Something to think about....
Dental Referral marketing
If your target market is certain types of local dental practices, say, and your goal is to acquire another 25 or 30 of them as your referrers this year, then there is no need to embark upon complex email campaigns or landing pages, or invest lots of time developing your social media presence, your Facebook page or running glossy ads in the dental magazines.
You’ve simply got to ask for a meeting!
Dental referral marketing can be very, very straightforward, and the goal of the referral marketing expert is concerned is simply to set up a meeting with potential future referrers.
Most of my practices are never looking for hundreds or thousands of dentists, just a select few.
In each one, they want a relatively small number of new dentists who are based within a fairly small geographic radius.
In these situations, asking for a meeting is the smartest thing.
Last month, whilst working with one of my referral practices, we simply rang up local practices and asked if we were referring for periodontal treatment. When she said we were, we said that she would be passing the following day, handing out some chocolate, and asked if we could pop in and drop them off.
We provided an inoffensive, well-delivered pitch to get a meeting and guess what? It worked.
The same approach may work for you.
You have to think about giving your potential referrers a strong enough reason for them to see you (in this case, chocolate worked really well – and we also provided another little innovative incentive) and, as well, be smart about the amount of time that you are asking for.
Something along the lines of “I’ve got this really “cool thing” that I think could make a real difference to you… can I have 10 minutes of your time next week to pop in and show it to you?” And then shut up.
This could be CPD/support for the PM etc.
Now, I’m not saying that every single practice receptionist you approach will say “Yes”, but if you deliver it well, a lot will. You’ve just short-circuited a whole load of fluff and puff and accelerated your referral business's growth.
I also know that, in some cases, it won’t be easy to engineer a conversation with the dentist ( sometimes almost impossible)or PM, but then, a few things in life are easy, and there are lots of ways you can make that conversation happen. This visit could be a simple “foot in the door” for another time… a few more visits will work wonders.
What you need
Newsletter
Branded cake/chocolates
Case study
Dates for the specialist dentists diary
& that special cool thing, that’s the hook!
It works! And you should try it!
To be clear, you have to deliver this well and think about what you can do for the dentist/PM you want to see rather than what they can do for you.
Put yourself in their shoes.
What would you say to an approach like the one you’re planning to make?
Be honest here. Don’t waste their time.
We all live in the real world.
So consider your marketing approach. Sometimes, the answer is way more straightforward than you originally thought…
If you are considering building your referral practice, simply get in touch. I’m available to help dentists within Kent, London and Southeast.