We are seeing a dilemma with the majority of dental offices we work with and what’s being said in dental groups and forums. The main issue regarding dental marketing is not the leads we provide but the lack of follow up with these leads.
No…not all leads are bad! That is not possible!
I’ve talked about this before but research shows only 3% of consumers are ready to buy right now. That’s it! So what that means to your dental business is when a lead comes in from marketing, whether it be facebook, google ads, direct mail or organic SEO, your team needs to be prepared for a systematic follow up to convert more leads into scheduled appointments.
Everything in life is timing. And the majority of the time it’s out of your control. We all want everything in life right now, but it’s not realistic. When you offer a service like dentistry, the timing is with the prospecting patient.
Remember…they have a lot going on in their lives. Family, work, personal and other commitments that come first over picking a dentist and scheduling that first appointment.
When it comes to priorities, unfortunately going to the dentist goes lower down the list. So what that requires is diligent follow-up. Having a system in place where one designated person on your team does the follow-up and stays with it consistently.
Research shows it takes 7-15 touches for someone to take action. Anything short of 7 and it was a waste of a lead, whether it came from marketing, google, or referral.
Within the first 7 days of a lead contacting your office, there should be 3-4 follow-up calls, a couple of text messages and a couple of emails. You might think this is too much, but it is not if you want to grow your dental business. The key is to have a team member in place who is responsible for this. Incentivize them to keep them motivated to stick with it.
When you look at follow-up you need to remind yourself they raised their hand by responding to one of our marketing messages (ads) or from a search request in google.
How many times have you show interest in something but didn’t pull the trigger even though you knew you wanted it? We all have, but it comes down to that timing we mentioned earlier. It’s on “their” time not yours.
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Tags: Dental Leads
