Dental Marketing Solutions & Strategies To Support Your Practice
An interview with Karen Galley, President, Patient NEWS
With so many dental marketing services available to your practice, you might be wondering which ones you should focus on during a pandemic. Are certain strategies better than others? How can you be more efficient and make up for COVID-19 losses?
In this interview with 7 Figure Dental founder Dr. Shahin Safarian, Patient NEWS’ President Karen Galley talks about some of the solutions that are proving effective for dentists across North America during these unpredictable times. Watch the full interview on our COVID-19 Resource page. Below are a few highlights – a quick read.
Question: Is direct mail dead?
Karen Galley: “Absolutely not. It’s still one of the strongest channels for dentists. You get direct mail from Google, Amazon … all the providers that are excelling in this challenging market. Our top-producing direct mail campaigns are getting 13-15:1 ROI. The average is 6:1. If you can get 3:1, you’re winning. The bottom line is, it works and it’s still extremely relevant.”
Dr. Safarian agreed, adding that while there is a big buzz around digital advertising, direct mail remains an “amazing channel to create attention for your business.” Both Dr. Safarian & Karen pointed out it takes a good strategy for a campaign to succeed.
Question: Let’s say a client comes to you and says, “I’m ready to turn this thing on. I have $2-3,000. Where do I go with this?”
Karen Galley: “It starts with planning and it starts with goals. Do you want to slowly turn on the gas? Do you want to make up for a bit of lost time through closure? Or do you really want to take advantage and really look at this as an opportunity and rev up your practice?
“The next thing you should do is look at your metrics. It has to start with quantifying things. If you’re using any type of intelligence tool – Practice ZEBRA is one and there are others.”
Karen’s recommendations:
- Look at your numbers in the 12 months leading up to the pandemic and benchmark that data. This includes (but isn’t limited to):
- monthly production
- new-patient flow
- call answer and conversion rates
- treatment acceptance rates
- scheduled patients.
- Look at your data from the shutdown period. “What was that gap? You want to quantify that gap.”
- Look to the future and identify potential opportunities and inhibitors. “It’s going to be different for every practice – the access to PPE, the time between appointments, your capacity. What’s going to happen moving forward in terms of the backlog?”
- Once you develop a plan, tie it into the patient journey. These are the five touchpoints a patient experiences before they join your practice and during their time as a patient of record.
Question: What are you guys doing for the future?
Karen Galley: “We’ve invested a ton in our technology platform … and we’re constantly prioritizing and reprioritizing. But new features and benefits are coming out within that automated platform almost weekly. We’re just going to continue to innovate on the automation side and on the intelligence side.”
SAVE THE DATE: Grant Gooley, Director of Digital Operations at Patient NEWS, will be a featured speaker at 7 Figure Dental’s Growth Summit on Oct. 23-24, 2020 in San Diego. Registration information is available at 7figuredental.com.