This Economy is Exposing All of Your Practice's Weaknesses-
Are You Willing To Fix Them?
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Orthodontic Marketing System
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Greetings!
You can thank your Congressional leadership, former President George Bush, current president Barack Obama, Tim Geithner, idiotic corporate executives, or greedy Wall Street banks - regardless of your political affiliation or whomever you choose to blame for the mess the U.S. economy is presently in, this economic environment is providing you with a golden opportunity. Don't squander it!
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What am I talking about?
This economy is exposing all of your practice's weaknesses - are you willing to fix them?
Let's face it, for years many orthodontists could run a successful,
profitable orthodontic practice even while ignoring these areas of
weakness. Referrals from dentists came easier. The average American
household had plenty of disposable income and access to easy credit.
Now
things have changed. Every new patient exam is critical. When
treatment is indicated, your treatment coordinator must be
professional, persuasive, and more aggressive securing a deposit and
commitment to start treatment. Your professional referral sources must
be cultivated more intensely than ever.
Your marketing communication must be effective, and truly differentiate your practice from the others in your area.
Your
marketing MUST cater to and educate the "Investigators" or
"Fence-Sitters" in your target market, because there simply aren't as
many "Appointment-Ready" patients in this economy as their used to be.
(Get THIS one concept right and you will easily triple the profitability of your practice marketing campaign.)
Every
lead generated by your marketing must be properly tracked, so that you
can accurately assess your return on your marketing investment. (After
all, many new patient starts are the result of multiple
referral/marketing sources, not just one.)
Your
website can't look like every other orthodontic practice in your
competitive market, displaying basically the same general content.
Do you know your ratio of new consultations to new starts? If not, we've got some work to do!
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"Don't just take our word about what we can do to produce results for your practice. Take a look at what one of our orthodontists has to say-in his own words..."
 "The GetOrthoCases Marketing System has been an excellent marketing investment for our practice. Your Patient Referral Brochures cost us less than $1,200 and we've started 26 patients as a result of this marketing piece.
We've also been using your targeted direct mail for 4 years now. In the past year we've had 38 new starts from our direct marketing campaign with your company. Obviously, we're pleased with our results."
Dr. David McSurdy · Collegeville, PA - 4/2/09
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Company Background:
GetOrthoCases is a division of Philadelphia's Finest, Inc. The company founded GetOrthoCases 7 years ago to provide direct marketing consulting services to the orthodontic profession. We are orthodontic practice marketing consultants - not just a printer or mailhouse. This distinction is critically important. GetOrthoCases uses polished, truly customized, targeted direct marketing as a primary vehicle to increase new starts for our orthodontic clients throughout the U.S.
In addition, our marketing system inexpensively increases referrals from your present patients - one of the vital areas of growth that virtually every orthodontic practice can improve on.
Lastly, the system provides more effective website content through the GetOrthoCases Website Marketing Reports, which were developed to enable our clients to derive even more new starts from their direct marketing campaigns, and so that ANY orthodontic practice can generate new starts from their website by providing their prospective patients with compelling, empowering information that positions them as the orthodontic EXPERT in their area, and enable their practice to actually generate new starts from their website. After all, isn't that the objective of having a practice website?
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Barriers to Direct Marketing Success:
Over the past 7 years, GetOrthoCases has identified a number of barriers to optimal marketing success (new treatment starts) and profitability, for orthodontic practices. These barriers to direct marketing success include:
1. Not employing a marketing strategy that addresses BOTH categories of potential orthodontic patients - the "Appointment-Ready" potential patients, AND the "Investigators". Most orthodontic practices assign no value to the "Investigators" category of potential patients, which contains far more potential for treatment starts if marketed to consistently.
An optimized direct marketing campaign must include offers for the "Appointment-Ready" potential patients to bring them in now, as well as compelling, differentiating, educational content links to quality marketing information on your practice website, to convince the "Investigators" that your practice is the BEST option for orthodontic treatment for area families. If marketed to consistently and effectively, these "Investigators" will choose your practice when they become "Appointment-Ready".
2. Treating marketing like a commodity. Each practice MUST understand that to optimize their direct marketing profits, they themselves, or a treatment coordinator, must avail themselves to GetOrthoCases AND make their direct marketing campaign a priority. We carve out the time to have individual consultations with all of our clients. Our clients need to do the same with us for optimal success. Orthodontic practices that refuse to give their marketing the attention it requires, inevitably yield subpar results.
3. Leaving marketing decisions up to individuals (sometimes this is the doctor themselves, sometimes it's a spouse or employee, and sometimes it's an outside "marketing person") who have no specific direct marketing expertise or direct marketing copywriting training.
4. Improper mailing frequency. For an orthodontic practice, the optimal mailing frequency to maximize new starts is 6 mailings per year to their identified target households. A mailing frequency of 4 mailings per year is the absolute minimum necessary to achieve the consistently profitable results that are desired by our clients.
Let's face it - in today's world people are very busy and have lots of other things on their mind, other than orthodontics. Mailing to your target households with a frequency of less than 4 times per year, allows too much time to transpire between mailings for you to successfully position your practice in the subconscious minds of your potential patients as the orthodontic expert in your area. In addition, former "Investigators" become "Appointment-Ready" at different times. Allowing up to 4 months to transpire in between direct marketing "touches" increases the likelihood that these "Investigators" will not remember your practice, and call someone else "when they're ready".
5. A mindset that 1 mailing should solve years of marketing neglect or break through the competitive clutter in one's marketplace. Usually, our clients start numerous "Appointment-Ready" patients from their first mailing. However, optimal results are never achieved with 1 or even 2 mailings.
6. Incorrectly assuming that the results from 1 mailing will be reflective of your practices' long-term profits from your direct marketing campaign. Results from an effective direct marketing campaign don't grow in a linear fashion, instead, over time, profits are typically multiplied. This is due to the conversion of former "Investigators" into "Appointment-Ready" patients as your campaign matures.
7. Improper response tracking. (There is a 3-step process to this.) An orthodontic practice's direct marketing success only BEGINS with the postcard and phone call that is generated from it. GetOrthoCases has found that the exact same work created for very similar practices can yield COMPLETELY different results. We as a vendor can't be responsible for treatment coordinators who aren't persuasive or for practices without truly flexible, attractive financing options.
The marketing campaigns we create for our clients give families the impression that our client is truly the "BEST OPTION" for orthodontic care in their marketplace. Once that lead walks through the practice door, however, the practice's internal processes must make the patient feel the same way.
Hopefully, these barriers to practice marketing success don't exist in your practice. But for many of you, they do.
If so, let's fix them. Your practice's future growth depends on it.
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CallGetOrthoCasesTODAY at 1.888.657.2762
or visit us in Booth #2542 at the
AAO Annual Session in Boston, May 2- 5.
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Receive 1,000 FREE
Patient Referral Brochures
with any 2009 GetOrthoCases Practice Marketing Plan.
($1,000 value)
Offer expires April 17, 2009
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