Dr. Johnna Thomas has been in the dental industry for over 10 years, and started her dental practice – Restore Dental KC in Leawood, Kansas – in November 2019. With a combination of digital marketing and community outreach, her business grew.
However, as shutdowns began to sweep the nation, the ability to effectively reach out to her local community became a struggle. During the pandemic, Johnna provided a safe environment for her clients with a one patient in and one patient out policy, which kept clients with dental emergencies out of the ER.
Once normalcy began to restore, Dr. Thomas felt comfortable and ready to ramp up her marketing efforts and grow her dental practice, and direct mail marketing provided a great opportunity. And, in January 2022, Restore Dental KC began mailing postcards with Wise Pelican.
A Unique Mailing List Strategy
“I think that it’s a great strategy to have a list for new movers. That’s what I decided to do for the area because this is a more established area, and a lot of those patients already have dentists.”
This illustrates an important aspect of marketing in general: the more targeted you can be with your client engagement, the better the results will be. Instead of mailing every resident in the area, Dr. Thomas focused her mailings on people who recently moved into the area.
Not only does this save money, but it also targets a demographic that may not have a dentist in this new area, which generates a higher response rate.
The Second-Order Effects of Direct Mail: Referrals
“Patient-to-patient referrals has actually been a great marketing tool as my practice gets older. And that’s been great. But I wouldn’t be able to have that without direct marketing first.”
In almost every form of marketing, there is rarely a direct exchange between someone receiving a postcard or clicking an Ad and someone becoming a customer. When someone becomes a customer – or in Johnna’s case, a patient – and they’re impressed with the service, it’s highly likely they will tell someone else about it.
Dr. Thomas’s Experience with Wise Pelican
“With Wise Pelican, it was super easy to create my postcard. Once I gave them kind of the information and the layout that I wanted, they created a beautiful layout and it really reflected the image and the brand that I was going for. Like picture perfect.
“Not only that, they were able to get me my renderings of the postcard within about 48 hours.”
An Incredible ROI from Direct Mail Postcards
“With the three mailings that we’ve done so far, I’ve had to drop this month. But with the three drops that we’ve had, I’ve already seen 15 new patients, which is an amazing return on investment being that I have five actual patients coming into the office.”
“And they’re averaging out about $700 a piece. That’s just the first visit, so that revenue and return is exponential over the patient’s lifetime.”
Fifteen new patients with an approximate average revenue of $700 has resulted in a 300-plus percent ROI.
And, as Dr. Thomas eluded to, the initial revenue is only the tip of the iceberg when you consider the lifetime value of a dental patient!
Get Started with Direct Mail Marketing Today
We hope Dr Thomas’s Client Study provides some insight into how direct mail can help you grow your dental practice and generate new patients for life. If you would like to get started with your first direct mailer, or to learn more about how we can create a custom template for you, reach out to us directly.