Joy Gendusa
Six months ago, one of my clients hit his highest month ever in revenue—$170,000 in one month, $50,000 over and above what he usually generates. But honestly, that’s not the most interesting thing about this practice.
When I recently interviewed the owners of Finley Dentistry, Dr. E. Roy Finley and Cathy Stone, I discovered that they put their entire marketing plan on autopilot seven years ago, when Cathy took the reins as front office manager.
Today, the dividends are paying off:
- $1 million in revenue seven years in a row
- Flexibility to take once-in-a-lifetime, months-long trips
- A steady automatic stream of leads that averages 46 new patients per month
What amazed me most about this practice’s steady growth is that they use a unique formula to grow their revenue every year, and they don’t break their backs doing it. In fact, their success has allowed them both to fulfill their lifelong dreams of traveling.
Check out how they’ve achieved their practice’s success in three steps.
1. They created a one-two multichannel marketing punch that generates $1 million annually
Luckily for Dr. Finley, Cathy was no stranger to organizing and growing a practice.
Cathy: “I managed a practice in California years ago and I know that if you don’t consistently market in several ways, you will not survive.”
She implemented a marketing plan that hit multiple media channels simultaneously:
- 2,500 postcards mailed weekly
- Google ads that match the postcards, using DirectMail2.0
- A referral strategy that piggy-backs on their postcards
- A local ABC-TV commercial
- A revamped website complete with professional video and photography
Their marketing has been a two-pronged approach from the beginning, with a focus on direct mail and video marketing. One of the first things Cathy did when she came aboard seven years ago was set up a direct mail campaign.
Finley Dentistry mails 2,500 postcards every single week to a list of 20,000 residents who live near the practice. This means that everyone on that mailing list sees Finley’s postcard every other month. Because we rotate through different mailing lists (since they mail year after year), the entire area surrounding their practice is saturated with their postcards.
Check out their postcard design:
Cathy then added matching Google ads to the weekly postcard mailings. This direct mail Google integration (we call it DirectMail2.0) ensured every postcard recipient also saw identical Google ads across millions of websites within the Google Ad Network.
Cathy: “I always see extra referrals come from our postcard patients. It’s a funny thing. We may receive 10 new patients from postcards, but then they will refer us another two or three new patients, so it’s hard to track how many new patients our postcards actually give us because they’re effective in more than one way.”
To amplify Finley’s digital presence, visitors to their website are greeted with high-quality, professional videos, which carry over to their local TV campaign.
Dr. Finley: “I often hear patients say that because they saw us on TV before booking an appointment, they felt like they were comfortable enough to come in and try us out.”
This leads to a steadfast dental marketing tip—include as many real photos and videos as possible. The more prospective patients see genuine photos or video of you and your staff, the more likely they’ll trust you. Trust means more leads and patients for your practice, particularly since dentistry is so up close and personal.
Cathy’s combination of digitally-optimized postcard mailings plus video marketing creates a powerful ongoing one-two punch. Local prospects are introduced to the practice first through the postcards, making them aware of Finley Dentistry. This is the perfect primer for the next step—when they recognize the practice through the TV commercials. Seeing the office and its staff in living color is a huge step forward in gaining trust, and that translates into appointments.
This marketing mix works so well that Cathy has kept it going for years, and was even able to step away from the daily marketing grind to reassess and improve Finley Dentistry’s patient experience. But, as Cathy discovered, refocusing on patient care instead of marketing doesn’t have to mean that marketing goes by the wayside.
