identifying which patients would likely need or want your services, you can market to them directly, helping you to streamline your marketing efforts.
Learn more about heatmap targeting here.
- It’s cost effective
Because you get to effectively target your ideal patient instead of randomly marketing to everyone, you get to invest your resources only where you’ll most likely be successful, saving your practice time and money. Each mailing should become more effective, as it narrows down the target area you mail to, continually improving your chances of actually getting new patients.
- High ROI
According to Marketing Charts, direct mail is ahead of paid search and online display ads in terms of return on investment as it gets you a median ROI of 29%, which is on par with social media. Direct mail’s response rate is 5.3% for mail sent to houses and 2.9% for prospect lists. In comparison, email has an average click-through rate of about 2% or 3% and only a meager response rate of 0.6%, giving direct mail a clear advantage.
- It’s more visible than email marketing
According to a study, direct mail has a higher delivery and open rate than emails, with 77% of recipients sorting through their physical mail as soon as they receive it and 98% of people checking their physical mail daily. Compare that to only 34.1% of recipients opening their daily emails. With 200 billion emails sent daily, people’s inboxes are overloaded and marketing messages are likely to either never get opened or immediately deleted.
Since direct mail is tangible, it is more visible than email communication. An email might only get a few seconds of a recipient’s time, while a direct mail piece can be put up on a fridge for an extended period. A patient is much more likely to come back to a piece of direct mail than they are to an email.
- Less Competition
Most people equate digital marketing to a more effective, easier, and cheaper advertising route. That’s why most businesses do it. Those who believe direct mail to be an outdated version of advertising are losing out on highly probable and valuable new patient growth. Since less people do it, it is less common, making it more effective for you. Due to less competition, your mailing will stand out and be more visible to recipients. And it’s a lot easier to stand out through direct mail than on the internet, which literally everyone is using.
- It complements digital marketing strategies
Direct mail marketing can reinforce any digital marketing messaging and can increase response rate with prospective patients. In fact, your call to action is 21% more effective with direct mail. Postcards received by mail after an email also increase brand awareness and recall. This multi-channel marketing approach can help you address prospective patients on multiple marketing channels with one cohesive message.
- It develops trust with your patients
With increased technology comes an increased concern for privacy. Internet users today have to worry about hacking, phishing, and identity theft. Only 22% of customers trust emails from companies or brands. Recipients often think company emails are spam or phishing scams, so they’re less likely to open them or trust the content inside of them.
90% of people between the ages 25 to 35 find direct mail reliable, which means this marketing strategy is more likely to build trust with your patients than online marketing. Personalized mail also makes recipients genuinely feel cared for, increasing your chances of being contacted.
- Direct Mail is Trackable
Direct mail has always had issues with tracking in the past. But MVP makes tracking possible and we consider it a key piece of any marketing effort. For your direct mail campaign call to action, choose a unique phone number or website URL to enable your practice to count the campaign’s leads. This way you know exactly where your website visitors and callers came from. It helps you track your results and find out how well your direct mail marketing campaign is performing. Knowing this information makes it easy to update your marketing approach to target patients more efficiently. Choose to work with direct mail marketing experts to eliminate the guesswork.
- It’s easy!
Direct mail marketing is easy for both dental offices and patients. It’s easy to track and measure the success of a campaign, and neither requires a significant investment in digital infrastructure or in-depth knowledge of anything technical. It’s also easier for your patients. Studies show that it is easier for postal mail recipients to digest the information in a direct mail piece than in a digital ad. And with the help of marketing professionals you can get a campaign up and running in as quick as two weeks!
IN CONCLUSION…
… direct mail marketing is an oft overlooked channel that has many benefits that you don’t want to miss out on!
This cost effective approach can have a higher ROI and response rate than other marketing channels, increase brand awareness, more effectively reach your target patients, and drive sales!
And with this proven marketing route potentially resulting in 12-24 new patients per month at an average new patient value of $750-1,000 per year, it is definitely time for you to start investing in direct mail marketing!
Direct mail marketing is a great way to connect with high-intent patients, spread brand awareness, drive prospective patients to take action, and focus your resources where they are most likely to yield results.
Here are 10 reasons why you need this proven marketing channel to grow your dental practice:
- People love getting mail
Everyone loves to get mail, especially in our currently socially distant world. A USPS study indicates that 61% of respondents found that “mail is extra special during this time of social distancing” and 54% of respondents found that communication via snail mail fostered a “more meaningful connection to those they sent mail to.” People get excited over a nice letter or postcard, which hardly applies to emails. In fact, people often feel overwhelmed by their overloaded email inboxes, making the less common and more personalized touch of postal mail more likely to increase patient engagement.
- You easily get to reach your target patient
One of the many amazing benefits of direct mail marketing is the ability to target a specific area. MVP uses advanced technology like heatmap targeting, which makes it easy for you to reach high-intent patients. Heatmap targeting identifies your hottest neighborhoods based on your existing patient profile and improves results for your offline and online marketing. By identifying which patients would likely need or want your services, you can market to them directly, helping you to streamline your marketing efforts.
Learn more about heatmap targeting here.
- It’s cost effective
Because you get to effectively target your ideal patient instead of randomly marketing to everyone, you get to invest your resources only where you’ll most likely be successful, saving your practice time and money. Each mailing should become more effective, as it narrows down the target area you mail to, continually improving your chances of actually getting new patients.
- High ROI
According to Marketing Charts, direct mail is ahead of paid search and online display ads in terms of return on investment as it gets you a median ROI of 29%, which is on par with social media. Direct mail’s response rate is 5.3% for mail sent to houses and 2.9% for prospect lists. In comparison, email has an average click-through rate of about 2% or 3% and only a meager response rate of 0.6%, giving direct mail a clear advantage.
- It’s more visible than email marketing
According to a study, direct mail has a higher delivery and open rate than emails, with 77% of recipients sorting through their physical mail as soon as they receive it and 98% of people checking their physical mail daily. Compare that to only 34.1% of recipients opening their daily emails. With 200 billion emails sent daily, people’s inboxes are overloaded and marketing messages are likely to either never get opened or immediately deleted.
Since direct mail is tangible, it is more visible than email communication. An email might only get a few seconds of a recipient’s time, while a direct mail piece can be put up on a fridge for an extended period. A patient is much more likely to come back to a piece of direct mail than they are to an email.
- Less Competition
Most people equate digital marketing to a more effective, easier, and cheaper advertising route. That’s why most businesses do it. Those who believe direct mail to be an outdated version of advertising are losing out on highly probable and valuable new patient growth. Since less people do it, it is less common, making it more effective for you. Due to less competition, your mailing will stand out and be more visible to recipients. And it’s a lot easier to stand out through direct mail than on the internet, which literally everyone is using.
- It complements digital marketing strategies
Direct mail marketing can reinforce any digital marketing messaging and can increase response rate with prospective patients. In fact, your call to action is 21% more effective with direct mail. Postcards received by mail after an email also increase brand awareness and recall. This multi-channel marketing approach can help you address prospective patients on multiple marketing channels with one cohesive message.
- It develops trust with your patients
With increased technology comes an increased concern for privacy. Internet users today have to worry about hacking, phishing, and identity theft. Only 22% of customers trust emails from companies or brands. Recipients often think company emails are spam or phishing scams, so they’re less likely to open them or trust the content inside of them.
90% of people between the ages 25 to 35 find direct mail reliable, which means this marketing strategy is more likely to build trust with your patients than online marketing. Personalized mail also makes recipients genuinely feel cared for, increasing your chances of being contacted.
- Direct Mail is Trackable
Direct mail has always had issues with tracking in the past. But MVP makes tracking possible and we consider it a key piece of any marketing effort. For your direct mail campaign call to action, choose a unique phone number or website URL to enable your practice to count the campaign’s leads. This way you know exactly where your website visitors and callers came from. It helps you track your results and find out how well your direct mail marketing campaign is performing. Knowing this information makes it easy to update your marketing approach to target patients more efficiently. Choose to work with direct mail marketing experts to eliminate the guesswork.
- It’s easy!
Direct mail marketing is easy for both dental offices and patients. It’s easy to track and measure the success of a campaign, and neither requires a significant investment in digital infrastructure or in-depth knowledge of anything technical. It’s also easier for your patients. Studies show that it is easier for postal mail recipients to digest the information in a direct mail piece than in a digital ad. And with the help of marketing professionals you can get a campaign up and running in as quick as two weeks!
IN CONCLUSION…
… direct mail marketing is an oft overlooked channel that has many benefits that you don’t want to miss out on!
This cost effective approach can have a higher ROI and response rate than other marketing channels, increase brand awareness, more effectively reach your target patients, and drive sales!
And with this proven marketing route potentially resulting in 12-24 new patients per month at an average new patient value of $750-1,000 per year, it is definitely time for you to start investing in direct mail marketing!