Here Comes the Holidays

It’s been a generally accepted myth that the holidays (Thanksgiving to New Years) is a bad time to do any marketing. All types of businesses find their marketing doesn’t work, and because of that, December is their slowest month of the year.

In Jerry’s SofTouch managed practice, we have found the opposite to be true. The practice opened to a full schedule the week of thanksgiving, The Christmas postcard pulled in patients, the letter to the current patients for a the chance to buy Whitening certificates for their friends and family also pulled well.

See, the holidays are not a bad time to market, however, they are a bad time to market badly. Here are some simple rules for your holiday marketing:

1: Go with who you know. Your patient base is loyal, and has a relationship with you. What can you offer to them to make their lives less stressful during the holiday season (think Christmas gifts for friends)?

2: Don’t try and compete with “big business.” Doing a newspaper ad or insert during the holidays is almost marketing suicide unless it is huge and colorful and offers a great deal. The newspaper is so full of Target, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Sears it is ridiculous. Sure the newspaper people will tell you the paper has the largest readership during the holidays, but many of those “readers” just look at the advertisements.

3: Make sure to be in the office. Many offices send a postcard or mailing only to have shortened office hours or vacation weeks when they are out of the office. If you plan to be out the week before Christmas, don’t send out a mailing that gets delivered that week. You’ll get calls, but nobody will be there to answer them.

4: Allow time for your mail. Allow a couple of extra days for your mailings to get delivered. Local mailings should not take much longer, but plan for a delay.

5: WHAT TO DO: Take advantage of opportunities. Be a bell ringer, have a canned food drive, adopt a family, have a “giving tree” in the office. Make sure to promote these to your patients and the local media (if you need help, call us).

6: WHAT TO DO PART 2: Hit the ground running on New Years. A little thing called a “TAB ON” ad netted almost 40 patients on New Years day of 2005 for the SofTouch office. The phone began ringing off the hook at 6 AM on January 1st. That is a good start to a year for any practice.
Christmas mailers, and New Years celebration offers to current patients and neighborhoods have both been great producers for the SofTouch practice here in Salem.

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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.