SNAIL MAIL TO TECHNICALLY-SAVVY PATIENTS??

You bet!!  Experts in the field of marketing agree that effective multichannel marketing should include direct mail.  Yes—use e-mail, social media, phone calls—but remember in today’s hurried, stress filled world, touchy-feely paper can be a welcome interlude.

According to the Direct Marketing Association, ad expenditures in the U.S. will reach almost $337 billion in 2012.  Commercial and non-profit organizations will spend about half that amount, $168.5 billion, on direct marketing efforts, including direct (paper) mail.  Studies of marketing results show that direct mail pieces bring a response rate of 3.4% when sent to current customers/patients and 1.28% when sent to prospective customers/patients.  By comparison, e-mail has a much lower response rate, about one response per 1000 e-mails.

Think about it.  Decide what your practice would like to “sell” to current and new patients—new location?; expanded services?;  lower costs?;  convenient financial plans?; a new associate?; oral health education?; on and on.  Then either you and staff or a professional marketing plan designer can create direct mail pieces for your patients and prospective patients.  Monitor the results to weigh costs against additional production to decide how to continue or modify these marketing efforts.