Dental Direct Mail
How Can Dental Direct Mail Help You Get More Patients?
Gone are the days when dental clinics didn’t need to advertise themselves. Now, people research about every practice before visiting and tend to make more informed decisions.
Hence, all dental offices need to level up their marketing game and explore their options. Undoubtedly, dental direct mail is on top of the list and can drive the most results.
Unlike before, it is no longer hectic, costly, and time-consuming to conduct dental direct mail campaigns. Dental clinics can use direct mail advertising to get more conversions and increase patient retention rates.
If you aren’t using direct mail marketing yet, it is now time to change that! In this blog, we will discuss how your dental practice can thrive using direct mail marketing.
Why Use Dental Direct Mail Marketing?
Though direct mail is a traditional marketing channel, it can still do wonders for your business. Here, we have mentioned why dental direct mail advertising should be a crucial part of your marketing programs:
Customers Trust Direct Mail
Direct mail is a trustworthy marketing form and can improve brand image. Customers turn to direct mail while making a buying decision. It is because they don’t trust digital ads completely and might think of them as scandals.
Direct Mail Makes People Feel Valued
Today, everyone is bombarded with emails, display ads, etc. Direct mail is tangible, personal, and gives people a break from the digital world.
75% of millennials said that getting direct mail made them feel special in a survey. Hence, direct mail marketing can help you establish personal and emotional bonds with your audience.
Direct Mail Gets Opened
90% of direct mail items get opened, whereas only 20-30% of emails get opened. Clearly, direct mail performs far better than email marketing and can help you communicate your message smoothly.
Direct Mail Attracts Higher Response Ratios
Direct mail gets an average response rate of 9% on mailing to household lists and 4.9% for sending mail to prospect lists. Thus, it can help small businesses invest less and still bag excellent results.
Direct Mail Aids Your Multi-channel Advertising Campaigns
Dental clinics can optimize their results by combining marketing strategies and running integrated campaigns. They can run simultaneous direct mail, email, and social media marketing to get the best results. But, make sure to keep your messaging and offers consistent to increase impact.
Direct mail can help lead prospects to your website and social media handles where they can know more about your practice. You can also add a pURL or QR code to make your direct mail look good and drive online traffic.
Direct Mail Can Help People Fight Dentophobia
Many people are anxious about seeing a dentist and have dentophobia. But, dental direct mail campaigns can help people understand the importance of dental health. They help people overcome their fear and book an appointment with you.
If you are still wondering- does direct mail work for dentists, read some more direct mail statistics that are sure to change your mind.
An Example of How You Can Get a Positive ROI With Direct Mail
Suppose you send 5,000 dental marketing mailers every month and spend $0.50 per mailer. Your total campaign cost will be 5,000 x $0.50 = $2,500.
Now, imagine your conversion ratio is 2% (it can be more depending on your mailing list type). In this case, you will get 100 new patients monthly.
You get your cost per response if you divide your total investment cost by the number of new patients. Let’s see how much it would cost you to acquire a patient:
- Campaign size: 5,000
- Cost per mailer: $0.50
- Total cost: $2,500
- Conversion ratio: 2%
- New patients acquired: 100
- Cost per response: 2,500/100 = $25.
Moving further, let’s say you charge $100 per visit—you can make a $75 profit for each patient.
It is just an example of how you can get positive returns using direct mail for dental offices. You can increase your ROI by incorporating creative tips and tricks that appeal to your audience.
Best Dental Direct Mail Practices
You can achieve a lot through direct mail marketing if you plan everything, get creative, and do everything right. Here are some dental direct mail practices to help you:
Consistent Dental Direct Mailings Can Go a Long Way
Some dental offices use direct mail campaigns as a standalone, one-time marketing plan. However, bringing in some new patients by a single campaign cannot help them succeed in the long run.
Getting new patients is no longer enough—you must try and retain them as well. This way, you can ensure that you have a steady stream of incoming patients.
To achieve this objective, you must regularly mail your prospective and existing patients and launch ongoing campaigns. It helps you stay fresh in their minds and also strengthens relationships.
At the same time, avoid mailing the same people too many times. The key to a successful direct mail campaign is market segmentation—divide your target audience into smaller segments and mail to each group every week or month.
A consistent direct mailing schedule can help you connect with more people and expand your database.
But, until a few years ago, dental direct marketing was expensive and time-consuming. There was no way to track direct mail and draw accurate results. Hence, dental offices and other businesses would conduct only single campaigns once in a while.
However, things have changed now and for good! Direct mail is no longer traditional or restrictive. You can conduct low-budget, speedy, and effective mailing campaigns using the services of dental direct mail companies like PostGrid.
Make an Offer That People Can’t Refuse
Promoting your practice is not just about talking about yourself. It is also about making a reasonable offer to prospects and encouraging them to visit you.
Dental offices can include several types of compelling offers in their direct mail items, like:
- Free consultations
- Discounts on first-time visits
- Freephone follow-ups after visits, etc.
You can also give away things, like toothbrushes or self-help books to first-time patients to create an excellent first impression. Yes, it may add up to your costs, but it also increases your response and conversion rates.
Imagine you get a 1% response rate without offering anything special. You can increase this ratio by making your prospective patients feel special and offering something they would appreciate.
Also, it can improve patient retention rates and improve your reputation, apart from enhancing your ROI. Hence, dental direct mail enables you to get new patients and make the existing ones come back to you for several years.
However, it is advisable to test your direct mail offers, design, and messaging before conducting large-scale campaigns. Perhaps, you can mail a few pieces and analyze the results. This way, you can find out how your audience reacts to every variation of your direct mail items and which of them get the most responses.
PostGrid’s print and mail API can help you send out test mailings and get campaign insights to see what works the best for your practice.
Include an Upfront CTA to Guide People to the Right Direction
Every direct mail offer is incomplete without a proper call to action. Let people know what they should do next, like:
- Calling and booking an appointment
- Signing up for your email newsletter
- Following your social media pages
- Walking into your practice, etc.
For existing patients, you can use CTAs that encourage them to revisit you. Also, you can ask them to leave reviews on your website as a CTA.
Either way, try including a straightforward CTA along with your offer. In fact, you can mention both your proposal and CTA in the same line. Here are a few examples:
“Visit the link below to book a free consultation”
“Call us now and get a 20% flat cashback on your next visit”
“Walk into our practice with this mailpiece to get a free clean-up”
“Scan the QR code below to claim your free gift”
If you ask people to visit your website, make sure it is mobile-friendly as most people visit websites right from their mobile devices. Also, including a personalized URL with a custom landing page can help impress your audience.
Mail to a Relevant Audience
As said earlier, market segmentation is one of the best dental direct mail ideas. It is crucial to send direct mail to a relevant audience that is more likely to visit you.
For example, if your practice is in Nebraska city, you wouldn’t expect people from Omaha to visit you. Instead, you would focus on your neighboring areas and conduct saturated marketing campaigns.
Unlike other businesses, dental practices don’t need to target people according to interests or requirements. Everyone visits a dentist at least once or twice a year, even if they don’t have specific dental problems.
So, the critical factor to focus on is location—it is best only to target the people in your city, particularly those who reside in areas close to your practice.
However, you can also mail people according to their age. In other words, you can customize your messaging and imagery according to the age of the people you are mailing.
For example, while mailing to parents of small children, you can add images of kids having a dental checkup and use headlines, like
“Avail 40% lower rates for children aged between 5-14”
This way, you can conduct separate campaigns for people from different age groups.
Follow Up Frequently to Turn Cold Leads Into Patients
There are many respondents that never actually make an appointment with your practice. So, are these responses not worth anything at all?
Remember that every response counts, and you must follow up frequently to turn reactions into conversions.
Some respondents forget to call you up or didn’t get the time to do so. Hence, give them some time before giving upon them. Perhaps, you can conduct email drip campaigns to remind people about your direct mail and convince them to visit you.
Or, you can mail them again with a follow-up message. You can also snd mail to people who never responded at all as they might do so after a second or third mailing.
Welcome New Residents In Your Locality
Whenever a person moves to a new place, they might look for nearby restaurants, cinema halls, schools, dental clinics, etc. It may not be their priority after moving, but they are sure to need such services at some point.
So why not reach them before your competitors? You can send personalized welcome letters to new residents in the area and tell them a little something about your practice. Also, let them know that you will be happy to give them a welcome discount if they visit you.
Every week or month, you can compile a list of all new homeowners or tenants to mail. PostGrid’s direct mail services can help you compile such targeted mailing lists from scratch. As an industry leader, PostGrid also helps you with variable data printing (VDP) to send personalized mailpieces.
Keep in Touch With Old Patients
Do you have patients who are missing their appointments regularly? Maybe, they switched to a different practice, or they aren’t visiting any dentist at all.
Some dental offices forget about their old patients entirely while acquiring new ones. But, remember that repeat patients bring in more business than new ones and tend to stick around longer.
Try sending dental direct mail postcards to them pointing out how crucial it is to see a dentist every six months. Make sure to personalize your messaging, like including their last appointment date.
Send Mail to Digital Responders
Every business has prospects that don’t respond to their emails or any online correspondence. Thus, they need to take another approach towards connecting with such people.
If they aren’t responding online, a physical mail item might change their minds. After all, direct mail creates a nostalgic effect and makes people change their opinions about a business.
You can create a separate mailing list of all digital non-responders and send customized mail to them. Also, including a promo code or pURL might help get them on board.
Track all the responses and follow-up on time to guide respondents ahead of the sales funnel.
On average, it takes six to eight touchpoints before converting a lead. Hence, if some people still don’t respond, you can try calling them up or mailing them again after a week to grab their attention.
Appreciate Your Patients By Sending Thank-You Postcards
You need not wait for patients to start missing appointments before mailing them. Sometimes, it is good to appreciate patients even when they regularly visit you.
You can do so by sending small thank-you postcards to patients after their first visit and keeping up with it every once in a while. It shows patients that you truly appreciate them, which again helps you retain them for a longer time.
Below are some ideas to create the best dental postcards that your practice can send:
- Use handwritten messages.
- Include heartwarming sentences, like “We value our patients,” and “We want to thank you for visiting us, hoping to see you at your next appointment.”
- Make your postcards creative but don’t add too many graphics.
Send Appointment Reminders
Sending scheduled appointment reminders is another way to get in touch with your patients. It is an alternative to sending thank-you postcards. Or, you can send a dental postcard direct mail that says thank you and remind patients of their following appointments.
Fix a specified time before the appointment for mailing—two days before, a week, or 15 days earlier. You can decrease the chances of patients not showing up through direct mail.
In the meanwhile, you can also increase brand visibility. Whenever you send a direct mailpiece to patients, they share it with their family and friends. Thus, take care always to include your practice address, phone number, and website link on all your items.
Dental direct mail services like PostGrid can help you print and mail such items effortlessly and on time.
Educate Patients On Different Dentistry Topics
Educating patients and making them aware of different topics related to your field makes them remember you. You can add a blog section to post about such things on your website. Hence, they are likely to visit your website every time they want to look up something related to dentistry.
It increases brand recognition and patient loyalty. Also, it gives you an opportunity to showcase your expertise.
You should include some informative bullet points in your direct mail items and add links to your blog posts. People tend to save mail that is informative or educational for future reference.
Cover different subjects in every campaign so that patients look forward to getting your mail. An excellent way to do that is by sending newsletters via direct mail. This way, you can educate patients and promote your practice simultaneously.
Using Dental Direct Mail Automation
Don’t have time to launch a direct mail campaign? Looking to cut costs and increase efficiency? If yes, automation is the answer to all your dental direct mail questions!
Most dental clinics find planning and conducting successful direct mail campaigns hard. Indeed, it takes a lot of effort, but it is worth it. Moreover, automated dental direct mail solutions can help you do everything in less than half the time.
Also, there is no need to contact tons of creative designers and printing vendors before every campaign. You can automate the entire process of design, print, and mail with just a few clicks. How exciting is that?
PostGrid’s Dental Direct Mailing Services
PostGrid is a one-stop destination for all your offline mailing needs. As mentioned above, it can assist you in every step of launching your direct mail campaigns. Furthermore, you can also track your campaign performance through your easy-to-navigate dashboard.
Below are some of PostGrid’s best features that you can benefit from:
- Design: PostGrid offers several professionally-built templates for dental direct mail items. You can select one and get started with your design. Plus, you can customize the mail items according to your needs.
- Address Verification: Nobody wants to mail to incorrect and invalid addresses and have their items returned. Hence, it is a must to double-check mailing lists before every campaign. But, it is a very daunting and complicated process, which is why PostGrid provides free address verification with all its mailing plans.
- 2-Business Day SLA: You no longer need to wait days and weeks to design and print your items. PostGrid can get your mailpieces ready to mail in only two business days.
- API Integration: By integrating our direct mail API with your CRM, you can start printing and mailing right from your system. The setup is simple and takes only about a few minutes.
- Per-piece Tracking: Not all dental direct mailing companies allow you to track your items in real-time. But, PostGrid helps you get the tracking numbers of all your sent mail, enabling you to know the estimated delivery dates. Thus, you are well-updated about the progress of your campaign and can follow up with recipients accordingly.
- Bulk Mailing: PostGrid can help you print and mail any number of items. It doesn’t matter if you want to mail to your best ten patients or all the people living in the neighborhood; PostGrid has got you covered.
- Competitive Pricing: There are no minimum monthly fees, setup charges, or volume requirements while mailing with PostGrid. You can send direct mail to your patients flexibly and at the most competitive rates.
Wrapping Up
The ultimate goal of dental direct mail advertising is to get more patients walking through the door of your clinics. If done right, you can easily improve your campaign ROI and achieve your marketing motives.
Moreover, you can now also automate your direct mailing efforts to cut manual effort and conduct more successful campaigns. PostGrid’s direct mail API is everything you need to strategize and launch a campaign that spreads brand awareness and convinces patients to visit you.
Want to spend less and get more through your dental direct mail campaigns? Sign up right away and know how we can make your marketing dreams come true!
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