194 How to Get Dental Patients TO KEEP COMING BACK For Lifetime

The Delivering WOW Dental Podcast

Hi guys and welcome to another episode of the Delivering WOW Dental Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Anissa Holmes. And I am so excited to be here today. Today, we're actually going to be talking about something that is very dear to my heart, and that is how to get dental patients to keep coming back for life. As many of you guys know, I absolutely love the whole concept of marketing. Why? Because there's so many people out there that need to find us. We have a gift to be able to help them to be able to serve them, to be able to make them healthier, to be able to change their lives. But at the same time, we want to make sure that once those patients come in, that we keep them coming back for life. We keep them referring to others.

And so I'm really excited today to actually share some pearls, some tips that I have actually implemented, I've used along the years of my practice, I've been practicing for 22 years. And so it's been really exciting to have patients who've been with us for years and not just patients, but team members that have been with us for a really, really long time. So really excited to be able to share these pearls with you today. So as it looks at, how can we start to get patients coming back for life? What we have to really start thinking about, and I talk a lot about this within our programs. I talk about this a lot here on this podcast and our Facebook group as well is as you're starting your practice journey, as you're opening up your practice, or as you're starting to think about getting your practice out there and becoming known, one thing that's really important that I always ask is what do you want your practice to be known for?

What do you want people to say about you when you're not around? And for me, absolutely, it's all about delivering an amazing wow experience. In fact, at the end of our patient visits, we actually send out an email. And what I'm looking for in that survey is for them to say one word. I'm actually waiting for them to say the word wow. I want them to say, "Wow, I can not believe that my kid was able to go to the toy box first." Or, "Wow. I can't believe that the team was so kind and so nurturing and they listened to me." Or, "Wow. I actually got a hand and arm massage before my treatment." Or, "Wow. I cannot believe that every month, they're doing amazing things to be able to serve this community." Because when you start creating what you want to be known for, what's really exciting is that now your patients will start to tell other people what you are actually putting out there.

So it's really interesting. And as we look at, for example, the demo space. I remember when I first started this podcast, about four or five years ago, I was fangirling on all of these amazing dental coaches, dental speakers, dental gurus that were out there. They were speaking on stage and I just wanted to be able to pick their brains and to be able to learn from them. And so I remember interviewing so many amazing people and when I decided to create my first live event, my Delivering Wow summit that was held in Jamaica, I remember reaching out to a lot of the people that I had interviewed on the podcast.

And one of those people was actually Sandy Pardue. Many of you guys know Sandy. She is the guru of scheduling. And I reached out to Sandy, and I said, "Sandy, I would love if you would be willing to speak at our conference." And Sandy said, "Absolutely, I'm there." And she's like, "I'd love to go to Jamaica." So Sandy's there. And all of a sudden, I start sending out information to all of the speakers. And Laura Hatch was a speaker, many of you guys knew Laura. Elijah was a speaker. Bruce Baird was a speaker that year. We had a lot of amazing speakers. And as I sent out the information to them, one of the things that I started to say that I sent out to them was that this was going to be the dental event of 2018. And I kept saying it. Well, next thing you know, Sandy Pardue was saying it.

Now, this was my first event. And I was very adventurous, trying to get 400 dental professionals to make a decision, to get on an airplane, to fly, stay in an all-inclusive resort, carry their teams. And a lot of people didn't know me at that time, but guess what?They knew Sandy, and Sandy said it was going to be the event of 2018. And so what I want you to understand is that as you're looking at building your practice and having your patients to say things about you, you actually have this really interesting and unique ability to actually manufacture what you want people to say. And so I actually wanted to have the speakers to say that, and that's exactly what happened. And so the same thing happens in my practice. So as I talk about, we want to be known for delivering amazing while experiences as I'm coming on, for example, and I'm doing a Facebook live, maybe I'm coming on and I'm doing a Facebook live talking about that we are doing a new service that we're really excited about called Pero Protect.

And it's going to help patients who have bleeding gums and gums that are starting to look long, or I'm doing a Facebook live where I'm talking about the fact that we're going to do a free small makeover and change someone's life in our community. Well, one of the first things that I'll say on that Facebook live is before we get started, let me just tell you a little bit about what we're known for. Number one, we're known for seeing our patients on time. We're known for delivering amazing WOW experiences. For example, when you come in, there's going to be an iPad and headphones to take away the sound, we serve freshly baked [inaudible 00:06:26], kids get to go to the toy box first. And we're also known for the amazing technology that we have in our practice and how we serve our community. And we're also known for beautiful, natural looking dentistry.

Because I'm out there and I'm sharing what we're known for on the Facebook live. Now, what happens is that people who are seeing us on Facebook, they start to hear it over and over and over again. And now they start to share it. And now they start to internalize it. When we have a new patient that comes in and they're calling us on the phone, we're saying, "Thank you so much for calling. What is it that you're wanting to learn more about? Why are you scheduling your appointment?" But then we'll say, "Before you come in, let me just tell you a little bit about what we're known for." We do the same thing when the patient arrives. I walk in as a doctor and I say, "I'm so happy to have you here. Let me tell you a little bit about what we're known for." So we constantly do that.

So the first thing is, if you want to have dental patients to keep coming back for life, I want you to really think about that. And it could be that you want to be known for great experiences. It could be that you are making a decision that you want your practice to really focus on a specific service. Maybe you want to do high end, high level, complex cases. You want to be known for doing comprehensive dentistry. People who have had teeth that are worn down, broken down, missing teeth. You want to be known in your community for being that dentist that has the knowledge and the competency and the skill set to be able to help those people. Well, as you're doing your Facebook lives, or as you're communicating with your patients, you want to let them know, even when they're calling on the phone, maybe they're price shopping, what makes your practice different. Okay? And that's the number one thing. So there's actually three points. That's the first point is that you really want to think about what do you want to be known for?

The second thing that you want to do, if you want to have your patients to come back for life, is you want to make sure that you are involving your patients in all of the marketing that you're doing that's involving the community. So you might say, "Well, Anissa, what do you mean by that?" So, one thing that I really love within my practice and I love seeing colleagues do, it's so exciting, is seeing them serve the community. When we decided to go into dentistry, I can tell you, when I went into dentistry, I wanted to be a doctor to help people. I wanted to be able to change lives. And so when we are doing things where it shows that our community really cares about people, our patients are going to connect with that. They're going to tell other people. And in fact, the type of marketing that I love and what I love helping colleagues with is getting to the point where you don't have to focus on Google ads that are $2,000 to pay Google at an agency. You don't have to worry about $5,000 mailers.

Once you implement doing marketing where your community and your patients know what you're known for, and they're telling others, you can not turn that off. And so it's very, very different where perhaps you have a Google ad and you decide next month, "Oh gosh, I don't want to run it anymore." All of a sudden those potential new patients dry up, with this type of marketing, where you're involving your patients in the marketing that you're doing now, again, you continue to create that referral source and you continue to put out in front of them that your practice is different, and they want to tell people and they want to keep coming back.

And so a few examples of that we have done is actually this month, we are looking at a clothing drive. So a clothing drive could be, Christmas is over. And now a lot of people have gotten new clothes. Let's do something over the next month or over the next two months if you want to have it linger for two months and go for that time. And what we'd love for you to do as a family activity is we'd love for you to clear out your clothes that you have in your drawers, drop into our office and what we're going to do is we're actually going to take those clothes and we're going to donate them to missionaries of the poor. And what we're also going to do is we're just going to have some fun with this. And randomly, we're going to select one person to win a gift card to our practice, maybe a $200 gift card.

Well, now when you're running that type of campaign, what you can do is you can go on, you can do your Facebook live. And remember when you're doing your live, introduce yourself. Also, make sure that you let people know what you're known for. But now what you can do is in addition to doing your Facebook live, for example, on Facebook, then now what you can do is you can email your patients and you can send them the link to watch that Facebook live, which will increase the views and visibility. And part of that is asking people when you're on the Facebook live to actually share this video with everyone that they know who are their Facebook friends, so that others can participate as well.

And that's going to allow, in terms of Facebook strategy, to be able to organically get way more people, to be able to see your Facebook page to your practice and within your page, if you have even before and after photos of the dentistry that you're doing, you're not going to be necessarily boosting these, but they'll see the dentistry that you're doing. If you're wanting to be known for sleep apnea and you've got information on your page about sleep apnea, or you got patients that are creating testimonials of their experience and how their life was changed, or maybe you have a wife talking about her husband and how her life was changed, because he's no longer snoring. That would be great, right? So you're sending people, you're driving traffic to your Facebook page.

And what's really cool about that, is that now, again, your patients are seeing that you're doing something great for the community. You're sending out maybe a little text in letting them know how they can participate. Other things that I also recommend and what we implement with our clients that we have within our marketing program for delivering well is we're actually giving you the flyers. And so we want you to have a flyer. We actually give you a Canva template, so you can go and edit, put your practice logo. But you'll take that flyer and you'll post it around your office. And so we actually have these flyers that we post at the front desk, we'll post them right outside of the operatory. So we make sure that the patients see what we're doing. And as the patients are coming to check out, we also say, "This month, we're doing a clothing drive to support missionaries of the poor. We'd love for you to participate and maybe go home and clear out your drawers and drop them back off to the office."

Now, are your patients all going to participate? Absolutely not. In fact, you may only have 5%, 10% to actually participate, but what will happen is that it leaves a lasting mark in their mind that you're always doing something to serve. And that's why I'm a huge fan, and within our delivering while marketing program, within our clients, what we're doing is we're actually leading and helping practices or team members to implement these campaigns. And so every month we're doing something different. Typically, in February, we're doing a children's free day of dentistry. We also recommend that you send out press releases to your local media so that they know that you're doing this. You can get a lot of free exposure.

I've actually been invited to speak on the local news, talking about our free day of dentistry. It's really incredible, but there are lots of amazing things that you can do every single month to be able to get out and share that you're doing something with the community. And again, you want to involve your patients. Another thing that you can do as well, that we do. And we also help practices within our program is looking at creating a monthly email that goes out to your patients. And that can be photos from last month's community and campaign announcing what you're going to do in the next month or the current month, and also sharing an educational article. And that could be about any procedure, invisalign, All-on-4, sleep apnea. And that way you're serving as giving education and also showing that you're different.

So that's the second way that we can keep our patients coming back for life is to keep enrolling them on why your practice is different, why it's unique, why you care, why you serve. The third way that you can keep your patients coming back for life is obviously you want to do great dentistry. You want to be able to connect with your patients. But even deeper than that, because we've all heard that before. One thing that I want you to think about is when you're creating your patient experiences, when you're creating your practice culture, when you're hiring your team, when you're doing your social media posts, everything that you're doing, all of the different facets, I want you to think in a different way.

I want you to think if I were to ask any patient that walked to the front desk, how was their experience today? And maybe because you're creating content for your Facebook page, is to create such a great experience that you know, that they would give what I call a sliced bread testimonial. And what do I mean by that? I had a patient one time that came into the office and we asked her if she would share her experience. And she said, "This practice was so good it's the next best thing to sliced bread." And so we actually started to call our testimonials sliced bread testimonials, and so on our whiteboards where we're tracking all of our different services and we're holding ourselves accountable to conversations and continuing to learn, we actually have a goal of getting at least five sliced bread testimonials every single month.

Which is really cool because we typically will get way more. And we actually don't share all of them on our Facebook page, but going into the mindset that every patient will be willing to give you a sliced bread testimonial makes you really think about what sort of team am I going to have, to have, to get that. What sort of are we going to have, to have. Again, simple things. We have our kids that go to the toy box first, right? That doesn't cost us anything extra, but it's something that people remember. And now when you have a mom coming in, you can say, "How was your experience? How was your child's experience?" And they'll say, "Oh my gosh, John got to go to the toy box first. And this experience was amazing." Or, "Every time I tell them we're going to the dentist, he always gets excited because he knows that he's going to get that toy. He knows there's going to be his hot chocolate there for him. And he knows that it's going to be a really great experience."

So hopefully those three pearls that I've shared with you will help you to understand the process of getting our patients to keep coming back for life. It's one thing to be able to do marketing campaigns, to be able to get in front of our patients. But the key is how do we keep them and we keep them coming back. We keep them as raving fans and we keep them referring? All right, guys. So that is pretty much it. Thank you for joining us for this week's episode of our Delivering WOW Dental Podcast. If this served you, I'd love for you to continue to listen, make sure that you're subscribed to our podcast. Also, if you haven't done so already make sure that you join us inside of our delivering while Facebook group, dentalbossmovement.com.

If you are a member of Clubhouse, join us in the dentist club. We'd love to have you where we can connect, communicate and collaborate. Go into Clubhouse, start a room, start sharing your knowledge with others. And also we do have our upcoming marketing and practice growth challenge, where we will actually help you to set up your whiteboards, to set your goals. We're going to run a social media campaign together. We're going to help you create your marketing plan for the entire year. And we'd love to get you in and to join that challenge, you can go to deliveringwowchallenge.com. And if you type in the code, podcast, you can actually get free access. All right, guys, that's it. Thank you so much for listening. I look forward to seeing you in the next episode, take care and enjoy the rest of your day.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Delivering WOW Podcast with Dr. Anissa Holmes. We'll catch you next time.