The Best Kept Secret?
There is a reason that we love to send you emails.
Since it is our mission, our goal, our passion and our raison d’etre to help make your dental practice wildly successful while increasing your enjoyment of the dental profession, we take great joy in passing along information to help with that cause.
But let’s face it – as nice as that is, there are more reasons we love to send you email on a regular basis. Marketing people refer to this as “top of mind awareness” – and it is incredibly important in today’s information packed and fast paced society.
So to be perfectly honest, as much as we love dispersing helpful information, we also hope that when you want to attend an amazing seminar in Las Vegas, experience an intense two day hands-on Social Media Marketing Summit, train your team with the proper telephone skillsto double your new patient numbers, get the best dental continuing education while sitting at home in your underwear, join the greatest dental idea-sharing and brainstorming group in the country, find a fantastic dental lab, or any one of a bunch of other things to help grow your practice – you will think of The Madow Group!
That is truly what “top of mind awareness” is all about.
The great business journal Inc. Magazine just called email marketing “Online Marketing’s Best Kept Secret.”
Well – they may think it’s a secret, but we have been talking about it for years!!
They stress that while email marketing may not put you in front of millions of people (think Yellow Pages, TV, radio, etc…) it WILL get you in front of a small amount of people who really care! For those of us in the dental profession, that would be our patient database AND all of the potential new patients in your area to whom you have reached out. Yes – people in your area will want to join your email list for a weekly or monthly dental health tip. It’s true!!
So instead of making you slog through the whole article, here are Inc. Magazine’s “Five Reasons You Should Make 2011 The Year Of Email Marketing.”
- It requires very little effort to get started – sign up for a mailing list software and put the signup form on your Web site and you’re off to the races! (We happen to love MailChimp. You are reading an email using their service right now!)
- You don’t have to write that often – even once per quarter is enough at the start and is better than the extremes of not at all or emailing every month with nothing interesting to say. (For a dental practice it should be at least monthly; even weekly is fine if you keep it interesting!)
- There are hordes of people out there who WANT to hear from you – who are you to deny them? Email was the original excellent way to keep up those one-to-many relationships, build your brand among people who want it, and turn your customers into evangelists. It still works!
- It is an excellent way to get you in the habit of something you should be doing anyway – sharing your story. You need to tell people what you’re doing. Thinking about content to share on a regular basis is healthy for your business.
- Average direct marketing response rates are usually less than 3% – that means 97% of the people you paid to reach will not be ready to buy from you. If buying is the only option you give them, those 97% of people will probably just disappear – even if many of them liked what you had to offer. Don’t give them a “buy it” or “beat it” ultimatum. Give them the option of saying “please stay on my radar” for when they *are* ready to buy. (That’s what it’s all about! Provide great content and the rest is natural!)
So there you have it! If you haven’t started yet, or if you have only made a half-assed effort, get on that project of capturing the email address of EVERY SINGLE PATIENT IN YOUR PRACTICE! And please don’t leave out those who are not patients yet but may be one day.
Then send them some great information on a regular basis. You’ll be amazed at what can happen!
As for us, we will be back in your inbox very soon. Have a great day!
