The #1 Media I recommend running your new marketing message in is the Yellow Pages used by your ideal target prospect. If you run your ad in a newspaper, be advised that there are good times, sections, and publications that effect response. Your Yellow Page ad design will determine which type of patient you attract with your advertising.
Then there are bad times too when you will get no response, like when the OJ trial verdict was announced. I had ads that hit at the same time and they bombed. Later they worked beautifully. I also had ads out on 9/11. The phone did not ring for a week. If I had newspaper advertising, all would have been lost.
But I had Yellow Pages advertising which BALANCES out the good and bad times and consistently delivers you patients.
Sometimes people get bad response because its the wrong media to run the ad or there is too small a pool of readership. Getting a .1% response (1 out of 1000) from a newspaper or magazine would be good. (1 out of 10,000 is more likely) But if that publication only goes to 900 people, there’s not enough readership to likely get a single call. Odds are you will be disappointed with newspaper and magazine ad response because prospects do not go to the newspaper or magazine to find a dentist.
These are just some things to consider when running this ad in multiple media. Always test small so you never lose a lot in any test. Then you can find what works in your Yellow Page ad design.
The #2 place I would use this Yellow Page ad design is in a local coupon mailer like money-mailer or Val-Pac. Target by “carrier code” the higher income areas, or do direct mail only to the homes with 3 car garages.
The #3 place I recommend advertising is with your “Pink Flier”. Studies have shown that almost 80% of dental buying decisions are made by women. So what you can do is remodel your existing “Kick Ass Ad For You” Yellow Page ad design into an 8.5” X 11” size, and print it on pink paper. Now you have your own custom “Pink Flier” you can mail to the high income, 3 car garage homes in your area.
The #4 place to use your Yellow Page ad design is to put it in a local publication as a Free Standing Insert. I recommend you insert by postal carrier code. This way you can select the best half of the target area to mail to and remove the lower half from the insert entirely. This gives you your ideal target patient at a reduced cost.
Look for Media that can be repeated, and scaled up so that you get the most return on your advertising investment. You’re looking for Evergreen places to advertise that bring productive ROIs. Don’t expect all Media to perform equally, they won’t. Test the above recommendations, then stay with the top 3 performers and you will be growing your practice faster than your competition AND your practice will be worth more to a buyer when you go to sell your practice.
I also HIGHLY RECOMMEND implementing the testimonial system I offer. It has a question about what local publications your current patients read. The answers to that question will tell you what publication you are most likely to have your new Yellow Page ad design work well to attract patients just like your current patients.
Implementing it will get you even greater testimonials. It will immediately identify chronic complainers that might be better off purged from your business. I got rid of the complainers in a business I owned 10 years ago, and 90% of the problems went away with those few clients. One consideration of building your list of patients should give consider to who is pleasant and profitable to service.
Another thing it does is lets you know about problems that are too small for people to voice, but big enough to make them not want to come back. I quit seeing an excellent dentist because his hygienist pinched my cheek between the tools and my teeth which increased the pain of the cleanings. After the second time when she didn’t even react to my practically jumping out of the chair, I could see this was “normal” for her. If this dentist had a testimonial feedback system in place he would not have lost me and many others due to this problem he knows nothing about.
And probably the MOST VALUABLE thing about the testimonial feedback form is the question that asks them what local publications they read. After you get 10-100 of these testimonial feedback forms back, it will be obvious to you which publication is read by your ideal target patient. This is valuable research none of your competition is doing. It is a competitive advantage for you. This enables you to advertise where you are most likely to get your ad read and get response. Be sure to include that question on your feedback form so that you get this valuable research data.
You can use the techniques above to increase the profits from your Yellow Page ad design, or call me for a quote on improving your advertising response and ROI at (949)278-4731.