Introduction

External marketing is intended to create awareness and induce a response among people with whom you’ve not yet established a relationship. To learn more click here.

Background

Following his general practice residency, our new client chose to open a scratch practice in Denver, CO. As this gentleman just happened to have spent a summer as an intern for The American Dental Company, he was well equipped for his foray into entrepreneurship.

Analysis

He identified a source of financing which, in addition to equipment and overhead, included a $25,000 line item for practice marketing. A Geo/Demographic Analysis, including map and report revealed that 14,703 households were within 5.51 miles of his office. In addition, there was an usually high level of new construction occuring in his community. On the basis of this information, it was decided to perform an Enhanced High Reach turnkey mailing service, supplmeneted by acquiring mailing information for newly constructed homes as soon as they became available.

Implementation

Being a new practice, a majority of the practice's marketing budget was to be dedicated to external marketing.

His mailer design was created with a sensitivity to local demographic factors.

The doctor's Target Mail Date was late June, '04. A mailing totaling 15,500 was scheduled, of which approximately 800 were newly constructed homes. The cost of the mailing, inclusive of all design, data, postage, and mailing was $6,000. Mailings were to continue at monthly intervals.

A reasonable expected response rate to a well designed, targeted, and executed mailing is one third to one half of a percent. Local demographic factors can affect the actual response rate. Using the conservative expectation, the practice should experience forty-nine responses, which, assuming all were converted to patients, would yield a per patient cost of $122.

Results

The response to the first mailing was 103 patients or nearly seven tenths of a percent. Actual per patient cost was $58.25. Because of this strong return, the practice needed to suspend mailings to allow it to absorb these new patients into the practice.

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