Our dental practices have two very important doors. One of them is meant to remain open (our front door) while the other should always be closed (our back door). Our back doors were never intended to remain open and yet many dental practices ignore this one very important consideration. In as much as our kids might leave doors wide open upon the exit of our homes so, too, our patients will sometimes exit our practices without our having made any effort to preserve their patronage. Marketing success demands that we monitor the back doors of our practices and make every effort to maintain and preserve that exiting flow.
The front door represents the receiving arm of our practice. We want this door to remain open (wide open, in fact, without any barriers or obstacles to impede the flow of any new business). This is the door that attracts new patients to our place of practice and invites them to experience the best we have to offer. This is the door that promotes patient acquisition and is the entry whereby all external marketing is focused. Keeping this door open is wholly dependent upon the success of our external marketing strategies which are specifically designed to attract new patients in a steady stream of uninhibited flow.
The back door of our practice, however, is often ignored (or at least under emphasized). All the rage these days seems to focus on patient acquisition without any mind toward patient retention. In fact, a lot of marketing systems measure their success on patient acquisition while totally ignoring the fact that patients are leaving the practice in greater numbers than those who may be coming in. If you’re acquiring 100 new patients every month but then discover that a greater number are not returning for routine care then you have a major marketing challenge. Closing the back door is often more difficult than keeping the front door open.
Internal marketing aims at keeping our back doors closed. It focuses on the “back door” characteristics of our practices and looks to shore up the “value” and “convenience” elements of our practices. Keeping the back door closed happens in direct proportion to the attention we give our “value” and “convenience” factors because patient retention highly esteems “value” and “convenience.”
Here are the data points that exclusively reflect upon the quality of our “back door” performance (how well we are staging the “value” and “convenience” elements of our practices). Maintain and monitor these things and our “active” patient numbers will grow. More importantly, we will have positioned ourselves for a higher level of marketing success because the internal machine is highly oiled and working. Let’s not launch ourselves into any sort of external marketing effort unless/until these “value” and “convenience” considerations are upheld:
Referral Data: At least 50% (better yet, 60%) of all new patients arriving in our practices should be the direct result of a patient or friend referral. Less than 50% might suggest a value and/or convenience related issue that prevents you from growing your “active” patient base.
Active Patients Data: Has there been an upward trend in the actual number of patients seen in our offices over the past 24 months? These are the “active” patients in our practices and this number should be trending upward (never downward). A downward trend signifies that patients are leaving your practice at a greater rate than you are attracting them.
Engaged Patients Data: Of the “active” number how many are actually scheduled for their next appointment (80% or higher should be the goal). There should always be an upward trend line in the physical number of patients currently occupying our schedules (never downward). All schedule occupants are effectively vouching for our “value” and “convenience” delivery (patients will not schedule an appointment if we have not effectively stroked their search for “value” and/or “convenience”). Patients that do occupy our schedules are effectively endorsing our “value” and “convenience” efforts as worthy of their “vote” (obviously, the more votes we acquire the better off we are). How many occupants do we have on the schedules (today and forward) and is this number always trending upward?
These are the primary measures for how well our “value” and “convenience” presentations are coming across. Until we’ve mastered the “value” and “convenience” elements of our practice we have no business promoting the front door and worrying about whether or not we have enough new patients to keep our ships afloat. We have to plug the back door “leaks” long before we fully adorn our front door entrance. Plug the back door “leaks” and you'll spend significantly less on front door (external marketing) concerns.
Successful marketing is, yes, a front door consideration but not until after we’ve staged a “value” and “convenience” presentation that preserves a major portion of our current patient base.
Wishing You the Best in 2019
Steve
Steve
