Following on from our first blog from Michael, here’s what happened next!
The week of our shopping centre awareness campaign soon came. It was a windy and cold one, but my team were undeterred and put on their best smiles to deliver exactly what we had agreed.
The team had always suspected that we were the best kept secret in Sutton, and our suspicions were soon confirmed, with many people asking if we were a new practice! This really highlighted how beneficial our week in the shopping centre would be at raising our profile in the local area.
It wasn’t just new patients who were happy to see us, our existing patients loved being able to stop for a chat, with many commenting on how proud they were to belong to our practice. Whilst catching up with their news, unbeknown to them they became our bestselling asset. People felt comfortable to come across and engage with us, as we had a raving fan standing right by them, saying how fantastic we are, so a massive win-win.
Our top five conversation enquiries were:
- Dentures
- Orthodontics
- Changing dentist
- Whitening
- Implants.
During our planning, I had set ourselves a target of attracting three new patients to the practice. As we already know what our average new patient is worth to us, it was easy to have this target based upon our marketing expenditure. During the week we aimed for quality not quantity, and we have more than achieved our target.
Following the awareness week, two things happened. The first is our general telephone enquiries, walk ins, visits to our website and online bookings have all increased. The second observation is that existing patients have come in and told the dentists that they saw us in the centre, and as a result have recommended friends and family to book in with us. When asked why they hadn’t before, they simply said, ‘you always look busy, I thought you were full!’
I cannot lie, marketing is time consuming. The event took weeks of planning and dedication with the whole team pulling together. It was hard work and, for those on the stand, it was tiring and hard to stay warm! However, the outreach has been incredible and every time someone mentions that they saw us in Sutton, we all smile to each other at a job very well done.
About Michael Bentley
Michael is Practice Manager at JM Dentalcare. He also works as a consultant for Practice Plan, providing guidance on how you can be the ‘ultimate’ practice manager and how to develop and grow your team. Michael is also able to provide support through Horton Consulting.