I recently received a cold-contact via my website. It prompted my thinking about prospecting, attaining new dental patients or clients, and what works and what doesn’t.
First, they get an “A” for effort. In fact, it confirms what should be common for anyone building a practice or business of any kind – some action is better than no action.
What about measured action?
By “measured action” I’m referring to the process of thinking strategically about your steps to patient/client attainment. Strategy matters.
But too much of a measured, strategic approach can equal no action. Over-thinking strangles progress and momentum.
Think. Strategize. Act!
It’s preferable to find a sweet-spot for your dental marketing strategy. What delivers consistent results?
That’s a tough question to answer. And it’s more difficult to answer if you’re not open to new (albiet relevant) approaches for making a dental patient/client connection.
There was a key thing missing from my earlier mentioned cold-contact’s effort. We had no current or ongoing conversation.
I do not know anything about them…their business…their track-record…their reputation…their circle of influence (this is huge to me). It begs another question: how would any of these issues have been solved?
Glad you asked.
Marketing (dental included) rises and falls on consistent, authentic “conversation.”
How to Create Effective Conversations and Build Your Influence Without Wasting Your Marketing Strategy (and Dollars) on Cold-Contact Methods
1-Stop trying to make a creative splash
Author and consultant, Jim Collins, is known for his challenge to give more attention to your “stop-doing list” than to your “to-do” list. I agree.
Item one on your “stop” list is this – quit trying so hard. The default action when marketing or re-branding your services is to think creativity, color, and colossal.
There’s more to having influence than new, bright, and bold initiatives.
- Adopt a problem-solution mindset. Dive into your patient’s and client’s “pain-points.” Grasp what keeps them awake-at-night, the big-3 problems they’re currently facing, what they don’t know or understand about the benefits of your services, etc. Now…put pen to paper about how you can solve those problems!
- Adapt your content to provide answers to questions and solutions to problems. If all you deliver is promotions, deals, and sales your audience will grow numb to you. Again, create useful, valuable content around the solutions you can provide for their problems. Be an advocate more than an advertiser.
- Attach a listening “device” to everything you do and every service you provide. Simple surveys, “How’d we do…?-questions, or focus-groups of select patients/clients are simple sources of data you can use to expand your valuable influence.
2-De-trendify engagement
Good words and ideas get lost when they become trendy. This applies to the term “engagement.”
I’ve avoided using the term because it has become sooo trendy. But there’s too much to lose if you toss it aside.
The gold essence of engagement is making a connection.
Does your dental marketing suffer from too much effort and not enough engagement?
- Talk to your audience instead of promoting to them. Measure the ratio of useful content (the kind that answers questions and solve problems) to promotional pushes. Give more than you ask for.
- Engage with your dental patients/clients around the solutions they seek rather than the latest deal-of-the-month promotion. Consumers are smart. They’re on to you and they can smell a promotion from a mile away. What if you gained influence over time via trusted, consistently delivered content on your blog/article web page, a newsletter, or emails with links to your content?
3-Be yourself
Your marketing language reveals much about your character as a business. If you rely on hype or salesy promotions you set yourself up as having to conquer a prospect.
Rather, be a normal, conversational, inviting presence.
- Use the everyday language of your patients/clients. Write conversationally. Speak to your audience as you would to a friend. Keep it one-to-one in tone.
- Avoid tech-speak, insider-terms, or worn-out marketing fluff (e.g. “state-of-the-art,” “cutting-edge,” and any word that ends in “-est” – best, greatest, latest…).
Sure, any patient/client development action is better than none. Give more measurable attention to building the relationship so that when you do show up it feels less…well…”cold.”
