Don't Miss Out on New Patients: How Dental Newsletters Can Grow Your Practice And Build Your Brand
The Power Of Connection: Dental Newsletters Are a Game-Changer
When it comes to dental marketing strategies, email newsletters are woefully underused. In fact, only 9% of US dentists are reportedly using them, and in the UK, only 17% of dentists have a newsletter as part of their marketing and branding strategy.
Such a shame! What a missed opportunity! After all, they're also one of the most efficient and cost-effective forms of marketing you can implement.
Actually, very few dental practices utilize email marketing to grow their practice, which is unfortunate as opt-in emails coupled with a strong lead magnet and landing page sequence averages a 40x return on investment. That's the highest return in all of digital marketing!
While many other types of dental advertising are self-serving, newsletters are different because they provide quality information that your potential and existing patients want to read. For this reason, they already have the edge over traditional 'practice-centric' methods, which are often viewed with a degree of suspicion by those seeking dental treatment.
Aside from this, there are some other advantages to newsletters that dental practices can also tap into:
They Help Maintain Your Relationship To Your Patient
By sending out regular dental marketing newsletters to your opt-in list, you will be reaching out to 3 different target groups. These are...
- Those who already visit you like clockwork every 6 months.
- Those who have previously made inquiries (leads) about your services but haven't yet taken it any further.
- Those who have used your services in the past but, for whatever reason, no longer do.
By targeting them with a regular newsletter, you'll be reminding them that you are still here and open for business. This way, the next time they need dental treatment or need to recommend a dental practice to friends and family, they're more likely to pick you.
You Can Promote Upcoming Events & Promotions
We've already mentioned that dental office marketing in the form of newsletters shouldn't entirely be about practice advertising. However, they are a great way to promote upcoming events. This might mean an event in your local community, or an event or promotion that your dental practice is planning.
The truth is that many of your patients won't visit your dental website to see what promotions or events you have coming up because, well, they’re already your patient. Your website exists to brand you, consistently funnel new patients to your practice, and provide effortless billing (patients require this these days).
But your newsletter speaks to your current patients, those you want to keep! And according to Salesforce, 82% of people will open a newsletter from someone they know and/or trust, particularly a medical practice they recognize.
In other words, if you're advertising something like the following:
20% off the cost of laser teeth whitening when patients have a teethcleaning
There is no better way than with your newsletter to spread the word and get those appointments rolling in!
Newsletters Are Perfect For Sharing
Any dental marketing company worth their salt should suggest that you run a periodic newsletter campaign. Why? Because just like social media, newsletters are easily shareable.
In a study carried out by Wired Wealthy Report, 42% of respondents surveyed said that they'd forwarded a newsletter to friends, family, and acquaintances. So, if you want to get your information out there fast, you could do a lot worse than sending regular dental practice newsletters to your patient’s email inbox.
So now you know why you should use dental marketing newsletters, let's look at the components that make up a newsletter.
Components Of A Good Dental Newsletter
Firstly, all dental newsletters should incorporate the essentials. These include things like...
- Dental and oral health tips
- Information on new and existing treatments
- Events or marketing that your practice has been involved in
- Any special offers
- Latest patient testimonials
- Any recent news associated with oral health that your readers may find interesting – The alarming sugar levels found in certain take-away coffee drinks; or the 'does flossing baby teeth actually matter' debate springs to mind.
In addition to the essentials, you might also want to showcase your fun side. This may include:
- A jokes section (clean of course, think along the lines of Dad Jokes)
- A related cartoon or comic strip (properly licensed, as you don’t want any legal issues)
- Competitions and/or quizzes
- Maybe even a 'Kid's Corner'
The whole thing should be somewhere between 2–4 pages in length and should be accompanied by pictures. Remember a newsletter is supposed to be an easily digestible document and not something academic and heavy going like a white paper, so it should be light, and relatively compact.
Akzis VIP suggests to our dental clients that they provide an email newsletter to all patients with easy sign-up forms throughout their website, social media accounts (we handle this for you), and a specially designed subscription funnel with powerful lead magnet (something else we handle for our clients) to power up those email leads. We also suggest that on rare, special occasions, growing dental practices announce a limited edition printed newsletter mailed directly to residents who request it. This edition can be for the holidays or to announce a major event in your practice, such as opening a new location.
So, there you have it.
In short, dental marketing via newsletters works. If you need help organizing and planning your newsletters or are considering setting up a newsletter campaign, let's talk about how we can help.
