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| Are You Suffering From the Sting of Band-Aid Marketing?
Xana Winans
President, Golden Proportions Marketing
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A TV rep comes into your practice and offers you an unbelievable deal on a :30 second commercial. Or the local paper is running a special section on healthcare that would be perfect for your practice, even though you don’t run a regular schedule in the paper. You can’t afford to miss these opportunities, right?
Wrong. You can afford to miss it. In fact, it may be in your best interest to miss it.
Time and time again I hear from dentists who have been offered what they perceive as tremendous opportunities for marketing and they jump at the chance. But when they don’t get any return on their investment, they’re left wondering why.
I can tell you why. A great deal on media isn’t necessarily a great deal for you. Throwing money and messages around isn’t going to get patients in the door.
At GPM we call it “Band-Aid Marketing” – randomly covering a variety of media with a variety of messages, hoping one will “stick.”
As you can probably guess, it doesn’t work. It’s a waste of your time and money, and it can confuse your audience.
Instead, when it comes to your marketing, start with a comprehensive, targeted marketing plan and stick to it. If a deal comes along the supports your plan, great! If it doesn’t, let it pass on by.
Developing the Plan
A marketing firm can develop a sound plan for you, identifying your target audience, understanding what motivates them, defining your message and implementing strategies to get the most for your money.
But if you don’t have the budget for that, you can develop a plan on your own. So, where do you start?
Start in your office. The answers are right there. What’s the source of this wealth of information? Your patients.
The Cure for Band-Aid Marketing? The Patient Survey. Developing and implementing a quick Patient Survey is the most effective way of determining your marketing, message and practice success.
At checkout, simply ask the patients that visit your office to complete the survey at their convenience and provide them with a self-addressed, stamped envelope for complete confidentiality. Feel free to be selective about who you give this survey to. If you love all of your patients and want more of them, hand it out to everyone. But if you are looking for more of a specific kind of new patient, only give the survey to those patients who you want more of.
If you use Smile Reminder, you can also send the survey via email. Click here for survey.
What Questions Should You Ask? One of the most important questions to ask your patient is: Where did you hear about our practice? Then list the variety of media you use, including newspaper, radio, yellow pages, doctor’s referral, friend or family or other. You’re not just looking for one source. You want to see the layers of marketing that got through to them.
Some other questions:
Ask why they chose your practice, and present a list of reasons, including advanced training, reputation, location, technology, costs, etc.
Ask that the patient to rate their experience with you and your team (with one being the worst and 5 being the best).
Also provide them of a list of services/procedures you offer and ask them to indicate which one(s) they’d be interested in.
If you don’t want to make up your own survey, you can customize one from GPM’s master list of questions. Just click here to download the document.
Analyze the Results All the answers you need are now in your hands. How are your patients hearing about you? Do you have enough of your budget allocated to that referral source? Are you paying for media that doesn’t seem to be working? If you’re paying for a magazine ad that hasn’t provided one patient, perhaps it’s time to take that money and put it toward something else.
What is driving patients to your office? Is it your training? Location? Costs? Etc.? Is that driving factor featured in any of your marketing? If not, you may want to incorporate it into your marketing message.
What services/treatments/procedures are patients interested in? Are you offering that particular treatment option? Are you selling it in your marketing?
Frequency of Surveys/Reading Results Distribute the Patient Surveys on a regular basis; make it a part of every new patient’s visit. While you can look at the results weekly or monthly, avoid knee-jerk reactions and don’t make changes to your plan right away. Wait. Take your time. After three months, sit down and really analyze the results. At this point, you will begin to see some trends that need to be addressed. Only then should you change your strategy.
Get Started Today Patient Surveys are extremely valuable sources of information and you can put one together in no time at all on your office computer. Get started today. Get the feedback you need to make a real difference in your marketing, your team and the services you offer.
The answers will help you determine if the next great deal offered to you is really a great deal . . . or just a chance to throw money away.
Click Here to download a list of questions you can use to create your own survey.
Xaña Winans is the owner and president of Golden Proportions Marketing (GPM), a thriving company that specializes in comprehensive, custom marketing and advertising strategies for the dental and medical fields. The GPM website can be found at www.goldenproportions.com and Xaña can be reached at 866-590-4476 or xana@goldenproportions.com.
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