Paying Attention

In a recent blog post that I receive daily from the ever thought provoking Seth Godin, he posed a hypothetical dilemna. What would happen to your business if it were suddenly impossible to attract or advertise for new customers? How would that change what you now do all day? Godin followed that with another supporting piece on the difference between strangers and true fans.

I think we as dentists should take his comments as an important “wake up call” as to the way we market our practices. The current trend is to spend lots of money on web-site development in order to create an excellent Internet based message, search engine optimization programs and pay per click programs so that prospective patients can find our site, print ads, radio ads, direct mail – all of these mediums are designed to help us attract more new patients. These days five percent of annual collections is a low to acceptable line item in your budget for marketing.

But what if we decided to spend a significant portion of that money rewarding existing patients? We all agree that a personal recommendation is a much stronger referral that someone kicking tires on line. In a recent Nielsen article, it was stated that 90% of consumers surveyed said they would trust and act on the recommendation from someone they knew. So if we were to spend our money in a bunch of interesting ways that would make our existing patients feel special and appreciated, it seems logical that our referral rates could sky rocket.

Here is your topic for the next staff meeting – “If we had the money, what could we do for our patients of record that is so outrageous, over-the-top, and noticeable, that it would force them to talk about us?” I would love to hear your ideas. I plan to accumulate responses and pass on the best ideas in another post.