Creating Multiple Streams of New Patients

Robert Allen has two very popular books out about tapping into multiple incomes and becoming rich in the process. If you haven’t read his book called Multiple Streams Of Income, I would suggest jumping over to Amazon.com and investing in a copy immediately.

His philosophy makes sense. With multiple incomes, you can make more money, but also, you can stabilize your income stream by drawing from many sources. If one stream hits a low streak, that’s okay, because the other streams are still there to keep you stable.

Let’s take that same philosophy and apply it to your patient streams. Hopefully, you have a good number of marketing programs out there working for you. A good marketing program always will include a variety of sources like a newsletter, postcard, newspaper, website…etc. By now, you should have a pretty good idea what type of marketing has drawn-in most of your new patients since the first of the year.

The benefits in creating multiple sources of new patients are, if any of them ever stop working, you have the others to rely on. Let’s look at an example:

Dr. X has an infomercial on cable access. The cable access station is right between 2 of the major networks and draws about 7-9 new patients a month. This is Dr. X’s greatest source (second to referrals) of new patients.

Well, in their infinite wisdom, the cable company moves the cable access station from channel 4 to channel 75. This places it between HSN and Univision. This is a rarely clicked through section of channels.

Needless to say, Dr. X’s infomercial patient stream dries up. A solid nine patients a month…GONE!

If that had been his only source of new patients, it would be a struggle for Dr. X to find replacements, and the first month or two after the switch, there would be some holes in the schedule.

Let’s take another simple example with a more positive outcome. DR. Z, had patients from 4 sources. Total new patients were: 37 from Referrals, 25 from Postcard #1, 20 from Postcard #2, and 1 from the Yellow Pages.

With 4 streams, you can clearly see well-balanced sources of new patients from 3 sources, but on the fourth, the Yellow Pages, there is a clear ROI problem. Unless this was a high quality patient needing a lot of work, I’m sure this patient didn’t cover the Yellow Pages bill.

With 2 other postcards working, the solution would be to add quantities of one of the other postcards and cut the Yellow Pages, or at the very least redesign the ad in hopes it will do better next time.

There are many advantages to having multiple streams of new patients. Make sure to diversify your marketing portfolio so when you end up with a “dog” it doesn’t ruin your practice.

If you need more information on creating multiple streams of patients, please call 1-800-311-1390.

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EMC Dental Marketing is a full-service Dental Practice Marketing, Dental Advertising, and Practice Management agency that focusses on solving a dentists top 2 problems - attracting new patients and retaining the patients they already have.

With 2008 half-way over, it is time to start planning for 2009. Planning in any business is an essential function that all too many times gets overlooked. Lack of planning leads to playing defense for a whole year and being reactive, not proactive in your success.

Think about it this way: When you go into a dental procedure, you have all your tools laid out on the tray ready to go. Why not start the year with all your marketing tools laid out ready to go, and knowing exactly when you want and need to use them?….

In my four years as an active duty Marine, I learned time and time again that planning would lead to success. We even had a saying “Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance,” and we were given an acronym, BAMCIS, to help plan missions…..

BAMCIS, pronounced BAM-SIS, has to do with leading Marines on the battlefield and is used to plan for every mission. BAMCIS stands for Begin the planning, Arrange for reconnaissance, Make reconnaissance, Complete the plan, Issue the order, and Supervise. These simple six steps apply to any task or operation you will take on…..

Before you start the BAMCIS process, you will need a mission. For the sake of example, your goal or mission is to increase gross revenue by 10% in 2009. It’s a little vague, but it will work for our purposes. Now, let’s go step by step through the BAMCIS process…..

1. Begin the planning: The first step is actually beginning the planning (duh). You will approach your goal, and figure out the methods to best accomplish it. In this case, to increase your gross revenues by 10%, you can either find new patients, or, you can do more dentistry on your current patients, or a combination of both…..

Also, you need to do is take a quick inventory of your available resources like staff, equipment, and old marketing (brochures, business cards, etc). This will let you know what you can include in your plan, and will help in the next step…….

2. Arrange For Reconnaissance: In the second step you arrange for your information gathering. In the Marines, this may include requesting maps, video surveillance, or even planning another mission to gather information on the terrain and enemy positions…..

For your practice, it means taking an information inventory. Do you have production reports and patient reports by month for 2007 and 2008 to date? Where do you find marketing results? What do you need to do to get those reports? Gather as much information on the last 12 months as possible, and then move on to the next step. Check also with local government, competitors, and local media to see what events are coming (Wal-mart, parades, dentist down the street retiring)…..

3. Make Reconnaissance: Now that you have all of your information, you have to sort through it. Figure out your worst month and your best month, what marketing was out those months, and how many new patients resulted from the marketing. What is coming up this next year (anniversaries, trade shows, community events)? This is an information finding step, not a planning step. If there are months where incomplete data was kept, recreate those months in this step…..

Create your 2007-08 report with all the numbers you need for 2009. Include production by month, new patient flow, cancelled appointments, average production per patient, new and current, and completed treatment plans. These numbers will all be great when it comes to the next step. Many times your practice management software can pull these numbers just by clicking the mouse a few times…..

4. Complete the Plan: Now, apply all of the information you have gathered and create your plan. Take your monthly reports and use them to figure out when to up your marketing. If you know July is slow, pump up the marketing in June. If there is a big anniversary for your practice in the summer, plan a patient event…..

Hint: Use reverse planning. If you need patients calling by August 1st, subtract 3 days for mailing, 5 days for fulfillment, and 5 days for printing. If you want calls in your office on August 1st, you need to have the project to the printer by July 14th at the latest. Plan all marketing projects like this. If you need patients on August 1st, July 30th is not the time to start the project…..

Don’t forget a contingency plan for emergencies…flood, fire, theft, etc. These things happen, and it helps if there is a plan just in case they do…..

5. Issue The Order: Have a meeting and lay out your plan to your team. This serves as an “order” for them, to let them know exactly who, what, when, where, and why you are doing this. Make sure to leave out no details. If Jane at the front desk needs to be in charge of postage purchasing, tell her how many stamps you need and when to get them. Lay out the year for them, so there will be no surprises when you announce the need to sign Thanksgiving cards for your patients…..

Then, in your daily/weekly huddles, you can lay out what needs to happen that week/day. Who needs to call EMC Dental Marketing? Who is working on the copy for the newsletter, and deadlines for each project? This goes back to reverse planning. Give yourself and your team notice of any problems, and what you need to do to get them handled. How do you know when there are problems? Check the next step…..

Supervise: I cannot stress this enough. Supervising is the most important step to your planning since the plan is useless without implementation. This does not mean just supervising people, but also processes, situations, and external vendors. This allows you to know if things are going according to the plan, as well as when to take action steps to fix a problem. Look over your weekly plan and make sure things are on time, what needs to be ready for next week, and who is in charge of doing what. Do not micro-manage this step. Trust your staff and external vendors to get things done (they should be trustworthy, you hired them)…..

If there is a problem, use another military acronym, OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act). As you supervise or observe the implementation of your plan, you will notice problems here and there. Orient yourself to these problems. What needs to be adjusted or changed? Make a swift, firm decision, keeping the mission in mind, and acting on that decision. The Marine saying is, the quicker you act, the less time the opposition has to prepare defense…..

If you supervise correctly, you will catch all problems early. This makes them easier to solve, and makes certain they have less effect on your mission. Rather than walls, they appear more as speed bumps. There are few problems that prior planning could not resolve…..

Planning can and will help your practice run smoother. It is often ignored in business today, and comes to haunt many business owners. If you lay out a proper plan using the information you have gathered over the last year, you will surely create a smoother running practice. Remember, Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.

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EMC Dental Marketing is a full-service Dental Practice Marketing, Dental Advertising, and Practice Management agency that focusses on solving a dentists top 2 problems - attracting new patients and retaining the patients they already have.

Your practice should have a plan for community initiatives. This means you should take some interest in your community events, and show support for the goings on in your target area. This ties your practice in with many people, and when it comes time for the public to make a choice in who completes their dental care, this will come into consideration.

If you are struggling to find a way to set yourself apart from the crowd, this is it.

I coach girls soccer at a local high school, here in Salem, Oregon. I have played organized soccer since I was 4 years old, and use this experience in sharing what I know with the youth of today.

Now, I am not suggesting you commit your time to coaching a sport. Some of our clients do take time away to coach little league, or soccer, but you do not have to take time away from your dental practice to show support for your local teams and youth.

One of our clients, here in Salem, took a simple approach to getting their practice involved in the community. Knowing that anything the practice does as far as advertising needs to generate new patients, we planned an 11 x 17” poster featuring my soccer team, the season schedule, and yes…an offer for a FREE teeth whitening.

We threw the design together and printed 500 of these posters at a cost of just below $200. Upon delivering them to the girls after a recent victory, I received many thank yous and hugs. By showcasing the girls, we had created plenty of gracious parents, relatives, and friends… I even noticed a few fans for the other team grabbed a couple.

An important part of this equation is showcasing the community event, and not yourself. This poster (as shown) was 95% Sprague High School, 5% my client’s practice. By doing this, we gave the girls self esteem, created a memory these girls will have forever, and by having the girls distribute these to hang in local businesses, we created a buzz about the program and its success.

What did my client get out of it? Even though the advertisement is small, they get the attachment to this successful soccer program. By these posters getting distributed around town, they get notoriety and distribution of their “FREE Teeth Whitening” message, and they can show their patients how they support the community (positive PR).

With a cost of $200, this already is a great marketing tool for the practice. Even if it results in zero new patients, it can be considered a success just through showcasing one of these posters in the office. With the location, it will be sure to create some conversation in the office, and with the quality of the posters, it creates more interest than the normal “practice art”.

Look for these community opportunities in your area. Whether it be with local sports teams, boys and girls clubs, Habitat for Humanity, or any other way you give back to the community. Make sure to take lots of pictures, and feel free to show those off to your friends, family, and current patients. (Great content for your monthly newsletter too!)

If you have any questions relating to community and how to get involved, or you would like us to custom design a poster for your practice, please give us a call at 1-800-311-1390.

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EMC Dental Marketing is a full-service Dental Practice Marketing, Dental Advertising, and Practice Management agency that focusses on solving a dentists top 2 problems - attracting new patients and retaining the patients they already have.

I recently evaluated an audit we performed for one of our clients as part of our Practice Audit Program. This monthly program gives the doctor insight into how his or her front office staff is manning the phone lines. We have a “mystery caller” call in each month to ask about various topics. This month, my caller was inquiring about a whitening offer. The woman who answered the phone (we’ll call her Lacy) made quite a few drastic mistakes that I thought noteworthy enough to share with all of you…

To begin on a positive note, Lacy knew the various whitening procedures in good detail and she was able to communicate this to the caller. The doctor can congratulate her on that when he sits down for their next training session.

However, take good notes on the following as they are typical – but critical – mistakes that almost EVERY practice makes.

First of all, your staff must ALWAYS refer to teeth whitening procedures as “whitening” not “bleaching.” It may sound trivial, but many people hear “bleach” and think the household cleaner, potentially lethal if swallowed. You absolutely do not want that image associated with your services.

On this particular call, Lacy failed to ask for the source the caller was referred by. THIS IS CRUCIAL TO YOUR SUCCESS! If your staff is not effectively tracking your marketing, how do you expect to know where to spend your dollar? You could be throwing away thousands each month on wasted marketing and never know it. ASK FOR THE SOURCE.

Lacy did ask for the caller’s name part way through the call and she politely replied with, “Hi Marcie, I’m Lacy.” That was excellent. However, this would have been the perfect time to get the caller’s last name, address, and phone number. How will they follow up with her to see if she’s still interested in getting her teeth whitened? More money thrown out the window.

This caller (and pretty much every caller who contacts your office) is what we call in the marketing business a “hot” lead. Something interested her in your office and she chose to call YOU, out of all the other dentists in your area. You darn well better treat her with respect and be professional enough to follow through with her. After all, she has a need and you have the service to meet that need – every business owner’s dream!!!

Lacy presented the free consultation to the caller, but she did not create urgency. My caller had no reason to make an appointment NOW. Train your staff to present an offer for each week. Guess what the weekly offer is? Whatever the caller is calling about! Post a board by the phones with all the offers you are willing to make. For example, take $100 off your New Patient Exam and X-Rays, $150 off your in-office teeth whitening system, or $50 off your take-home whitening trays.

If someone calls about any one of these offers, tell the caller that if they make their appointment TODAY, they will get $100 off (or whatever the deal is), but if they wait until tomorrow they will have to pay FULL price. I guarantee this will boost your calls-to-appointments ratio. And guess what? The more appointments made, the more patients you will see, and the more money in your pocket.

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EMC Dental Marketing is a full-service Dental Practice Marketing, Dental Advertising, and Practice Management agency that focusses on solving a dentists top 2 problems - attracting new patients and retaining the patients they already have.

“The Nasty, Ugly Truth About Websites, Why They’re The Worst Thing Going For Print Advertising & Why You Must Immediately Take Action To Prevent Further Damage.”

Every single piece of advice, even from the so-called “experts” I’ve read, listened to, and watched has told me, you, and anyone else that uses websites, that we must, without fail,

PUT OUR WEBSITE ADDRESS ON EVERYTHING, AND TATTOO IT ON OUR FOREHEAD, TOO, IF WE THINK THAT WILL HELP.

Listen, you know I ALWAYS give you the straight scoop. I don’t beat around the bush and I certainly have not just YOUR money on the line when I give advice, but my own, too, since I follow my own advice very carefully on a regular, daily basis in my own business.

This time’s no different.

If you ignore everything I tell you for the next year and you’ve ignored everything I’ve said for the last year, if you absorb this message and this message only (unless you don’t have a website), then you’ll get a very fair, even decent return on your investment.

We recently tested a number of postcards for clients. Couldn’t do it on myself because our dental practice does not yet have a website. I’m still considering one, but it’s not crucial right now.

Here’s what we found in our Simple Green Postcard testing results:

If a website is mentioned on the postcards, it’s very likely to KILL response by as much as 50% OR MORE.

That’s right. By putting your website on your postcard, as we’ve all been led to believe is a GOOD thing, could really hurt results. Imagine: It’s like spending twice the money you need to get the same ROI. Yuck!

Here’s my theory, and, I think it’s a good one:

Listing a website on the media (in this case, a postcard), detracts from the impact and urgency the postcard implies. It allows the recipient, your potential patient, to GET DISTRACTED and PUT OFF calling your practice and making an appointment.

In a very informal, yet highly reliable survey, respondents clearly indicated they would VISIT THE SITE FIRST, then, based on the “look and feel” of the site and what the people on it looked like, they would then maybe call the office to make an appointment.

One of my mentors for writing copy is Gary Halbert. Like him or hate him (he’s controversial in his own right, but an incredible copywriter and “salesman in print”), Gary talks at length about what he refers to as the Greased Slide effect.

What he means is that when you grab someone’s attention by the throat and DEMAND your advertising piece is paid attention to, the last thing you want them to do is put the piece down and surf the net or worse, NEVER act on it! You want them to CALL YOU RIGHT NOW! You want that person to be seduced by the promise or benefit in the headline, get them to read the first line, the second line and so on, all the while identifying their “problem,” agitating the daylights out of them, identifying with them and THEN, while their guard is down, GIVE THEM THE SOLUTION to their problem.

I believe NOTHING in dental advertising works like my Simple Green Postcard to do that.

Our “failures,” where we’ve had less than a 5-10 NP return on 1,000 postcards has been when we let the prospect fall off the greased slide, or worse, get them on it and then ask them to get off and go surf the internet.

Now, I’m speaking very specifically in terms of PRINT advertising, where you are trying to get the prospect to take IMMEDIATE action and call…not dilly dally around and go visit a crazy website (that may be down at the time they try it! It’s happened to me many, MANY times!). Please DO NOT misinterpret what I am saying and go have your letterhead, business cards, envelopes, and so on re-printed because you think I believe it’s bad to have your website address on these items. I think they should be.

When you want to get people to focus, you have to give them one thing and one thing only to focus on!

If you want ACTION on the part of the prospect, don’t let them get de-railed and screw around and surf on the Internet. You’ve not put yourself in a VERY precarious position. Cause then, all the surfer geek has to do is punch in a search on Yahoo! for another office in the area and VIOLA, he’s been sucked into another void on the ‘net and your advertising is responsible for taking him there!

Anyway, this is my BIG LESSON of the year…I believe it’s VERY significant and one you simply cannot afford to ignore!

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EMC Dental Marketing is a full-service Dental Practice Marketing, Dental Advertising, and Practice Management agency that focusses on solving a dentists top 2 problems - attracting new patients and retaining the patients they already have.