We’ll do this with no anaesthesia:

• The dental office of Kenneth Woo, DDS and Associates got 1,600 website visits and 200 new calls after one marketing campaign.

• Isle Of Wight Family And Cosmetic Dentistry has had an average of 16 new patients per month in the last years.

• Patuxent Dental gains about 2,000 new patients each year.

The numbers speak for themselves. Dental marketing can help you capture and retain the attention of an audience that is relevant to your business.

When you build the right marketing channels, people will come to you!

The three examples above have been using the same marketing technique to attract new customers: direct mail. Yes! Even if most marketers focus their marketing efforts on digital marketing, there’s still so much to achieve using the traditional methods!

Why Use Direct Mail in Dental Marketing

Using offline marketing can seem a bit counterintuitive in the times of Facebook and Google Ads. However, you can’t ignore the benefits of having multiple marketing channels online and offline.

Direct mail is a cost-effective solution to build awareness and attract more potential customers to your funnel. If you know where your prospects live or when you target a specific geographical area, sending flyers can bring you excellent ROI.

Direct mail has a better response rate than email marketing. Better than that, it’s more likely to generate conversions than the fliers you leave in commercial centres. The reasons are obvious: people receive your message at home. They read your content in the comfort of their sofa in the living room or at the kitchen table.

Your prospects learn about you in a place where they hold the control. And where they have quick access to the internet, which means they can go to your website and connect with your brand within seconds.

Direct Mail Marketing Best Practices

Dental marketing has evolved over the past years to keep up with technology and the way it influences our buying behaviour. Simply sending postcards into people’s mailboxes won’t bring you close enough to your audience to get a significant number of new leads.

You need to open conversations with potential customers to gain trust and conversions- many marketers call this inbound marketing. To achieve this goal, you should follow a set of direct mail marketing best practices, as we can see from the three examples above:

• The content you print should add value to your audience – try to educate, rather than sell.

• Capture attention with an attractive headline – keep it relevant to your audience.

• Focus on benefits – tell people how you can help them to improve their oral health.

• Use active verbs for your call to action (CTA) – people don’t know what you expect them to do unless you give them clear instructions.

• Illustrate your offers with relevant images – show people real photos of your team and your studio.

• The postcards should use the same design elements as your website – colours, logo, fonts, and style should help your prospects recognise your brand quickly.

• Choose an audience that has a real interest in your services – you can segment prospects by income, status, type of medical insurance, educational background, or any other criteria you consider relevant to your industry.

Like any other marketing technique, direct mail marketing works as long as you integrate it into your overall growth strategy. When you put together a cohesive plan, you’re more likely to achieve a consistent return on your marketing efforts.

Wrapping It All Up

In sum, direct mail can enhance your dental marketing strategy and bring you excellent ROI. The postcards help you to build awareness and attract a broad audience to your funnel, both essential for improving your conversions. All you have to do is set clear goals and follow the direct mail marketing best practices.

Ready to open a conversation with your prospects using direct mail?

Download our Postcard Marketing Function Checklist and start putting together your first direct mail marketing campaign!