Photo credit: triplecurve.com
At any given point in time, I get asked for a quick way to get a volume of patients in the door. My answer is that other than being famous or having lots of friends who need treatment, I haven’t found a one-size-fits-all guaranteed way to get an influx of patients in the door. Certainly, others claim that they have found a foolproof way and good for them.
But if I’m asked to come up with something that I would highly recommend in just about every case, I, and a host of others, would recommend a strong call-to-action in the marketing message. In other words, what reason, promotion, opportunity or deal am I offering to get a patient to come in to my office and not that of my competition?
Here are some of the things I’ve learned about calls to action and what might benefit you as a practice owner or key marketing person.
Make the call to action concrete
I see a lot of ads with messages like “come in for our special deals!!!” That is complete antithesis of a concrete message. There is no specific thing or attraction that I’m offering. Rather, this is simply a nebulous offer of a special deal which the patient may not, in fact, find special and all. Rather than come in and find out what the deal is, I’ve found that a lot of patients will opt to wait or seek out a more substantive offer.
I also see a lot of offers to join a club or form of insurance program. Again, this is not terribly concrete. There’s nothing to provide an immediate incentive and the actual incentives in there –like free cleanings, X-rays and other benefits—get buried in an avalanche of words.
When you make the offer, give a patient something to hold on to: “Sign up today for no down payment and $69 per month” or come in before March 31 and “get a chance to win an autographed Frozen DVD.” Now, the patient has something to grab onto and walk in with an honest assessment of what you are offering.
Make the call to action meaningful
Back in the old days, I’d discuss promotions with doctors who would want to promote free records for each consultation. To which most patients would reply, “What’s a record?” Or they might ask, “Is a free record a good thing?” If the cost of records is normally $5, that’s not much of an offer at all. While a record and the cost of most orthodontic and dental treatment is common terminology within a practice, it’s not so common to the average person starting to consider treatment. In the same vein, calls like “25% off” and “$300 off” are also vague to the point of being turnoffs for potential patients. 25% off what, exactly? And is $300 off a good thing? If it’s $300 off a $750 treatment, that’s a huge discount and something that should move the needle. If it’s $300 of a $6,000 severe treatment case, the response might be along the lines of “meh.”
Again, you want to give people something on which they can make a decision. If your call to action is something like “come in now for whitening for $99,” a patient can make decisions on that. Can I afford $99? Do I want or need whitening for my teeth. If the answers are “yes,” you’ll have a patient much more willing to sign.
Make the call to action valuable
No one wants to give too much away. In addition to the provision of quality patient care, you are in this business to earn income for yourself and there’s no reason to give away a car when you could have gotten a patient for a tank of gas. Still, you have to offer something of some actual value to get people interested.
If your call to action screams “5% off!” that deal is both nebulous and insignificant. If you are doing a raffle and that raffle is for a 32” flatscreen TV, most folks will shrug their shoulders and look for something worth their time.
Lots of people are offering deals out there and if you want to get noticed, you need to make an offer that stands out. If you offer a huge discount, yes maybe you lose some money on those patients (or, more accurately, make less profit), but those patients may need other treatment and/or refer friends and/or have children that need treatment for which they are willing to pay full price. If you had not gotten them in the door with a strong call to action, no one would have known about you.
Keep in mind to that no call-to-action will appeal to 100% of the people. Raffling off a trip to Hawaii probably won’t appeal to the family of a pilot from Hawaiian Air. That’s not the point here. Rather, the point is to position your promotion as broadly as possible over your narrow target market to generate interest and, hopefully, long-term patients.
As a test, before you run an ad, show it to a group of friends or family unfamiliar with your business. Ask questions like, “Does it make sense to you?” “Would you be interested in something like this?” If you get confused stares or a person asking follow up questions to make sense of the call to action, take it and rework it. Otherwise, give it a whirl.
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