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Top Three Strategies to Triple New Patient Numbers by Anissa Holmes, DMD

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Header: Top Three Strategies to Triple New-Patient Numbers
by Anissa Holmes, DMD

Finding new and exciting ways to bring new patients to your practice month after month can be difficult.

The first step to increase your practice's profitability is to increase your leads or number of new patients. Unfortunately, many dentists think they need to spend a lot of money to acquire new patients. Even worse, they don't test and measure to see if their marketing dollars are an investment or an expense.

I'd like to share some secrets that my practice has used to consistently bring in more than 150 new patients a month. We are a fee-for-service practice and have doubled our revenue every year for the past three years.

Unique culture
The first strategy to increase your new patient numbers is to create a unique office culture.

What is your practice known for? What makes you different? Many dentists make a common mistake when creating ads to market their services. For example, most dentists list services such as crowns, fillings, root canals, etc., on their advertisements. However, these are services that most dentists are supposed to—and are expected to—provide. People will be drawn to you when you market what makes you different. You always want to be different—in a good way.

My practice is known for three things. On-time appointments, quality and consistency of dental work, and "wow" experiences. We even offer a guarantee. If patients are not seen within 15 minutes of their appointment time, their next exam is free. How can we do this? Through our amazing culture and consistent systems.

Here are a few of our "wow" services:
  • Office tours highlighting our framed core values, sterilization area, and technology.
  • Coffee, tea, and hot chocolate bar with freshly baked plantain tarts.
  • Bathrooms stocked with the amenities of a five-star hotel, including toothbrushes, lotions and perfume/cologne.
  • iPads and Bluetooth headphones to help mitigate office noise.
  • Complimentary arm and hand massages to relax patients before treatment.
  • Phone calls the next morning for all patients who had crowns, root canals or extractions.
  • We celebrate patients' birthdays. We call every patient on his or her birthday, as well as send a gift certificate for a free dessert from a local restaurant. (This is provided through a strategic alliance. The restaurant provides the dessert at no charge in exchange for getting more customers.)
These wows do not cost a lot and can contribute significantly to the overall patient experience. The complimentary arm and hand massages have revolutionized our practice and have helped relax even the most fearful patients. All of my dental assistants have been certified in massage therapy, so there is consistency in delivery. This required a one-time investment in my team, which will provide years of dividends.

Once your culture is unique, your patients will become raving fans, and won't be able to stop talking about your practice and the amazing service it offers.

Getting the culture right makes it easy for your current patients to refer their friends and family. Forty percent of our new patients come from existing patients. We also have a referral rewards program. However, once the culture is right, your patients will refer others to you, with or without incentive.

Social media done well
The second strategy that can give you massive results involves social media.

We consistently receive more than 40 new patients per month from social media alone. This is huge. A patient referred from social media is a patient who already knows our culture. He or she has been to our website, has seen before and after pictures of our work, and perhaps even watched the amazing video patient testimonials we have.

The most effective social media platforms for dentists are Facebook and Instagram. We are very active in both, and we target different services and demographics for each platform.

Instagram followers tend to be younger and more affluent. Therefore, Instagram is where we advertise cosmetic procedures and teeth whitening. Facebook tends to have a bit more mature audience, as well as varying socioeconomic demographics. We use Facebook to share our culture, photos of our charitable projects, before and after photos of our work, and promotional offers.

Social media has an excellent return on investment (ROI). When I first started to use social media for advertising, I was very conservative with my budget and spent $50 per month on targeted ads. After testing it, however, I dropped all other forms of traditional advertising. Then, I increased my budget for Facebook to $500 per month. I thought, if every time I spend $5, I get back $10, how many times will I spend $5?

Targeted marketing and promoting posts means you are paying for a Facebook Ad to show your promotion in a specific target group's feed. Also, if you use Facebook advertisement's "custom audiences" and "lookalike audiences," Facebook users who have similar traits to your existing patients will see your posts. You can also target different groups with different demographics, based on the objectives of your campaign.

Here is an example of a teeth-whitening, targeted-marketing campaign. This particular example will show up in feeds of people who currently don't follow your page:
  • Select women between the ages of 18-30
  • Select people who are engaged
  • Select the ZIP code of your practice or the ZIP code of the areas where you want your post to show up
  • Select those not currently connected to your page. (This will generate more page likes.)
Social media has been a fabulous way for us to fill last-minute cancellations. For example, if two patients cancel in the morning for a same-day appointment, we can post that the first two people to call can get a cleaning for 50 percent off. This acquisition cost has opened the door to many long-term patients, as well as allowed us to fill a space that otherwise might have gone unfilled.

Relationships
Finally, the third strategy and fastest way to get an infinite number of new patients is a lesser-used method that involves forming "host-beneficiary" relationships with established businesses that cater to similar target audiences.

For example, you make an offer to the "host" company that it shares with its existing customers or team as a reward for loyalty. The company benefits because it is not spending for this "loyalty reward," and you benefit because you are not spending anything on this campaign.

We set up the host beneficiary by offering 50 percent off cleanings. We create an email that the host company forwards to its team, detailing why our companies have decided to partner together, why we are committed to building great teams, and how our office is unique. Our offer lasts for only 30 days.

Once in the office, more than 40 percent of these patients perform same-day additional preventative services, such as adult sealants, fluoride and restorative treatment. They have been endorsed by their company and have been wowed by our culture. Many spend more than the reduced fee on the day of their initial visit, and most become lifelong customers and raving fans.

The next level of results requires the next level of thinking. Are you ready to achieve massive results? If so, it's time to take action!

Dr. Anissa Holmes is the owner of Jamaica Cosmetic Dental Services. She is well versed in cosmetic and family dentistry, in addition to social media marketing. Holmes, through her podcast, The Delivering WOW Dental Podcast, shares tips for designing a unique practice culture to deliver a "wow" patient experience every time, and strategies to triple new-patient numbers and build an amazing team. She is also the author of Delivering WOW: The Fastest Way Dentists Can Boost their Brand and Achieve More, While Working Less, which will launch in early 2016.



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