Your dental practice runs just like a small business. It depends on successful marketing campaigns to draw potential patients and keep current ones enthused about their oral health.
Dental postcards significantly impact marketing with designs that not only ‘pop’, but also provide enough information to interest patients.
A postcard design isn’t just about attracting the patient to your practice either. It should also provide useful, informative points related to their dental health. It should get them thinking, not only about you and your practice but also about their hygiene and oral habits.
Here we’ll discuss how to create an effective and catchy design that sells.
So, here we go!
There are a few different areas to be concerned with when choosing or creating a design for your dental postcards. All of them are equally important in creating a successful campaign that has positive and effective results.
Don’t run your marketing campaigns randomly but rather your focus should be to keep them running steadily. You should think about sending bi-monthly mailers so you may like to have more than one design prepared for these separate marketing events.
Before you can create a competent design you need to identify your target audience and what you want to say to them. This may include household income statistics, how many visits you intend to produce (ie, what type of household, family households, single households), and perhaps most importantly how many households you intend to target altogether.
A good marketing strategy can help you outline the design of your dental postcards before you get started. You should use this outline to create a budget that will allow for the designs you intend.
Once you’ve outlined a marketing strategy, you need to prepare a budget that includes room for the design and the marketing campaign itself. This will help you better prepare your dental postcards with designs that you’re confident in. In return, this will also allow you to create a proposed ROI so you’ll know what to expect in the end.
Think about how many mailers you will be sending. How much does this cost per card and what is your expected return, say from a specific mailing zone or household size? How much do you intend to spend on the design itself? Basically, you need to prepare your budget for the entirety of the campaign, not just the initial costs.
Now that you have your marketing strategy outlined and a prepared budget you can get started on your designs!
First and foremost, make sure your dental postcards display a clear, bold, concise and clever headline.
What does your dental practice stand for? Create a slogan that encompasses those values. What are you marketing for exactly? Send a message right off the bat about the service you offer and how it enhances a patient’s health.
A headline should catch the eye of the patient from the moment they pull the postcard out of their mailbox, otherwise, it’s likely to become quick junk mail.
Make a statement and make it loud with a headline that reads easily but still sends an impactful message. You want it to say something that intrigues the reader enough to make them want to keep reading and learn more.
It may seem like a small detail but the photos and colour patterns you choose for your dental postcards have a significant impact on the exposure you get to patients.
Choose bright colours and light photos that will not only catch the eye of the patient but also draw attention to the information provided on the card. You want to use a colour scheme that pops and also supports your brand image.
If you’re using a colourful script, it’s important to use base colours that don’t interfere with the legibility of the words. And don’t use too many colours or the patient could become confused and overwhelmed by the schematics.
Include photos that represent your business in fashion and integrity. This will be the first look your potential patients have at your dental practice. It will give them an opportunity to gain trust in your establishment.
Think about the people you’re targeting and their specific needs. Try to offer something that will entice them and help you create a relationship.
You can be educational with your message, incorporating an offer that signifies proper health care while still saving the patient money. Your message should provide information that will trigger a response from the patient.
Offers should be valuable to the patient like free consultations, two for one deals, and other discounted services. The offers should be attractively displayed and easily promoted.
Make sure that the terms of the offer are clearly stated to alleviate confusion on the behalf of your customer and your staff. This can also benefit your time frame for the promotion in terms of scheduling.
After you’ve informed the patient of your offers and other pertinent details, you need to create a call to action. This should be something that prompts the patient to contact you for additional information, or hopefully, to schedule an appointment.
The details that you include in your call to action are important for conversion depending on how you intend your patients to reach you.
Make sure your phone number is bold and large enough for the patient to read. It should stand out on the postcard, somewhat on its own in relation to the other information provided.
Include your area code to present yourself professionally and accurately.
You might consider placing the phone number on both sides of the postcard so the patient has easy access to your immediate contact information.
Unless you have a particular colour scheme for your script, the phone number should always be black and draw the readers attention, perhaps with an exclamation mark.
You don’t have to include your address if you’re short of space but if there’s room, it’s good to provide your patients with a sense of where you’re located.
This can also be a marketing strategy that draws attention to patients close to your dental practice.
An address should be clearly written, not using fancy fonts or scripts. It can be small as long as it’s large enough to read. Try having someone with bad eyesight review it before publishing.
Another line item that you can provide is your email address. This is a very forward gesture and you should be prepared for the outcome.
You’ll need to respond to potential patients that may inquire about services and products that you offer. You should also prepare your staff for this influx in potential communications.
Hopefully, you have a website where your patients can review your services, find your location, and get to know your practice before making a decision to contact you.
Include your website on the dental postcards to ensure that your patients have a way to access your business. You can provide distinct details and instructions on your mailer that interact with your website. This will help draw patients to the website and further, to your office.
Advertise your dental office as one that stands out among other competitors. Enlist short details stating why your dental practice is more valuable, more professional, more fun even! Tell your potential patients why they should choose you over a different dentist, perhaps one that is closer to their home that has also sent them a mailer.
What really sets you apart from other dental practices? What can you offer your patients that other dentists simply cannot? This is all important information to provide to your patients up front so that they can make an educated decision on their oral health care.
Make it clear that you’re educating the patient instead of just putting down another practice. Your message should reflect your sincerity and care for the patient.
A good marketing campaign involving dental postcards can significantly improve your return on investment when done correctly. Be proud of your design and it will exude confidence and create trust in the community.
Make sure to edit your designs carefully to avoid errors. Even minor errors can confuse or distract a patient from the original, intended message.
Create tracking numbers for each mailer with recording so that you may gauge the success of conversion rates.
Once you’ve completed edits, you can sit back and wait for the new patients to start calling.
When you’re ready to get a mailer package moving out to your potential patients, contact us! We’ve got you covered.