Seven Strategies for External Marketing Success

Cathy Jameson, PhD

Power Thought: Jameson Management 

Lucky number 7:  there's something about that number!  But, if you follow the seven guidelines below on executing external marketing strategies, your success will have nothing to do with luck and everything to do with excellent planning and execution.

1. Know your target audience.  If you are promoting family dentistry, target women.  Your piece should have images of women, families, and children.  Whoever your target audience is, make sure your piece reflects that.
2. Repeat your message five times.   It takes a person 5-7 times of seeing and/or hearing a message to act on it.  In advertising, this means your advertisement needs to be seen 5 - 7 times before someone will act.  If you are sending out a direct mail piece, the exact same piece needs to be mailed to your target audience at least 5 times.  If you are in a monthly magazine, make sure the ad runs long enough so that the average reader will see it 5 to 7 times.
3. Content should be "you" focused.  You have six seconds to capture someone's attention.   To capture someone's attention you need to focus the content on them.  So gear the content towards the potential patient.  Instead of writing, "We will try to make your visit as comfortable as possible," try saying, "Your visit will be made as comfortable as possible."  The content is now talking about the patient's experience as opposed to what the team is going to "try" to do.
4. Include an action statement.  People need to be told to contact you or they won't.  Statements such as "Call Today" or "Visit our Website" tell people what they need to do next.  They are common statements and that's because they work!
5. Include a limited time only offer.  An offer on your services entices someone to make a decision today as opposed to putting it off to another day.
6. Consistency.  Make sure your advertising pieces are consistent with your overall brand and image.  When a potential patient receives your direct mail piece or sees your advertisement in a magazine the first place they typically go is to your website.  If the look and feel of the site is in stark contrast to your marketing piece, they may feel confused and unsure if they are even in the right place.
7. Tracking.  Make sure you track your marketing efforts.  You should be tracking by looking at your website analytics and through tracking all inbound phone calls through a tracking log (contact Jameson for your copy).  The website will tell you if the marketing efforts are driving traffic to your site.  The tracking of phone calls will tell you the referral source, if they scheduled an appointment, if they showed up to the appointment, how much treatment was diagnosed, and how much was accepted.  This information will highlight potential changes you need to make in your marketing systems and efforts.

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Time to Lighten Up!

Katherine Eitel

Power Thought: Katherine Eitel and Associates

"We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing."

This week, take your work very seriously... just don't take yourself quite so seriously!    Have some fun.  If recent world events have done nothing else, they have surely reminded us that life is best lived one day at a time, very much in the present moment.

Patients sense when dental teams are happy, enjoy and like one another and are having a good time doing something they love and patients like the way it makes them feel.  They instinctively assume that when dental professionals are relaxed and even playful that everything must be going well and according to plan.  It makes you appear confident and in full control.

However, do be careful with humor as it is easy to cross the line of professionalism.  Always exercise your good judgment when telling jokes or making funny or sarcastic comments.  There is nothing unprofessional about having a great time at work.  As a matter of fact, I think it can be unprofessional to be altogether too serious.  It causes patients to feel judged and tense.

So this week, lighten up!  Whistle, sing, play a harmless "funny" on a coworker.  Post a joke in the team room.  Wear some silly hats or shirts on holidays like St. Patrick's Day or Save the Whales Day.  A friend who recently spent a lot on his dentistry, posted a note on the dental chair before the dentist came in to seat his last set of crowns that read, "Dental chair donated by the generous financial contributions of Jeff Emerson."  Another client office, who was utilizing the Bonus Bag incentive program (which was supposed to contain only two $50's), asked the dentist to write down the "pull" for the day.  As the bag was passed around the room and the dentist was carefully noting each bill drawn, he finally said, "Wait just a minute!  There aren't six $50's in that bag!"  It was April Fool's Day.  Little things like this help us all enjoy the journey on the way to our destination.

And by the way, they got to keep the $50's!

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