I recently received a promotional letter from a well-known dental magazine regarding advertising opportunities within their publication. On the back of the letter, encouraging me to respond, was a faxback form.
A faxback form?!?
I’m not sure about you, but I haven’t used a fax machine in at least a decade, possibly longer. I would love to know how many responses the magazine gets chugging through on its antiquated Brother 1200 or whatever model they have. It’s certainly a strange choice of communication channel in these days of texts, emails and apps. You might even call it crazy.
But, here’s a question – how in tune are YOU with the communication wants and needs of your customers and potential customers?
A simple search for a dental practice in any particular town or city will throw up a number of websites that are not optimised for mobile phones.
‘Why do I need to optimise my website for mobile devices?’, I hear you cry.
Well, in May 2015 Google published an article to say that, for the first time ever, more internet searches were being carried out on mobile devices than on laptops and computers. Which means that, if your website is not responsive (i.e. it changes format to suit the device it’s being viewed on), you are most likely losing over 50% of people who land on your website within seconds of them doing so.
“If your website is not responsive… you are most likely losing over 50% of people who land on your website within seconds of them doing so.”
If the formatting isn’t right, the type is not legible and the messages aren’t clear, today’s media savvy, time-poor potential patients will be onto your competitor’s website faster than you can say ‘thanks for visiting’. All the effort you’ve put into getting those people to land on your website will have been wasted.
Now, that would be crazy!
Creating a modern, responsive website for your practice is not difficult. There are specialised digital design businesses within the dental sector who understand websites and dentistry, and they offer a wide range of solutions to suit most budgets.
Alternatively, there are thousands of fantastic and flexible off-the-shelf designs available to download that have been built on established and proven platforms such as WordPress. These sites provide excellent value for money and you can work with a web designer to help you populate, develop and brand the site you’ve chosen.
So, there are no excuses – having an unresponsive practice website in 2017 is a little like asking someone to fax back their enquiry – it’s outdated and ineffective. But most importantly, it’s costing you new patients and new business.