In the last couple years, for reasons connected to disclosures and franchise rules (not mine, but the fed’s), I’ve not shared much about the results I’m getting in my own office here in Salem.
Our little, small group office continues to celebrate in our unique ability to generate new patients (we call them Guests).
Here are two recent results from marketing campaigns we’ve been running. But, before I share them, disclaimers to keep me out of trouble:
— Your results will vary from ours. You could do better or worse as there are many factors that determine success or failure of any marketing campaign in dentistry, chief among them, dental demand in your area, what is said in the marketing campaign, to whom it’s sent and when it’s sent.
— Don’t expect to do as well as we do and when you do (or do better), celebrate! We have a number of ClearPath Society Members who regularly outperform the numbers we do at my office in the way of generating new patients. (Salem has something like a 1 dentist to about 900 people — so competition is abundant.)
— Don’t take what I am saying here, or anywhere else on my websites as Gospel when layering it over or applying it to your unique situation. (Nor should you accept ANYONE’S ‘truth’ as appropriate for you.)
— All marketing is a test. And, every time I mail a postcard or drop a free standing insert, it’s a test. I make decisions based on what the test reveals.
— I’ve been at this, marketing my office and hundreds of others, for over two decades. I’ve made a lot of money. A lot. More than most will ever see in a lifetime (but, like most successful folks, I’ve lost some, too!). You may well LOSE money on testing before you crack the code that is unique to your area and begin to make it hand-over-fist. (Hey, if I don’t tell you, who will!)
— A couple simple rules to follow: Don’t give up. Don’t bet with money you can ill-afford to lose. Find experts you can trust, with long track records, that put their money where their mouths are to work with you on your unique practice.
OK…here are the very, very early results from a Free Standing Insert that hit our local newspaper this morning. And, these results are as of 2:07pm. Doing the math tells you we’ve had more than 1 new patient/Guest call per hour:
Now, if you look at this graphic, you’ll see the # called (971-600-2461) which appears in our ad (it’s a tracking number unique to this publication and piece of marketing). Below that, date and time. First call came in this morning at 8:32am. The last call, before I pulled this, came in at 1:37pm. Right under the date/time, you’ll see the length of the call. For the first call, it was 9 minutes and 25 seconds.
Next column over, you’ll see in bold print, “SJ $39 FSI Exam-Retro.” That’s the name of the ad and the offer of $39 for a comprehensive new patient exam. Below it is the person’s number that called. If you look at the last two calls, you’ll see they came from the same person’s number. That happens a lot. People call, then they gather info or questions, then call back. Listening to the call, I can score it and coach my team on how well they did or on areas they need to improve.
Over to the right, I can click on that sideways triangle in the black bar and listen to the entire call. (I can even download and share it for training, using the green arrow.)
Important note: I expect we’ll triple this number of calls by the time this FSI runs its course and sort of peters out. All this for an expense of about $1,500.
Here is another set of calls from yet another ad:
These calls comprise a longer period and show results from a small mailing of about 5,000 giant postcards. They dropped on 2/6/17 and the calls started coming in 2 days later on the 8th. Nearly one month later, we were still getting calls. 17 unique calls (from my quick scan at least). We also track these at my office when they come in to cross-reference source so we can calculate the ROI on this particular mailing.
If you’re ready to generate more new patients for whatever reason, reach out. Perhaps we can help you achieve results like those above.
I’d also encourage you to visit http://busydentist.com to learn more about our upcoming New Patient Extravaganza Workshop Experience!
*This call tracking system is available to every ClearPath Society Member at no charge when we’re deploying their ads for them.