Get Personal with Direct Mail—and Boost Return on Investment

Direct mail is a commonly used marketing tactic for many dental specialists. According to WPI Communications’ Dental Marketing Barometer Survey, 24% of specialists used direct mail in 2009. Direct mail is particularly common among periodontists, with 42% reporting they used this popular dental marketing method last year.

The downside to direct mail has always been its impersonal shotgun approach. Direct mail is typically based on volume. This means it takes a lot of postage and a lot of persistence to get a patient through your office doors. Traditional response rates for direct mail vary, but .05%–2% across industries is a good benchmark.

Breakthrough in direct mail personalization

But the status quo is changing for the better. Dental specialists can now take advantage of the latest in printing advances to personalize direct mail to each prospective patient. By doing this, you can dramatically improve response rates and drive more new patients through your dental practice doors. This technology is called variable digital printing.

Professional printers who do variable digital printing can vary components of your marketing piece, but still print it all in one single print run. The technology gives you significant customization and personalization. You can vary names, graphics, special offers and advertising messages from one piece to the next—all in the same print job. This makes your message more targeted, personal and relevant to each recipient. This method has been demonstrated to grab readers’ attention better than static, impersonal mailers.

Four must-haves for effective direct mail

For direct mail to work most effectively, it requires four components:

Consistency—You need to reach out and touch your audience many different ways at many different times. If you’re going to commit to direct mail, schedule mailings to drop on at least a quarterly basis.

Creative—It’s no secret that everyone gets a lot of mail they don’t want and a lot of pieces they’ll never look at. To get the most out of your mailers, use full-color, dynamic, visually appealing design. The more creative, the better. Be sure not to cut corners when it comes to printing, either. A terrific, high-impact direct-mail concept can be ruined by a cheap, cost-cutting print run.

Actionable—The greater the sense of urgency in your direct-mail piece, the better your return will likely be. Whether it’s a seasonal promotion, introductory offer or special for a type of procedure, you want the prospect to call or go online today to schedule an appointment.

Meaningful—This is where variable digital printing really comes into play. In addition to a marketing message that matters to your recipient, including their name and images that will speak to them greatly increases the likelihood that they’ll pay attention—and take action.

What’s in a name?

It’s one thing to make it to a dental patient or prospect’s mailbox. It’s something else entirely to engage the recipient. The most successful marketing in today’s climate are the techniques and methods that do the best job of engaging audiences.

The name of each person, their family name (Smith Family) or the name of each family member can be included on each mailer. The name can appear prominently on both sides of a postcard mailer to best capture the reader’s attention. This sends a message very different from the nonpersonalized mailers consumers receive every day.

Customized demographics

This printing technology gives you greater power to target your audience with images that will most appeal to them. This is where the information in your dental database can really target the recipient.

Before the days of variable digital printing, dental specialists could still target different demographics. But you needed to work with your printer to coordinate separate print runs for each targeted mailer. It was complicated, and small runs were often not worth the cost.

Today, dental specialists can personalize images, offers and content, all in one print run. You can customize images of a family for your audience in that demographic, or use images of seniors for your older population. You can even target specific demographics with images of people of that same ethnicity. This all helps your audience to best visualize themselves in your patient chair. With this method, they will get the sense that you are speaking directly to them. Customized images can be very powerful.

Greater cost, greater return

Variable digital printing is more costly than its counterpart, offset printing, which is the traditional method of printing thousands of the same piece without any variable. However, while variable digital printing is more expensive, it has a greater return on investment (ROI).

According to Dick Chwalek, founder and director of Niche Dental, this is the ROI from this printing method, based on variable digital printing industry results:

• 44% improvement in response rate by adding the recipient’s name to the printed page versus “current occupant”
• 135% improvement in response rate by adding full color to a printed piece
• 500% improvement in response rate by adding recipient’s name, full color and customized content of interest to recipient

Direct mail should no longer be viewed as a cheap way to reach as many people as possible. If this is the strategy, it’s unlikely that your mailing will make much of an impact upon the people you need to reach. Instead, you can better target your different market segments with meaningful communication. Despite the comparatively greater costs, variable digital printing is a very effective way for dental specialists to reach your audience and get their attention.

Remember the competition

Chances are, competing dental specialists are proactively engaging in marketing activities in your region. To stay ahead of the competition, you must always evaluate ways to better reach and influence potential patients. Personalized direct mail is an excellent way to do that.