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6 Ways to Acquire and Retain More Patients with Marketing Automation

Posted March 11, 2024 by Jennifer G

As the dental industry continues to evolve, it’s crucial to stay ahead of the curve with modern techniques and technologies that enhance practice efficiency and patient experience.

Marketing Automation is a game-changing tool that every dental practice can leverage to maximize its growth potential.

Table of Contents

  1. What is Marketing Automation?
  2. What are the benefits of Marketing Automation?
  3. 6 Dental Marketing Automation Examples
  4. Automated Email Campaigns for Patient Communication
    1. Engage with Potential Patients Automatically
    2. Expand your online presence through automation
    3. Automated Patient Surveys and Feedback
    4. Personalized Patient Communication Strategy
    5. AI Assistants
  5. Find Out What to Automate
  6. Conclusion

What is Marketing Automation?

Think of marketing automation as a digital assistant—a powerful one. It takes care of the routine and time-consuming marketing tasks, but that’s not all. It’s a smart system that delivers personalized, relevant content to your patients and potential patients automatically, their engagement and connection with your practice.

Why Use Marketing Automation?

The advantages of incorporating Marketing Automation into your dental practice are plentiful:

Boost Patient Engagement: Foster stronger relationships with both existing and potential patients through consistent, timely, and relevant interactions.

Improve Customer Service and Personalize Patient Experience: Automating routine interactions enables more efficient service delivery and personalized patient experience.

Attract New Patients: Deploy targeted outreach efforts to engage potential patients effectively and encourage their conversion.

Save Time and Lower Costs: By automating routine tasks, you reduce operational expenses and free up your team to focus on what matters most – the care of your patients.

Increase Revenue: With targeted, smart, and efficient marketing, you can boost your dental practice’s profitability.

Gain a Competitive Edge: Stay a step ahead in the dental market by adopting progressive, automated marketing strategies.

6 Dental Marketing Automation Examples

  1. Automated Email Campaigns for Patient Communication

Email remains a powerful channel for patient communication. By employing automation, you can personalize each interaction, sending timely appointment reminders, tailored follow-up care instructions, enlightening newsletters, and educational content that specifically caters to individual patient needs. This method greatly enhances patient satisfaction and loyalty, keeping them connected to your practice.

  1. Engage With Prospective Patients Automatically

Turning potential patients into regular ones can be an exhaustive process. By implementing automated lead nurturing strategies, you can streamline this conversion process. Providing potential patients with relevant information and nudging them towards scheduling their first appointment can be the difference-maker in expanding your patient base.

  1. Expand Your Online Presence Through Automation

In this digital age, a positive online reputation can make a huge difference. Automation and AI solutions can help monitor and respond to online reviews and feedback across various platforms, ensuring you maintain an outstanding online presence and trust within your community.

  1. Automated Patient Surveys and Feedback

Continuous improvement and patient satisfaction go hand-in-hand. How do you achieve that? By listening to your patients. Automating patient surveys after their appointments, coupled with responsive action, can greatly enhance your service quality and patient experience.

A bonus: positive responses can trigger requests for online reviews, further bolstering your practice’s digital reputation.

  1. Personalized Patient Communication Strategy

Consider this: each patient comes to your practice with distinct needs and expectations. Just as the treatment approach varies for different dental conditions, communication with patients must be customized to resonate with their unique requirements and concerns.

For instance, consider two potential groups within your patient base: one group seeking routine dental cleanings, and another requiring oral surgery. These two groups have distinct expectations and require tailored messaging for effective engagement.

Through XLDent’s suite of automation services, customizing these communication strategies becomes not just possible, but seamless and efficient. Adopting automation in patient communication within your dental practice enhances operational efficiency, improves engagement, and ensures data accuracy.

Whereas manual methods can lead to errors or breakdowns in efficiency, automation offers instantaneous and error-free distribution of vital information. It permits personalized and timely responses, fostering improved patient satisfaction. This refined approach not only saves money, but time, which allows dental practices to focus more on patient care.

  1. AI Assistants

AI-driven chatbots can instantly — and accurately — respond to patient inquiries. This use of advanced technology not only caters to the modern patient’s preference for quick responses but also reduces the workload on your staff, allowing them to focus on other critical areas.

Innovation and modernity, coupled with a dedication to offering the best patient experience, are the cornerstones upon which XLDent stands. Using automation in your practice is not just an evolutionary step — it’s a strategy to set your practice apart and enhance your delivery of patient care.

Posted in: Dental Technology, Email Marketing, Marketing Services, XLDent Patient Experience, Leave a comment/ No Comments »
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Practice Marketing: Measure Your Results

Posted July 12, 2016 by Danielle H

With so manPractice Marketingy marketing opportunities available to dental practices, it’s important to know which campaigns are effective. Many practices fail to follow through on this key component of marketing: Tracking Patient Referrals!

If you’re not sure what to track or how to measure success, read on for some great tips to get you started.

What to Measure

New Patients by Referral Source vs. Total New Patients

Compare the number of new patients that came from a specific referral source or marketing campaign to the total number of new patients over a given time frame. This information helps you determine what percentage of your new patients came to the office from each referral source.

Cost Per Patient Acquisition

To determine the cost per patient acquisition use this formula: Ad Cost/# New Patients. Compare the Cost Per Patient Acquisition of each marketing campaign to see where you get the greatest ROI.

Production Value by Referral Source

Examine each Referral Source or Marketing Campaign and determine the total production value you’ve generated. This comparison provides the greatest value when the report is run over longer periods of time (6-12 months or longer). In doing so, you will gain insight into whether or not patients visited your practice more than once. If your campaign offered a discounted rate for the patient’s first visit, use this information to determine if your strategy paid off.

Ready to get started? Here’s How…

Step 1:

Create a list of the most common ways patients are referred to your practice. Include things like paid advertising campaigns, referring providers, website, google ads and insurance listings.

Step 2:

Add each of these referral sources to XLDent or your dental software.

Step 3:

Ask every new patient who they were referred by or where they heard about your practice. Enter this into the referral tracking area of your software. Create a script to help team members use consistent language and make sure that everyone has an understanding of the referral sources that pertain to your practice.

Step 4:

Establish an office policy for generating reports. Determine what information will be gathered and how you will measure your results.

Step 5:

Use this information to make marketing decisions that generate the greatest ROI.

Want to learn more about how XLDent Dental Management Software tracks referral information? Get in touch with us today!

Posted in: Dental Practice Management Software, Dental Technology, Dental Web-based Solutions, Email Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Leave a comment/ No Comments »
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Building Patient Relationships with Email Marketing

Posted June 7, 2016 by Danielle H

Email Marketing, XLDent Dental Software, Lighthouse 360 EmailsBuilding patient relationships, and I mean good, solid, trusting relationships, isn’t always as easy as you may think. You often get just a few minutes a couple times a year to actually talk with patients, making it challenging to build that connection that is so desired. And that connection is what is often needed to get a yes to that much needed crown or to keep them coming back for those routine recare visits.

Take a look at these three ways email marketing can reduce your practice’s attrition rate and increase your base of loyal patients.

  • Personalize your messages. Craft your emails so that they build on the personality of your practice. Your patients will keep coming back to your practice because they like you (and your team)!

Consider a great concert your dental hygienist recently attended. I bet your patients would love to see a picture from it! Share milestones like staff birthdays, anniversaries, and special achievements too.

Pro tip: Incorporate humor. Showing your lighter side will keep your reader engaged and wanting more.

  • Promote Your Practice. Use your emails to tell your patients about what’s going on in your office. If you’ve recently invested in new technology, share some information on the benefits your patients will see. Don’t forget to include any product promotions you’re offering. When it comes to elective treatments, like Whitening, educate the reader about what you have to offer and why it’s best for the patient.
  • Email Appointment Reminders give your patients a reason to connect with you electronically. With the ability to confirm their appointment by email, patients will be able to interact with your practice when it’s convenient for them. In addition, readers will be familiar with your branding and more engaged in other messages you send out.

With a multitude of scheduling and automated options, sending personalized emails to your patients is an easy and effective way to market your business. XLDent teams up with Lighthouse 360 give clients a robust email marketing and patient communication system that will help nourish patient relationships for generations.

Posted in: Dental Practice Management Software, Dental Technology, Dental Web-based Solutions, Email Marketing, Recare System, XLDent Patient Experience, Leave a comment/ No Comments »
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