How Effective Marketing Works

This past week, several doctors contacted me with an interest in my services; all had been previously familiar with me from different marketing sources that I utilize, including this platform, but had not, until now, requested information. What prompted them to get in touch with me –the ‘trigger’ – was an additional, independent event – in this case, a mention of me at a colleague’s seminar. In other words, the combination of prior familiarity with this recent, additional event was what prompted them to take action.

It validates a point that I make regularly in my presentations: most incoming inquiries to your practice do not result from a single ‘touch’, because a single exposure to your brand does not, by itself, usually prompt action. More often, it is the result of a chain reaction of exposure to your message via multiple channels that pulls the trigger.

To illustrate, let’s consider the parent of one of your potential future patients.

This is a mother who is active in her son’s school and attends his sporting events. Your practice does quite a bit of marketing at this school, and she has seen your advertisements in the football program, and perhaps you have a banner in the gymnasium. However, she has never heard anything about you or the quality of your work. She is interested in orthodontics for her son, but does not know enough about you at this point to be motivated to proactively seek you out. She simply knows who you are.

Which is good, but by itself, not good enough.

Last month, while having a scheduled cleaning, she asked her dentist about orthodontists in the area. Your name is only one of three mentioned by the dentist. However, due to your school marketing, you are the only one that she has previously heard of.  This makes you, in her mind, the automatic front-runner, because the previous familiarity with your brand gives you a significant boost of credibility.

At this point, she is likely to call you at such time as she is motivated to consider options, but she is not there yet.

Finally, last night, she and her husband attended a dinner party with friends, and the subject of orthodontics came up in the table conversation. She asked her friends if any of their children had received treatment. Two couples spoke up; one had their two children treated by you, and the other was treated by your competitor. Both of you receive rave reviews from these former patient’s parents, and both couples say that the decision to get treatment was a good one.

This last event is the ‘trigger’ – the one that finally prompts the future patient’s mother to take action and set up an appointment to discuss orthodontics.

However – and this is the key point here – because she has been influenced from multiple points by your message – in this case, three – while your competitor has only touched her once, the most likely outcome here is that yours is the practice that she contacts for an appointment with her son.

This multiple-endorsement effect collectively reduces the perception of risk – you are, in her mind, the option with the highest likelihood of success, because she has heard of you from not one, but several resources, and you are therefore the practice that she is most familiar with.

As you consider different marketing efforts for your practice, remember that the big-picture goal is to have synergy; it is the blend of resources you choose that collectively pulls the trigger and brings visitors to your practice.