Title - Story to demonstate the value of reactivation Tags - callumstory retention
Meet Dennis and George.
Both are in their mid-50’s. Both need ongoing dental treatment. Both live in the same area of London. Both are good prospective patients for your practice.
The biggest difference between Dennis and George - as potential patients - is that Dennis has been to your practice before and George hasn’t.
With that being the case, Dennis has no idea who you are, what services you provide, how you can help him, how much it costs, where your practice is located, how easy or difficult it is to travel to your practice, how friendly your reception team are, how to book treatment, how painful (or painless) the treatments are, what payment options you offer, etc., etc., etc. Ultimately, he probably has no idea you even exist. If he does, he had no relationship or affinity with your practice, and has an almost never-ending list of unanswered questions in his mind about dealing with your practice.
George, on the other hand, has been to your practice a few times over the last 5 years. He knows how to find your practice and how to get there on the underground. He doesn’t find your receptionists especially friendly but they’re nice enough and are happy to assist. He had a rough idea of how much treatment costs. He knows that you offer payment plans. He remembers that he can call and arrange an appointment by phone which he prefers to online booking. He hates going to the dentist but he remembers his past treatments being relatively painless. Ultimately, George does have a relationship with your practice simply by dealing with you in the past. To have more treatment with you is pretty-risk free. Most of his questions have already been answered. He doesn’t have to do much research. It would be easier to use your practice again - even if the experience wasn’t fantastic, because he hates going to ANY dentist - than risk going anywhere else.
George has had treatment with your practice before; Dennis hasn’t.
So from a marketing perspective…
It’s difficult to convince Dennis to have treatment at your practice; it’s easy to persuade George. It’s expensive to recruit Dennis; it’s cheap to bring back George. It takes time - and multiple “touch points” - to attract Dennis as a patient; it’s very quick to attract George.
Let’s put some numbers on it.
From a purely financial perspective, you might need to invest £50 in marketing to attract one Dennis, but only £10 to get a George. So if you want to add 100 patients per month your practice, it will cost you £5000 per month to get 100 Dennis’s, but only £1000 to get 100 George’s.
Then there’s time.
To attract a Dennis requires multiple interactions - via media, salespeople or both - to build trust, answer objections, and book them in for treatment. Running multiple ads, in multiple media, on an ongoing basis might take 20 hours per month. To attract a George requires far fewer interactions, possibly only a few letters, emails and phone calls. Often, one George might only take
Then there’s risk.
The biggest problem with Dennis is that he’s hard to find. Which media type, and which specific media, will you find lots of Dennis’s in? Let’s say that, with some experimentation, you find a newspaper - and develop a very effective ad - so that each run of the ad brings you 50 Dennis’s. Here’s the risk: you have to invest £100’s or £1000’s in advertising BEFORE you know if and how many Dennis’s you will attract. There are ways to minimise the risk (e.g. by sourcing the best media, negotiating a good price, and writing effective ads that produce response). But compare this to attracting George. George is very easy to find: he’s in your own database. You own this database, so there are no media costs. All you risk is the hard cost of email hosting, letter printing/postage, SMS fees, or the equivalent in whatever approach you use. Plus, you can test your messaging on a small scale first. Rather than risking thousands on an ad, with no idea whether you’ll get any return - let alone a positive return - on your investment, you could find 50 Dennis’s in your patient database, and write, email, text and/or call them. This would cost you somewhere in the region of £75. You can then measure and evaluate what happens. If it works, expand it to other patients, and improve it. If not, figure out what went wrong, put it right, and try again. You take it step by step with very little risk which is negligible compared to attracting a Dennis.