The following is ripped from a chapter in my soon-to-be-released book, The Business Anarchist.
These paragraphs are in the chapter on how a Business Anarchist sells. Are you making this mistake in YOUR business?
“I rarely point prospective dental patients to a website. You see, I want them focused on the postcard and calling. I want my team or my clients’ teams to have the opportunity to sell the appointment over the phone. Most websites, and believe me, there are few exceptions out there, are formatted to generate a new patient. They are most-often created to educate prospects or existing patients or they are used to position the office. Why would you send someone to a website to get distracted. If they know they need to see the doctor, I want them to make it a priority to get in to the office, and not surf around looking for other dental websites they “like” better. I want them on a greased chute (ala John Carlton, the copywriter) headed in the right direction without throwing a wrench into the process.
“Further, sales in dental offices do not take place on a dental website. They might for a commoditized business like an ink or toner company. But not for dentistry. Warm, fuzzy, happy people need to take control of the process as soon as possible to eliminate the chance for a robotic site to screw it all up.”
So, Jerry, I should be happy or not that I get at least 3-4 appointment requests directly from my website each month?
David, heck ya, you should be stoked. The search engines are certainly favoring your site.
My thoughts: advertise heavily to get traffic. You still need a way to capture visitor’s info so you can follow-up with them after their visit.
If you go to my site @ http://www.softouchfamilydental.com, you’ll see what I do there.
However, if you’re advertising offline and have a site that’s NOT converting (the opposite of yours), then it’s best to drive the patient to the phone call.
Keep up the good work! Thanks for the questions, too! Jerry