The 9 Steps Every Patient Takes Before Starting Treatment At Your Practice

Marketing System

Greetings!

One of the biggest marketing challenges orthodontic practices face with starting new patients is consistently communicating (and following up) with families that are most likely to start treatment with an orthodontist. What I mean here is this: Orthodontic practices are notorious for creating a marketing message and evaluating the success or failure of their marketing investment based only on patients who are "Ready To Start Treatment" (someone who is ready to start orthodontic treatment in the next 30 days or so).

But the reality is that there are 3 types of patients in an orthodontist's target market. (For most orthodontic practices, their target market is comprised primarily of households with sufficient annual household income to afford treatment and also children present in those homes within a defined age range of approximately 7 - 15. Lastly, these target households are located typically within a few miles of your practice.

These 3 types of patients are:

Non-Investigator (about 80% of your target audience)
Investigator (about 10 - 20% of your target audience)
Ready To Start Patient (about 1% - 3% of your target audience)

Even among households that fit the criteria of your target market, approximately 80% of those families are not contemplating orthodontic treatment presently. Approximately 10 - 20% of your target market is thinking about orthodontic treatment, but not yet ready to start treatment at any orthodontic practice. These folks are "Investigators" because for whatever reason, they feel they need more information to make the best choice for their family.

(Please note, most orthodontic practices fail at convincing these "Investigators" that their practice is the BEST CHOICE for orthodontic treatment in their particular target market. They fail due to the lack of a properly constructed marketing campaign that effectively combines several different marketing actions together at once, or they fail because their marketing campaign is only geared toward those patients who are "Ready To Start Treatment".)

When an orthodontic practice encounters a Non-Investigator or an Investigator who is at the beginning of the buying process, a practice's marketing communication and follow-up process is typically sporadic at best. Why? Because they are under pressure to "sell" the "Ready To Start Patient". So they spend all of their time looking for potential patients who are "serious" about starting treatment (see step 4). Statistically speaking, most orthodontic practices lose anywhere from 15% to 50% of their potential collections because of their subjective rating system and inconsistent marketing correspondence and follow-up.

The 9 Steps Every Patient Takes Before Starting Treatment At Your Practice Are:

1. Potential patient gets the idea of investing in orthodontic treatment.
2. Starts gathering information informally.
3. Asks peers, friends, and associates for recommendation.
4. Heavy-duty fact finding (visits practices for examinations).
5. Narrows choices down.
6. Targets favorite.
7. Makes final decision.
8. Waits for the time to be right.
9. Starts treatment.

An Effective Practice Marketing Campaign Will Consistently Keep Potential Patients And Future Potential Patients In The Sales Cycle.

Effective orthodontic practice marketing is nothing more than a slow release of consistent, properly constructed marketing messages to your defined target market. However, most practices can't get this done without some sort of annual game plan that consists of the following components:

Targeted Direct Mail (professional postcards or brochures)
Cultivation of Referrals From Your Present Patients
Cultivation of Professional Referrals
Website Constructed with Marketing Information that Educates Investigators
Search Engine Optimization

GetOrthoCases has been creating and implementing effective practice marketing campaigns for our orthodontic clients for 8 years. What is interesting is that we have run across numerous orthodontists who think a consistent marketing campaign won't yield any better results than an occasional marketing promotion. Yes, an annual marketing campaign WILL fail if all you send out is platitude-filled information about you and your practice. For the most part, people could care less about your practice picnic, internal awards, and other things about you and your staff.

However, to create an effective, profitable practice marketing campaign, you need to remember one thing - it's not about you. It's all about the potential patients you are marketing to. For any orthodontic practice to optimize their profits from their annual marketing investment, the practice MUST create a multi-faceted marketing campaign that educates those "Investigators" and "Non-Investigators" with compelling information that positions your orthodontic practice as the expert in your area.

Websites that say pretty much the same thing as every other orthodontic practice are NOT effective at convincing an "Investigator" that you are the orthodontic expert in your area. Similarly, direct marketing campaigns without unique offers for the "Ready To Start" patients, and links to quality, differentiating reports on your website that educate the "Investigators" and "Non-Investigators", NEVER optimize new starts for that practice.

Oh, and by the way, most orthodontic practices do a horrific job of creating marketing communication. (This is understandable, since this subject wasn't covered in dental school.) So don't entrust your valuable marketing investment to your staff who doesn't have the experience that comes with handling the marketing campaigns for hundreds of orthodontic practices over the years.

In Closing, Remember This: The Orthodontic Practice Who Doesn't Stay In Touch With Their Target Market Gets Forgotten When A Potential Patient Is Ready To Start Treatment.

Find out how to market your practice using our exclusive GetOrthoCases Marketing System. Within a short time you will be using it to generate more potential patients and new starts than you ever thought possible.

Call GetOrthoCases TODAY at 1.888.657.2762

	Receive 1,000 FREE Patient Referral Brochures with any 2009/2010 GetOrthoCases Practice Marketing Plan. ($1,098 value) Offer expires June 26, 2009 Not valid with any other offer, or previously placed order.

Andy Zuch
GetOrthoCases