Reputation is important for all businesses including your dental practice. Prospective patients will likely check online reviews about your practice before making a decision to try you out, and call or schedule an appointment. In fact, research shows that 94% of patients evaluate providers through online reviews, and 72% find a new provider based on them.

Regardless of how professional, experienced, and accommodating you are, at some point you will likely get some bad reviews. Unfortunately, people are more likely to leave a review when they have a complaint.  A few bad reviews can have a significant effect on a local business like a dental practice, casting doubts among prospective patients and negatively influencing public perception. Nobody likes bad reviews but they are a fact of the digital age we live in. Don’t let a few critical or even unreasonable reviews stress you out. Instead, respond as calmly as possible, listen to constructive criticism, and do everything you can to accumulate more positive reviews.

How you deal with bad reviews can impact your dental practice as much as the reviews themselves since both are public. Therefore, it is vital that you always respond professionally. Read on to find out the do’s and don’ts of dealing with bad reviews:

What To Do About Bad Reviews:

•   Always respond to reviews (even the negative ones)! Keep your response short, professional, calm and polite. Don’t react emotionally or defensively to someone whose review seems irrational. No matter how upsetting a review is, remember that every business makes mistakes and nobody is perfect. Apologize if appropriate, offer to make things right, and ask if you can reach out to them through a different channel.

•   Reach out. If you recognize the patient that made a legitimate complaint online, don’t be scared to reach out to them and genuinely inquire how your practice could be improved. Some patients are too shy to complain to your face but will do so behind the veil of anonymity online. When you acknowledge the complaint and show that you are going to address the issue, people are oftentimes willing to remove the bad review when you politely request it. Make sure they feel heard and cared about.

•   Report fake reviews. Not every review is legitimate. When you feel that a review is unfair and unfounded, report it as fake to the review site. Internet trolls are a dime a dozen, and you don’t have to accept the unjust attack of a disgruntled person or unethical competitor. Your chance of getting a fake review removed is higher if you can document that the reviewer was never an actual patient. You can also respond to the review by politely writing that you have no record of the alleged exchange. 

•   Deal with complex issues privately to protect your patient’s privacy. Ask them to contact you by email or phone so that you can resolve the issue. This way you also avoid writing long complicated paragraphs that review site visitors don’t want to read anyways. Or worse yet, creating an online exchange for everyone to see.

What NOT To Do About Bad Reviews:

•   Do not deny legitimate criticism. Assess whether your patient has a valid point before you respond. Be professional enough to acknowledge any mistakes. Negative feedback stings but it’s better to admit you’re at fault (if you are) than to argue something untrue.

•   Do not get angry or defensive. It’s ok to try and correct a false statement, but don’t get into an online word war with an angry patient. Regardless of how unfair or unfriendly you find a review, reacting aggressively only makes you appear unprofessional and can potentially alienate other prospective patients. Always stay calm and polite, no matter how out of line a reviewer is.

•   Do not ignore bad reviews. Disregarding negative reviews suggests that you don’t care about your reputation and no response can make readers conclude that the negative comments are accurate.

Attracting Positive Reviews

To gain prospective patients’ trust, it’s important that you have positive reviews. Having lots of positive reviews can outweigh bad ones and help solidify your good reputation.

Perhaps this is a no-brainer, but it’s still worth mentioning: offering exceptional customer service is vital to attracting positive reviews and can offset any complaints patients might have. When your whole team is committed to serving your patients the best way possible, they are more likely to overlook mistakes.

Encourage patients to provide feedback and reviews, and be proactive about gathering them yourself. You can provide patient surveys and give them a list of review sites. Be sure not to request positive reviews and don’t offer anything in exchange for their reviews. Make sure to highlight any positive reviews you get. You can ask your patients for permission to post their reviews with photos on your social media or physically in your practice. Listen to your patients, gather feedback, and apply improvement suggestions. If you realize that several people complain about the same issue, it’s worth paying attention.

Reviews are incredibly powerful in managing your reputation. The bottom line is, you can’t control what people say about you. No matter what you do, you will probably have to deal with bad reviews at some point. However, if you consistently attract positive reviews, these will eventually outshine the negative ones that you can’t remove.

If you’ve ever wondered why a patient chooses one dental practice over another, we have a simple answer for you: it’s the one that responds the fastest to their inquiries. Yes, location, insurance, services, and reputation matter, but it’s the customer service that will get prospective patients to make actual appointments with you. In fact, up to 50% of new patients end up going with the practice that responds to them first. What this means for you: to be truly competitive, you need some form of system responding to every new patient request as soon as possible, whether in the form of a phone call, email or text message.

Dental practices that wait until the end of the day to address new-patient outreach like returning phone calls and messages, risk losing out on significant patient growth. Most dental offices also don’t make more than one follow-up attempt, hindering the growth potential of their practice. 

However, there are things you can do to engage with prospective patients immediately, regardless of how they reach out. The focus here should be to develop a system that captures and stores new patient information and tracks outreach efforts.

DEVELOP A CONTACT MANAGEMENT PROCESS

Dental practices must prioritize outreach to avoid losing prospective patients to competitors in the area.  An in-house contact management process can help with that. Each day your team should dedicate time to new-patient outreach, including through phone calls, emails, and text messages.

The next time you get a new patient inquiry through your website appointment request form, make sure to respond to it immediately. Instead of waiting to respond to it by the end of the day, or worse, days later, develop an in-house new-patient outreach process that checks your email inbox at set times throughout the day and have someone on your team respond to new-patient inquiries, e.g. by using a template. If a person is willing to spend the time to fill out an online form, they are also serious about becoming a patient.

In addition to making sure the new-patient inquiry receives an immediate response, you should also store their contact information right away for future outreach. This can be done manually or by setting up an automated system. Either way, make sure you have an organized and accessible system in place.

Should the patient not respond to your first contact attempt right away, your office can make and track additional contact attempts easily. It sometimes takes up to five contact attempts before a patient responds, so don’t give up too soon.

An automated system like CRM software (customer relationship management) can help make the response process more efficient. No matter which tool you choose, make sure that it:  

1. helps you respond to new inquiries quickly,
2. captures and stores new patient info, and 
3. tracks inquiry attempts and patient communication.

The bottom line is: new-patient outreach is crucial to grow a dental office. While it can be time-consuming, having a process, and some form of response automation in place can help get back to inquiries quickly and increases your chance of turning them into actual patients.

As in any business, the most important resource for a dental practice is time. While you might think that investing in a marketing campaign to grow your practice would require extra hours from you, have you considered that leaving your marketing needs to professionals would cost you or your team no time while helping you grow your dentistry faster and more efficiently?

You may already know that your practice needs some form of outreach to ensure continuous patient growth. Retaining current patients and attracting new ones requires regular communication and a significant time commitment, one that many dental practices cannot make all alone. Instead of disrupting your team’s daily routine by devoting extra hours to marketing, the smarter choice would be to let experts cover the marketing frontline and leave you to focus on your patients. We understand this, which is why we provide a service that requires minimal effort on the practice’s part and lets us take care of all your marketing needs.

The process at MVP Mailhouse is easy and quick: we first like to get to know you and your practice during a short phone call. We’ll work with you to develop a strategy that targets your goals and to answer any questions you may have. Our specialty of direct mail marketing lets you mail at scale to the homes of look-alike audiences that match your current patient profile. You get to leverage our success and expertise from mailing millions of postcards and see how our scientific approach to design and targeting will maximize ALL the results of your direct mail campaign.

Why We Are Confident That We Will Grow Your Practice:

• 96% success rate.
• Our advanced technology and intelligent targeting finds look-alike audiences.
• We provide measurable results with a dashboard and mobile app.

We don’t only do the strategizing and direct mail marketing for you, we also take care of monitoring, testing, and optimizing. Our goal is to provide you with a complete solution that includes all performance analytics needed to get you optimal results. While we encourage you to give input and feedback if you like, our team will be doing all the work so that you don’t have to. Like the saying goes, “time is money,” we understand that your most precious asset, your time, is best invested in what you excel at: caring for patients. Let us take care of the work you don’t have time to do so that you and your staff benefit from saving valuable hours that can instead be used to ensure your practice runs smoothly.

Working with a company that specializes in the dental industry, allows you to focus on being the best dental professional while experts grow your dental practice. You know what the dental frontline requires and we understand what it takes to get results on the marketing frontline. Our scientific approach is hands-on, tested, and proven, and guarantees you the highest success rates, long-term. 

Whether you just opened your dental practice or have been in business for a while, you certainly know how important it is to constantly work on new patient growth and make sure they become loyal and long-term patients. If you find that your marketing strategies are not working to attract new patients, it may be time for you to switch things up and try out a fresh approach.

Your goal should be to identify and apply the correct strategies for your dental office. By focusing only on what’s working for you, you should be able to reduce your marketing costs. To do this, you may find it helpful to work with marketing professionals that can lead you in the right direction and deliver results. Two areas they should specialize in are Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing. 

Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing – What Is It and Which One Should You Choose?

Among the two marketing approaches, one is more passive and the other proactive. Put in simple terms: 

Inbound Marketing – A patient comes to you after encountering one of your ads. 

Outbound Marketing – Initial contact with a prospective patient is done through proactive outreach through phone, email, direct mail, text, etc. 

Thanks to the internet, inbound marketing – such as digital sales strategies – is cost efficient and effective. Social Media campaigns and other online sales methods are popular and help reach a big audience and wide range of people fast. But is this really the best way for you to attract and retain new patients to your dental practice? 

If you’ve already maximized your online marketing efforts and still don’t see results, you may be missing out on other valuable opportunities to attract new patients. To understand this better, let’s analyze the two marketing methods.

Inbound Marketing 

In today’s world of digital advertising, you are likely to already be applying various of the following marketing methods. In inbound marketing, you attract patients to come to you by forming connections with them through social media, webinars, videos, SEO or other strategies. The goal is to reach patients that are already interested in what you offer, help them meet their needs and provide solutions to their problems. It is an effective way of sales but by no means the only one that should be applied. Some of the most popular inbound marketing strategies include: 

• Social Media – Most businesses nowadays have a social media presence, on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and/or Pinterest. Social media can help you reach large amounts of people quickly and put your business in front of them. It’s free to use but requires the right content strategy to be effective. 

• Blogs – Blogs can help you rank on search engines which makes it easier for people to find your business. By posting articles on various topics related to your products or services, you also provide answers online to questions your patients might have. 

• SEO – Search Engine Optimization leads search engine users to your website through keywords and other SEO strategies. This is an essential digital tool for people to find your business.

• Webinars – Web-based seminars, or webinars, allow you to share your knowledge with your target audience. The goal here is to turn webinar attendees into paying patients and chances are, if they are willing to pay to hear you speak, they are willing to pay for your products/services as well. 

• Viral Videos – The probably fastest-growing marketing segment is streaming videos. They are easily digestible, often consumed by internet users and can condense much valuable  information in a short amount of time. By making sure the content is always interesting and engaging, videos can become viral. 

• Ebooks – Before people make the decision to buy something, they usually do a fair amount of research. Ebooks provide an opportunity for businesses to share information and present their level of expertise with patients, while collecting valuable patient data like email addresses for further marketing efforts. 

Outbound Marketing

Instead of hoping for patients to come to you as a result of Inbound Marketing, in Outbound Marketing you become proactive by reaching out to prospective patients or already existing patients yourself. Today, it remains valuable to put your brand out there; for some businesses it is even essential. Some outbound marketing methods include:  

• Direct Mail: An opportunity that should not be overlooked due to its high success rate is direct mail. Not only do you get to geotarget patients based on proximity to your business, sending them something tangible, such as a postcard, sales flyer, or promotional offer through mail allows you to remain top of mind. If they are interested in your services, they are likely to put up your postcard on their refrigerator and give you a call to inquire about your services. 

• Email Campaigns: You can reach out to patients digitally through email campaigns. This is why it is important to gather patient data, e.g. through giving away free ebooks, providing a newsletter sign-up button on your website or various other methods. By periodically sending potential and existing patients your newsletters, you keep them updated and your dental practice fresh on their minds.  

In Conclusion…

…Inbound and Outbound Marketing are complementary. Depending on your activity, you may get more leads through Inbound, but keep in mind that these may not be quality leads. Inbound Marketing can attract a lot of curiosity, which doesn’t necessarily lead to actual paying patients. 

Outbound on the other hand may get you quality results more quickly. Because outbound leads are more likely to turn into actual paying patients, we truly believe that proactive outreach is the future of prospecting methods. Outbound marketing also helps you track your pipeline: you learn where your patients are coming from so you can better market to those individuals. However, keep in mind that once you put these efforts to a halt, you’ll also receive less leads. This is why regular outbound marketing efforts are important to continuously attracting new patients to your dental office and keeping them long-term. 

Both Inbound and Outbound Marketing are long-term strategies that have to be maintained on a regular basis. If your current marketing efforts have not been working as well as you would like, figure out which method you haven’t explored yet and give it a try. And for a complete marketing and business development plan, choose pieces of both!

Understanding your patients, including their problems and needs, is the best way to provide an excellent patient experience and having an advantage over your competitors. Ensuring a patient who arrives in pain leaves relieved and comfortable should be the goal, but so should their overall in-office experience. 

To view your office through the eyes of a patient can be helpful to identify areas of improvement and ensure a patient’s overall satisfaction with your dentistry. And while you might not be aware of them, here are the most common pain points patients face at dental practices:

1.  Financial 

Dental procedures can be expensive and often patients will only consider practices that offer patient financing and/or accept their dental insurance. When setting up your office, make sure to think of this and accept a wide range of insurances. This can increase your chances of adding new patients to your practice and retaining them. 

Offering special deals, e.g. cosmetic dentistry discounts or sales for short periods of time can also help address your patients’ financial concerns when they are undecided about certain procedures. And finally, having a new type of treatment like Invisalign can increase patient demand and help boost your profitability. 

2. Business Processes

Sub-optimal business processes can create a pain point for your patients. To address the basics, make sure your business hours are convenient and information to your practice is easily accessible in the form of a mobile-optimized website and accurate business listings on Google and other search engines.

Efficient dental practice management also requires planning ahead to ensure everything is in order, including office supplies and refreshments are stocked up, and some sort of entertainment is offered in your waiting area, e.g. free wifi, TV, or magazine subscriptions. Consider upgrading the software you use on office computers and investing in more advanced tools that provide you with valuable reports and information. 

You can also improve your diagnostics, including caries detection and oral cancer screening, helping you to diagnose more accurately and faster, which allows for more time to communicate with your patient. If tech improvements aren’t currently in your budget, make sure to start setting aside a monthly amount.

3. Productivity 

Your productivity can benefit from streamlined processes. This way you can provide an excellent in-office experience and win new patients for your practice. When dental patients have positive dentistry experiences, including reduced wait time and having their concerns/questions/needs addressed quickly and efficiently, they feel welcome and cared for. 

A daily organizational meeting in the morning to go through the day’s appointments can help ensure everything goes smoothly, patients will be seated promptly, and the whole team and staff are aligned. Encouraging each department to hold regular meetings as well can help identify and address bottlenecks or inefficiencies. Dedicating a small amount of time to planning and coordination can end up saving you a lot of time throughout the day.

4. Support 

Your patients should never feel inconvenienced and always be under the impression that they are getting the highest level of customer service. For this, make sure to: 

• Always provide timely customer service at the front desk
• Answer common patient questions on your website
• Provide easy access to crucial patient information, e.g. clinic hours, background info, dentist biographies, etc. 

Additionally, analyzing front desk phone calls and updating your staff’s training regularly can assure your practice offers the best patient service. 

The Bottom Line 

Since your main focus may be providing excellent dental services, you might not know which of these pain points your patients are experiencing. Ask your front desk which issues your patients may have shared with them. By encouraging patients to leave feedback on review forms they fill out, you can easily identify the most common problems. 

The internet also has a wealth of information you can benefit from for free. By leveraging online resources, you can gain valuable insights into common patient pain points and how to efficiently tackle them. 

Once you know which improvements your practice needs, address and solve these together with your team. Don’t forget to communicate upgrades to your prospects and patients by leveraging your various marketing channels. When you show your patients that their feedback helps improve your practice, you signal that their business is important to you, and you make it clear that your dentistry offers the best patient experience. 

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:

1.  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. 

2. 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. 

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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. 

7. 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.

8. 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. 

9. 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. 

10. 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:

1.  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. 

2. 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. 

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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. 

7. 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.

8. 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. 

9. 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. 

10. 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!

Dental offers are the main course of any direct mail marketing. It is one of the things that catches attention in a direct mail postcard, simply because these offers are designed to be seen right away. People get excited when they come across discounts, freebies, and other great offers. It is one of the many reasons why anyone would call your practice after seeing the postcard. Having a good set of offers on your postcards is one of the keys to have a successful conversion rate on your direct mail marketing campaign. However, more often than not, these advertised offers are neglected and overlooked.

It’s time to change that mindset this year. Wow your new patients with offers that they can’t resist. Here are some examples that effectively bring in new patients:

1. Free or Discounted Exams, X-Rays, and Cleaning

Why it works:  If you add up the cost of each treatment included in this offer it will result in a great discount for your new patients.

2. Free Teeth Whitening for Life

Why it works: This offer will keep your new patients coming back for more. You will most likely earn their loyalty to your practice. 

3. Free Consultation or Second Opinion

Why it works:  It will provide you a good starting point to know your new patients, and have them actually visit your practice. You may, initially, not get any profit out of this, but it is a good opportunity for you to build rapport and establish trust in your new patients. Plus it gives you the opportunity to win patients who already have a provider.

Bonus Pro Tips!

1. Highlight the offers well! Make them visible and easy to read! These should be on the front and back of your postcard. One mistake in direct mail is not giving a fair amount of emphasis on the offers. All the other elements are important, no doubt about that, but your offers should not be overshadowed by other elements. Let them stand out in a good way.

2. Make sure they are clear and will not cause any confusion or misinterpretation. Keep your staff well informed about the offers so they can provide the right information and give precise answers when new patients call in and inquire about your offers.

3. Play to your strengths, offer discounts on treatments that your practice is best at. 

4. If you are offering discounts or FREE services/kits, include the actual value so your new patients will better understand the value of those perks, and push them to make that call for an appointment or two. 

5. 2-3 offers are good numbers to include in your postcard. This will allow you to appeal to a broader range of potential patients. However, you still want room for other info and imagery on your design.

6. If you decide to go with just one offer, make sure it’s a compelling one or an offer that has been popular with a lot of your previous patients.

7. Study your competition. Know what your peers are offering, and come up with offers that they don’t have. If possible, you may offer a bigger discount than what they have.

Here at MVP, we are experts at driving new patients to dental offices through direct mail postcards. We have mailed and tracked millions of postcards, working with hundreds of dental offices across the country and we would like the opportunity to work with you!

Whether you’ve done direct mail for years, or if you’ve never tried mailing to promote your practice, we would like the opportunity to discuss our programs with you over a 15-minute online demo. You have nothing to lose! 

Here are a few reasons why offices love our program:

1. We have created the best dental direct mail postcard program in the industry! 

All inclusive, start to finish, easy and fast for you. www.mvpmailhouse.com

2. We can save your office money!
   On average you will save $200-$600 per mailing with us. That is thousands over a year of mailings.
   
3. We get better results and more new patients!
   What would an extra 12-24 new patients a month mean to your practice? We don’t guess what works, we know because we have mailed millions of postcards for dentists and know the best size, designs, homes to target, and day of the week to hit homes, etc.
   
4. We are specialists in the dental industry!
   We ONLY work with dentists, all day, every day and ONLY do direct mail postcards. We have done lots of different types of marketing but direct mail has the lowest risk so that is what we specialize in. 96% of our offices at least double their investment!!!
   
5. We track all your results and they are viewable 24/7 in our mobile app dashboard.
   Never guess how well your mailings are doing, know when, where, and how you got new patients!

NEW MOVER PROGRAM: 

Did you know? *70% of “New Movers” need a dentist, and *83%* use the first vendor to contact them.

We have a New Mover Only program that would be ideal for your practice, which is very inexpensive ($299) 

Give us 15-minutes to show you how and what we do and we  promise that you won’t regret it. You have nothing to lose by seeing how we can improve your current direct mail program and save you money. We are MVP Mailhouse and we are EXPERTS that ONLY do direct mail and we ONLY work with dentists!

Missed calls from prospective patients aren’t missed opportunities! Curious how to leverage them? Read on!

A missed call from a prospective patient shows their interest in your practice and services. At MVP Mailhouse we are all about better tracking, better analytics, and better results for you! This is why we provide missed call tracking as an additional lead generation tool that produces a list of potential new patients. 

By calling them back promptly and gently inquiring about their concerns, you show that you care about them and their needs and are willing to invest time and effort in them. During that call, make sure to apply the following for the best chance of turning the missed caller into a new patient:

1. SOLVE THE PROBLEM

• Express empathy with the caller’s concerns, pain, or situation.  
• Explain procedures in easy-to-understand terms. Don’t diagnose. 
• Clearly explain any offers the caller asks about and explain how to use them. 
• Be prepared to answer insurance acceptance and out-of-network questions. 
• Effectively overcome patient objections to insurance, fees, and other issues.
• Do not provide pricing over the phone if at all possible. Schedule a consultation. 

2. CLOSING/SCHEDULING

• Always ask if the caller wants to schedule an appointment.
• Highlight eligible benefits of the office or offers to get the caller to schedule an appointment.
• Use the ‘pairing technique’ for setting appointments by giving the caller two time options to help them make an appointment decision faster.  
• Set expectations for the first appointment, but try to keep it brief (length of visit, forms to bring, ID/cards needed, reschedule/cancellation policies, etc.).
• Always add the ‘referral source’ of the caller to your practice management software. 
• Establish confirmation and communication preference (email, text, phone).
• Before hanging up ask if there is anyone else you can schedule. 
• Ask the caller if they have any additional questions. 
• Restate the date and time of appointment and thank them for calling. 

3. NO DECISION FOLLOW UP

• Ask for the caller’s phone number or email address and ask permission to follow-up. Pencil in a potential appointment for the moment and give them time to research insurance, time off, etc. Then call them back to confirm.

Prioritizing missed calls and follow ups is a very simple but powerful way to maximize the results you are getting from your marketing. Make sure your team is well-equipped and has the bandwidth to spend part of their day on these opportunities.

Your front office is a huge part of your dental practice. They control your schedule and they are the first personal touchpoint that many of your patients will have with your practice. Ensuring that your team is well-trained and well-equipped to handle every type of call is key to your success.

Here are 4 ways to win a caller’s trust and ensure they don’t hang up while on hold:

1. Listen carefully to a caller’s question, restate, clarify, and affirm.

During a call, it’s normal for potential patients to ask questions and request clarifications before trusting your practice and committing to an appointment. Take this opportunity to build their confidence in your practice’s ability to provide excellent and expert service.

Not all callers are created equal, some have less patience than others. If you find that a caller is frustrated, in pain, or in a rush, empathize with them. Keep your cool and stay calm, even if the caller is irritated or rude. Do not interrupt the caller when they are talking, let them finish.

2. Value your caller’s time. 

Whenever you don’t have an answer to a question on hand and have to put a caller on hold to check with the system or other people, you need to ensure that the hold-time is kept to less than a minute. Nobody likes to be kept waiting on the phone. 

When you request a 1-minute hold time, keep that promise and get back to your caller even when you don’t have the answers yet. If one minute has passed, stay on the line with them. Apologize if you missed the one minute mark or cannot give the answers right away. Ask them to stay on the line. Your presence assures them that they are not being ignored. By giving them your full attention you show your interest in having them as a new patient.

3. If you have to put them on hold, politely ask for permission. 

Politely explain why you cannot give answers right away and have to put them on hold (i.e. only the dentist knows the detailed procedure, you will need to contact the insurance company, etc.). Once they hear your reasons, they are more likely to understand. Be patient with them to ensure they stay on the line. 

4. If you don’t have the answer, give an estimate.

If you couldn’t find out the correct answers within the one-minute hold time, give an estimated price range, how long the procedure would take, or common details regarding their insurance. If the dentist is the only one who will have the complete details of the caller’s inquiry, escalate the call, or arrange a call back with the dentist. Finally, in the case you can’t give any answer right away, ask if you can call them back and ask for a callback number. Specify when you will return their call and make sure to call on said date.

Providing a great patient experience starts well before a patient ever walks through the doors of your practice. Make sure your front office is providing great customer service at every customer touchpoint, and can start building loyalty with your patients as soon as they reach out.