Practice Management Alert

Use An Old Reliable Method To Generate New Business For Your Practice

Direct mail marketing is alive and available to help your practice grow. The keys to harnessing that direct mail magic in your practice? Incorporate it into your larger branding strategy and do your market research to create the most effective campaign. Read on for advice on how use mailings to your advantage.

Music to the Brain’s Neural Pathways

Contrary to what we typically believe about direct mail, it’s actually easier for the brain to process and recall than digital content. “Direct mail requires 21 percent less cognitive effort to process than digital media,” and “when asked to cite the brand of an advertisement they had just seen, recall was 70 percent higher among participants who were exposed to a direct mail piece than a digital ad,” according to a 2015 study sponsored by Canada Post.

Energize gray matter: Physical mail impacted recipients’ brains in the following areas: review time, engagement, stimulation, memory retrieval accuracy, memory speed and confidence, desirability, and valuation, a study by Temple University reveals. Digital content, by contrast, only made an impact in three of those eight areas. The study also found that paper advertising activated the ventral striatum area of the brain more than digital media, which indicates desire and valuation.

Tactile benefit: Aside from complementing how our brains work, direct mail is regaining lost ground because the recipient actually has to touch and look at it before deciding what to do with it, medical marketing consultant John McDaniel, OD, MLHR, told attendees of SECO 2016. Recipients are more likely to immediately delete electronic solicitation, given that their inboxes are probably already inundated, he says.

Structure and Strategy are Key

To make your direct mail marketing most effective, start by clearly identifying what differentiates you in your market (what the business world calls your “unique value proposition”).

Then, do a little market research. What are the demographics of the prospective patients in your area? Who are your competitors? How do they market to patients?

Use the Zip: Physicians and practice managers would benefit from doing a zip code analysis, according to Mark Johnson, a practice administrator who presents regularly at industry conferences. On an even more granular level, isolate specific neighborhoods and blocks, recommends McDaniel. You can get started for free on sites like Sperling’s Best Places (www.bestplaces.com) and Zip Skinny (www.zipskinny.com), or outsource this task to an outside firm.

Once you’re clear on what makes your practice different from the rest and you’ve identified the population of patients you want to target, you’re ready to create your direct mail campaign.

As part of your larger branding strategy, your direct mail campaign should:

• introduce a new practice to a community;
• remind the community that you’ve been doing business there for decades and are happy to continue serving; or
• present them with a time-sensitive offer.

Reach Out to Your New Neighbors With Mail

Another good use of direct mail is marketing your practice to residents who have just moved into the community. McDaniel recommends this 4-step direct mail sequence to reel in these new arrivals:

Step 1: A one-page flyer in a hand-addressed envelope that emphasizes the branding of the office, provides contact information, and invites the recipient to come into the practice. Mail this one month after the sale of a house is reported.

Step 2: A color postcard with an abbreviated version of the message from the flyer and a map showing the location of your practice.

Step 3: A newsletter that includes news about your practice, information and deals on products and services, upcoming workshops, customer testimonials, etc. This helps recipients feel that they’re part of your practice’s extended family.

Step 4: A postcard or flyer with links to social media sites and online reviews.

Direct Mail Measuring Stick

Use the following four questions to determine how well your direct mail campaign is working for you. These indicators can help you to decide whether your campaign was worth the time and money.

1. Are more people searching for your practice online?
2. Has the number of calls you receive per day/week increased?
3. Is there an increase (even a slight one) in your patient load?
4. Have more appointments been scheduled? And did the patients show up?

Add a Promo Code To Measure Your Effectiveness

Digital marketing may cost less and reach more people, but direct mail is more likely to elicit a serious response (i.e. additional patients with high case size). And while direct mail doesn’t provide the immediate feedback that electronic solicitation does — like an open or click-thru rate — there are still ways to measure its effectiveness.

Vital: All direct mail pieces should include a promo code, so you can track which ones worked well and which ones didn’t.

Unlike emails and social media posts, direct mail pieces can lie around a patient’s home for extended periods of time. Some patients file them away or stick them in a “call later” pile — only to be retrieved weeks, months, or even years later.

A promo code is another way to measure your conversion rate — tracking the people who engage with your mail and adhere to its call to action — so don’t forget to include it.