New Patients, Inc - November 27 Newsletter - Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!! 

This holiday causes us to dive into this subject: How do you thank patients for their referrals?

First, the predictable caveat: State dental boards each have their own regulations about this topic. Be sure you don't violate them!

There is a concept to fully grasp regarding rewarding referring patients; the Social Exchange vs. the Monetary Exchange. This topic is covered at length in a book called Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape our Decisions by Dr.Dan Ariely.

Professor Ariely gives us a timely example:

You are having a family Thanksgiving dinner prepared by your mother in law. It's a wonderful meal and you decide you'd like to show your appreciation by offering her $300. What's her reaction? Likely she'd be insulted. But why? Because you've turned a Social Exchange into a Monetary Exchange.

The same thing can happen with your referring patients.

Normally if you enjoy a cordial relationship with your patients they are more than happy to refer their friends and family if you just ask them. But if you then give them a monetary reward ($50 off their next visit, for example) it confuses them because you've just turned a Social Exchange into a Monetary Exchange.

So, how do you keep this transaction on the Social side?

You don't make monetary offers. Don't even advertise the fact that they can get some kind of reward for their referrals. What you should do is simply send them a small gift and a handwritten card. The gift can be just about anything like flowers, coffee mug, movie tickets and so on.

Because you've not announced to them that they will be rewarded, the gift comes as a pleasant surprise and doesn't make you look like you're "paying them off."

And that's why little gifts of appreciation work better than money or credits. You thank them for their Social Exchange and you don't try to turn it into a Monetary Exchange.

Happy eating!

An Appeal: We just got word from a dear friend of ours, Dr. Rick Coker in Tyler, Texas. A dentist in his area has suddenly passed away. Rick is trying to help the widow by getting a dentist to come in to take care of the patients. There's been no decision yet on whether the practice will be for sale. If you know of anyone who could help out, please contact Rick at riccoker@gmail.com Thank you!


Have questions? Want to learn more? You can reach Mark & Howie at:
Howie: whh@newpatientsinc.com
Mark: markd@newpatientsinc.com
If any of you need us, just call 866.336.8237. We will be here for you.

Got questions? Want to learn more?
You can reach Mark & Howie at:
Howie: whh@newpatientsinc.com
Mark: markd@newpatientsinc.com
Check out our latest dental marketing book

Big, big, big stuff out of NPI - August 29, 2013 NPI Newsletter

Big, big, big stuff out of NPI In the last issue of this newsletter, we discussed barriers. We are going to continue that discussion in future. This NPI e-newsletter is more about letting all of you know some very exciting news. (NPI) New Patients, Inc. acquires Phoenix Practice Marketing (PPM) On August 16th, NPI acquired Phoenix Practice Marketing. Rebecca Palmer (president of PPM) is now the Director of Professional Relations at NPI. For those of you who are not familiar with Rebecca, her clients sure are. She has a tremendously loyal following in dentistry. Rebecca will continue to serve all of the PPM clients as well as serve new NPI clients. NPI/PPM - What does this acquisition mean for you and for dentistry as a whole? The combined companies can now effectively service almost any dental practice with an annual marketing budget from $10k to infinity! In the past, NPI served the top 20% to 30% of the dental market. PPM served the middle 50% of the dental market. Combined, we will serve the top 80% of the dental market. So, go tell your dentist buddies! The entry point to having NPI manage your marketing budget just got a lot wider! Expanded menu of marketing campaigns From small volume post card campaigns, all the way to massive 8 page magazine campaigns. We can now deliver mail to targeted households for about 37 cents, or 58 cents, or 89 cents. So, no matter where a dentist is on their growth path, NPI will have a solution to fit almost any reasonable/sensible budget. But read on, it gets better...... For those of you already familiar with our targeting methods, get this! Magazines can go to the targets that make up the top 10% of the population, external mailers can go to the next strata (say, 50% to 90%), and postcard campaigns from 20% to 50%! This type of campaign would generate the high quality at the top AND the volume that many practices require when they have capacity to fill. Just deploy, track, and turn the volume knob in any direction the capacity requires! We have expanded our mobile website offerings. Our new designs are simpler to navigate on any mobile device, WAY more high tech looking, and allow us to say MORE about the practice without jamming too much info onto a small viewing screen! It is hard to explain with the written word. You just have to see it for yourself. Just use your cell phone or tablet and go here:       http://www.callowdds.mobi              You get extra credit for knowing what this image is. You get extra, extra credit, if you use your smart phone to scan the image and go to the website.   We've expanded our practice website (.com) offerings as well! We can service clients on the web with the most restricted marketing budgets. We will build small starter websites, all the way to the most effective websites in the most competitive dental markets. But the most important aspect of these expanded offerings is the equity as you upgrade through your dental career. Read on. Even more great news - equity!    Now that we have everything from the very basic, all the way up to dominant, clients earn equity as they grow. To use a fairly common example, let's say you start with NPI when you are a young whipper snapper with a severely restricted budget. Let's say all you can afford at that time is a targeted post card campaign and a very basic starter website to get you going. Some of the agency fees you pay NPI will earn equity toward the next level mail campaign and the next level website! This way, as you grow, you are not throwing projects out the window and starting all over from scratch! NPI will ALWAYS have a next level for you to upgrade to, and, some equity will be earned for projects you've already paid for! We will be back shortly with our usual informational newsletter. We will never stop educating dentistry on the proper/effective ways to promote their practices to the dental consumer. We just had so many announcements to make, we figured we might as well use this newsletter to spread the word. If any of you need us, just call 866.336.8237. We will be here for you.

Got questions? Want to learn more?     You can reach Mark & Howie at: Howie: whh@newpatientsinc.com Mark: markd@newpatientsinc.com Check out our latest dental marketing book