Tips to Make the Most of Internal Marketing

In her class called “Help Your Patients Promote Your Practice: Making the Most of Internal Marketing,” Misty Absher Clark discussed how to create a WOW experience for all your patients—and then motivate them to share those experiences with friends, colleagues and family members. The course demonstrated how to get even your most timid patients to shout your praises from the rooftops. Here are four tips from the class:

  • Motivate your patients to talk about you through consistent and powerful internal marketing strategies. Every day you are marketing your practice whether you know it or not. Every step of the new patient appointment—from the first phone call to delivering treatment—sends a message about who you are.
  • Understand that when you exceed people’s expectations, they will talk about you—especially after an initial visit. How do you get them to remember you between visits? How do you get them to understand the full scope of your services? How do you get them to say yes to the treatment that they need, deserve and want? The answer is through powerful, ongoing internal marketing.
  • Make your internal marketing work with this five-step approach:

    1. Understand your goal before you start your internal marketing. If you don’t know what you are trying to achieve, then how can you measure it?
    2. Make sure it is consistent. All marketing efforts should look, feel and sound the same. They should also reflect your practice branding and philosophy.
    3. Plan to have your message in front of patients multiple times in five to seven different ways. People need to hear, feel and experience your message five to seven times before they will act on it. Sending an email message just once about whitening is not sufficient to get a response. Repetition is the key to learning!
    4. Keep your marketing patient-focused. You lose the patient at "we." Therefore, focus on the patient by using action words and “you” in your marketing messages.
    5. Measure and track the performance of your efforts. If you don’t track it, how do you know it’s working?

  • Get patients to say yes to treatment and to refer friends and family. When you are strategic in your marketing, you’ll see the results!

Misty Absher Clark is vice president of creative services for Jameson Management. With her extensive expertise in branding, marketing strategy, digital photography and customer service, Misty brings energy and information to every aspect of her work. By employing the marketing strategies she has developed, dental practices across the United States have consistently increased new patient numbers, production per patient and patient loyalty. Contact Misty at (877) 369-5558 or misty@jamesonmanagement.com.



Author: Misty Absher Clark
Published: 09/30/2012
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