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If you’re fully engaged and are always on the lookout for new and exciting ways to generate more quality new patients (and the average value of existing patients in your practice) then you’re already hosting Webinars on a regular basis.
If that’s the case then you can stop reading this article now… but if you’re not using Webinars on a regular basis you’ll find 10 powerful reasons why you may want to start using them – now.
Before I start let me say that I really don’t have 10 powerful reasons – but what I do have is even better…
- 5 reasons why you likely want use webinars for generating quality new patients and increasing the average lifetime value of every patient in your practice
- 5 ways to do Webinars that produce the best results with the least amount of effort from you.
If you’re ready to be delighted, excited and equipped to start using Webinars to increase your production and profits then let’s get going!
5 Reasons Why You Want To Start Using Webinars To Generate Quality New Patients and Increase The Lifetime Value of Existing Patients In Your Practice:
1. Access to More Highly-Qualified New Patient Prospects: When a prospective new patient signs up for your Webinar they are demonstrating the fact that they have more than a modicum of respect for you and/or your practice. This is an important fact that few Dentists stop to consider when tossing the Webinar idea around. Make a mental note of this (they have an inherent interest in what you do) because you’ll be using it help get patients into your practice and under your care in the future.
2. Access to More (detailed and important) Information: Attendees of your Webinar(s) have a much-higher perceived value of the information you’re delivering (as opposed to reading the brochure-like copy on your website and/or in your free reports) and as a result they’re willing to part (give you) more of their personal data and showing you that they’re a more qualified new patient prospect (allowing you to engage in a much more focused follow up marketing campaign with them.)
3. Your Webinars Are FREE Reducing Your Prospective New Patient’s Barrier To Entry: Which of the following options offers the lowest risk of commitment to your prospective patients while still providing information they want to know:
- Investing 1.5-2.0 hours driving to your office for a “free” consultation with you (which likely will require them to take time off from work, deal with traffic, spend money on gas for the car and in and of itself is perceived as a hassle to a prospect who may (be highly qualified but) still on the fence about proceeding with the particular treatment option they’re interested in (cosmetic, restorative, etc.)
- Registering and attending your free webinar that can be viewed on their computer at home, from their laptop at Starbucks, or on their smart phone at work? They can leave the Webinar any time they want as easily as they can delete an email… with one click of the mouse.
4. Opportunity to Generate an Immediate Surge of Quality New Patients by Implementing the Joint Venture Strategy: One of the fastest, least expensive and easiest ways to generate quality new patient traffic is to do a Webinar with a Joint Venture partner so that you can tap into their base of customers, clients and/or patients. Obviously, you won’t be doing a Joint Venture Webinar with another Dentist so that you can “tap into” his/her patient base, but you could (and should) be doing Webinars with other professionals like Chiropractors, Cosmetic Surgeons, and even Divorce Attorneys (hold on while I wash my mouth out with soap!)
I’ve said it a thousand times if I’ve said it once… the most valuable asset in your practice (if you have an established practice) is the RELATIONSHIP you have with your patients and employees. If you were to lose your building, your equipment and/or even your health (I just had shoulder reconstruction 2-days ago to repair a ruptured rotator cuff and bicep tendon and it’s difficult to type… so I’m speaking with great authority here!) you would still have a practice.
Knowing this, you can enter into a Joint Venture with a qualified professional and/or business owner hold a Webinar allowing both of you to tap into each other’s base. To explain it further, consider the fact that your patients, know, like and trust you (as do your JV partner’s him/her) which translates into a Webinar that is attended by super high-quality prospects (in this case) for both of you.
5. You Can Record Your Webinars and Repost/Redistribute The Content Across The Web: Not only should you record each one of your Webinars and redistribute them on sites like YouTube, Blip.TV, Vimeo, Flickr, Veoh, Viddler, Daily Motion, yFrog and others (all free by the way), but you should also advertise and rerun your Webinars to attract more new patients.
When you replay a Webinar you don’t have to be available to answer questions because you can have your Dental Marketing Assistant and/or one of your staff answer questions on your behalf (Webinar attendees can ask questions using audio and/or by typing the questions and submitting them to the Webinar host). My Paducah Dentist Charles Bohle, DMD uses IV and Oral Sedation Webinars (as does Premier St. Louis Cosmetic Dentist Barry Brace DMD and Associates) superbly to generate a sizable number of quality new patients for their practice each month
5 Ways to Improve the Quality (and Response to and/or) of Your Webinars
If you set a maximum number of ‘virtual’ seats, then your prospective patients (attendees) will be more inclined to sign up because they don’t want to miss out. No one likes to be left out of something that they perceive as valuable. This is what world-renown human behavior expert Robert Cialdini, PhD refers to as “Scarcity” in his best-selling book “Influence”. (If your webinar is nothing other than you reading from a brochure (not literally but you get the idea), is too clinically-based or not positioned in a compelling, fascinating way then you’re dead from the moment you start...)
There are a couple ways to offer the free bonuses to your Webinar attendees:
1. Show Registrant Count: Social proof gets talked about a lot, but this is the ultimate demonstration of herd mentality. When you display your registration count, a prospect can say/think (to themselves) something like this “27 people have registered for this Webinar on Full-Mouth Restoration? Wow… I need to get in on this.” See? Sheep.
2. Create A Sense of Urgency: A state of urgency (i.e. “this is something you don’t want to miss”) can greatly enhance and improve attendance to your Webinars. On the other hand the state of “hurry up” (“if you’ve ever tried leading your entire staff to a lunch/training session (inside and/or outside of the office) can create feelings of pressure and annoyance.
3. Future Pacing Your Existing (and Prospective New) Patients: Add a calendar of upcoming Webinars to your site to show you are consistently edumacating (entertaining and educating). This can get you advance sign ups that you can market to on the lead up to the main event. Suggesting webinars happening in the interim, or just sending them some great content as a reminder of how useful you are.
4. Improve Your Perceived Authority and Engender Greater Levels of Trust: Following along with the last point, you want to share FREE content such as eBooks and How-To Guides with the attendees of your Webinars. It’s important to offer Free content on your website (content that is valuable “in the eyes of your prospective patients” – do not use lame brochures and documents) is important for the above reasons, but you’ll want to offer free eBooks and How-To Guides that are only available to folks to attend your Webinar.
A. Pre populate the email field on a landing page for an eBook download (coming straight from a link from in your email to a registrant). This way you can place them in different buckets or groups in your email list, facilitating smarter segmentation in the future. For example, you can email details of another webinar to people that registered for your first one. Likewise, you can email people that downloaded an eBook with more eBooks.
B. Provide the download link for the free eBook/Guide at and/or near the end of the Webinar. Doing this will keep more of your attendees with you for the entire event – which is important if you’re going to making offers (for new patients) and keeping them in your circle of influence for as long as possible.
5. The ALL-IMPORTANT Follow-Up: Send an email to your Webinar registrants right after the event that includes links to the recording of the Webinar as well as additional FREE Bonuses (sales letters, website pages that contain testimonials from your existing patients (be sure to use outcome-based testimonials from patients who have received the same treatment that was highlighted on the Webinar! I am amazed at the lack of insight some Doctors have by using (as an example) teeth whitening testimonials on pages that are promoting Dental Implants.
I’m also going to be hosting a Webinar: “How to Make Webinars Your #1 Acquisition Channel for Quality New Dental Patients” on Friday, July 25th 2014 at 11:30 a.m. CST. The Webinar will be 40-minutes long with 15-20 minutes reserved after the presentation for Q & A with you.
The first 17 Registrants will receive a DVD copy of the Webinar and a spiral-bound fast-start manual (includes detailed instructions of everything you’ll need to start using Webinars right away to generate more quality new patients and increase the lifetime value of existing patients in your practice currently - $297.00 Value)
If you’d like to download one or all of the FREE Resources I’ve created simply click this link and you’ll be taken to the FREE Guides page on my site. If you want information about how your staff can become trained and certified as expert dental marketers please visit the Dental Marketing Assistant University Page – Click Here. If you register (it’s free) by August 15, 2014 you’ll be allowed to take Module #1: Social Media Marketing Success ($497 value) absolutely free.
Be sure to visit the Growth Hacker Central Blog page where you’ll find a bunch of great How-To articles on Dental Marketing, Dentist SEO, The Definitive Guide to Growth Hacking Your Dental Practice, Gamification, Social Media Marketing and a lot more.
If you have questions about how to set up a specific Webinar format feel free to contact me and you can read more about my qualifications by visiting the About Dr. Ken Newhouse page.
