Attract & Increase Your New Dental Patient Numbers

Proven dental marketing solutions that will help your practice stand out & grow!

Why is it so important for dental practices to have a steady flow of new dental patients? Because they’re vital to long-term practice success and security. Every office needs an influx of these high-value patients, not only because they need to replace the 15-20% of patients who will “naturally” attrite due to death, moves, loss of jobs/insurances, and more, but also because they contribute 2X-3X the production of existing patients!



New patients also help a dental office expand and grow by referring and bringing new family members, taking advantage of more services, and not adding to overhead costs. A steady flow is also proven to improve practice profits and valuation.

So, how can you continually attract these valuable patients? Start by experiencing our proven discovery, assessment, and implementation process.

1. DEVELOP
   We begin with a discovery session, full practice assessment, market research, and demographic, online, and competitor analysis. This enables us to better understand your situation and target audience so we can strategically plan successful campaigns.
   
   
2. IMPLEMENT
   You’ll be assigned a dedicated team of experts who will use findings from your discovery session to help you make informed decisions, create relevant marketing messaging, implement team training, and set your practice up for success.
   
   
3. MEASURE
   Using practice intelligence, established benchmarks, call scoring, and Practice ZEBRA®, our experts will regularly help you review your results metrics to find opportunities, take action, and grow your production.
   
   
4. IMPROVE
   Informed coaching, fact-based feedback, and continuous KPI analysis will help you improve practice efficiencies and generate loyal patients who return and refer!

A deep-dive examination of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, this foundational analysis encourages dentists to ask themselves hard questions that include:

S (Strengths): What makes your practice different from your competition? List everything you can leverage to help your office stand out from the rest.

W (Weaknesses): Which grievances do your patients mention most? Facing these issues head-on will help you better overcome all obstacles.

O (Opportunities): In which areas are you most likely to achieve growth? Assess every item to determine where your opportunities lie.

T (Threats): Are there issues your practice should anticipate, prepare for, and/or defend against?

Your answers will not only facilitate a greater understanding of your practice’s strengths and weaknesses, but they’ll also encourage strategic thinking and enable our – and your – team to focus on building strengths, mitigating challenges, and fostering opportunities.

Now, consider the five steps of the all-important patient journey.

Before a patient ever connects with your practice, they go on a journey. While each journey is unique and doesn’t necessarily follow a linear path, it involves five phases that start with practice awareness and finish with advocacy and growth.

Dental newsletters and postcards are two of the most vital ways you address the first phase – practice awareness. When you choose a high-quality format and educational content, this marketing material makes a standout first impression, which is needed to inspire a new patient to call, visit, or look you up online. Studies show that this marketing medium causes an incredible 90% of people to research your practice online – and to connect with a call.

Next, plan your strategy, initiate your campaign, & track your results!

Taking an omnichannel approach that incorporates both direct and indirect communication mediums to reach, attract, and convert new patients is a must, as these channels make your practice visible to prospective patients wherever they are.

Dental Websites & SEO: A modern, welcoming website with relevant and consistently updated SEO is non-negotiable. Your site could be the first impression a prospective patient has of your practice, so ask yourself:

• Is it modern and clean, or outdated and cluttered?

• Is the user experience seamless and easy, or do you have to click through five pages to find out how to contact your practice?

• Is it FAST on desktops and mobile?

• Does it succinctly convey my UVPs, and does the verbiage resonate with prospective patients?

We can help you leverage and refresh what you love about your current website or create a brand-new site. WebLift® from Patient NEWS is the perfect solution for every dental office or group because, when combined with an effective content strategy ranging from practice awareness and practice differentiators to STANDOUT local, it helps you attract and onboard more new patients. It also helps ensure that you’ll be found by prospects in your area when they have a dental need arise!

Neighborhood Newsletters & Postcards: Dental newsletters are often the cornerstone of the most successful new patient campaigns because direct mail is the ONLY way to consistently reach ALL your targeted households. Not only do our Patient NEWS newsletters drive an average ROI of 6:1, but they remain the absolute best way to raise awareness of your practice, elevate and build trust with your brand, and connect with your ideal audience via high-quality educational content and beautiful and demographically appropriate images. This large-format and value-packed material stands out in mailboxes, creates a memorable first impression with household healthcare decision-makers, and prompts 90% of people to research your office online – and pick up the phone!

Studies show that:

• Direct mail generates a 10-30 times higher response than email

• 70% of consumers say they pay attention to advertising in direct mail

• It requires 21% less brainpower to comprehend

• It gets the message across faster since it has a low cognitive load and high motivation score

• Newsletters have an average shelf life of 17 days vs. 72 hours for postcards!

Paid Media & Advertising: Encompassing a variety of online advertising formats, including pay-per-click (PPC) ads, display ads, remarketing, and search ads, paid media helps a practice appear on a results page when prospective patients search for specific keywords. Having a website with great, relevant SEO alone is often not enough to appear in search results when competitors in your area are filling up the search results with paid ads.

Consider that:

• 68% of marketers say that paid ads are very or extremely important to their overall campaign strategy

• 33% of marketers rely on PPC ads to boost their brand awareness

• 77% of people use Google 3+ times per day.

With search engines like Google rolling out constant updates and refinements, you want an expert in this space to help you better target your prospects, present your ads more attractively, optimize and provide reporting, and improve your paid media results so you can attract more new and high-value dental patients!

Market Analysis & Targeting: To successfully attract more new patients, getting clear on your neighborhood is essential. What is your current practice market share? Where is your competition located? Which area households are most likely to respond? By determining your core, potential, and niche pockets, you can more precisely establish which marketing strategies should be used for future success.

With in-depth market analysis and targeting, your messaging will reach more of your ideal new patients – the ones most likely to respond and want your services. They’re also the patients most likely to generate a higher lifetime patient value at your practice.

Focusing on reaching these patients helps ensure that you get the most out of your marketing dollars, and we determine who these people are with a complete market analysis that enables you to understand your area’s:

• Demographics

• Buyer information

• Market share (between you and other dentists)

• Key areas to target

• Top-value neighborhoods

• Competitive maps

• Practice benchmarks

• Your digital footprint score

• And much more!

When you understand “the backyard you want to own,” you can be clear on the patients you’re targeting, which marketing channels to utilize, and which content is likely to engage head-of-household healthcare decision-makers (most often women) and ultimately pack your schedule.

Helping dentists differentiate their practice and become more successful is what Patient NEWS® does best. As part of our proven, long-tenured process, we walk our clients through four initial and crucial steps to help their office launch effective dental marketing campaigns that resonate with potential patients while benefitting their bottom line.

Interested in learning more? We’ve only scratched the surface of the myriad dental marketing solutions our Patient NEWS experts provide dentists and DSOs.

Call us to discuss your needs and goals! When you do, we’ll start with a complementary analysis of your practice situation, which will help you identify critical areas for your strategic marketing plan. You’ll see the highest-priority issues for your practice and which strategies would be best to implement.

Joanne Bishop