Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Increasing Business with Patient Appreciation Days

Several days ago I mentioned that the fastest way to the next customer is via the customer currently sitting in your database, ie, if you aren't going out of your way to treat that customer well, h/she don't bring in the next one!

Let's talk today about utilizing your patient database as a "feeder"system for your business growth plans.

  1. How many names are in your database? Do you know how to export them to an Excel Spreadsheet? Do so. Export first and last name, street address, city, state, zip, email address, date of birth, and date of last visit in your office.
  2. Once you have this information in Excel, save as Patient Database.todaysdate.xls
  3. Sort by email address to see how many email addresses you have. Delete all those without an email address. Do a "save as" with just email addresses. Name is PtEmails.11.1.08.xls. Be sure to date this because over time you will add more patients and the lists will get confusing.
OK, how to use this information?

Hold a Patient Appreciation Day
  • Ask one of your filler and/or cosmeceutical reps to design a postcard mailer and a flyer that you can hang in the office where patients check out. Some reps are allowed to not just create the postcard but cover postage as well. Ask around and see who accommodates you the most.
  • Invite the patients in your database to come in for an educational seminar about non-surgical facial rejuvenation and injections from 4-7 on that date. Avoid weekends, as people have family things going on.
  • If they bring a friend both they and their friend get $50 off their injection or cosmeceutical product. Be sure this is clearly stated on the invitation.
  • Also announce this via email.
  • You will want to use a service for emailing. Constant Contact is a good one. Very reasonable fees and you can mail as often as you wish, as the cost is based on the number of email addresses, not the number of times you send emails. You can easily see how many opened it, whether they forwarded it to a friend, etc.
Come back for the next blog post and I'll teach you how to create a Patient Referral Program that's extremely easy to create and run.

Here's to your success,
@

No comments: