Q1: What do I need to do in order to begin getting all the many benefits of the proven, precision Get Quality Patients turnkey, direct-response dental marketing program?
A1: All you need to do to get started is complete and submit the handy Get Quality Patients PDF enrollment form, which you can download here. We will then contact you immediately by e-mail and / or by phone to confirm your order and begin the consultation process. During this initial phase of the program, we will determine the very best way to custom tailor our time-tested postcard copy and designs to dynamically promote your dental practice to the most desirable new patients in your market using our exclusive mailing lists or you own.
We will discuss the offers to be included as well as the rotation of offers, mailing and expiration dates, quantities, sizes, and all the other specifics to assure that you get the highest possible ROI from your new direct-response marketing program. We will also coordinate with you the best time to provide our informative, FREE, hands-on staff training seminar to make sure your people are fully prepared to handle all the additional patients calls to come.
Q2: What if I already have a good mailing list and want to use it with your direct mail pieces?
A2: If you already have a well-developed mailing list and would like us to use it for mailing your new, high-impact Get Quality Patients postcards, you should e-mail the list in Excel format to here. Place the following information on the subject line: Your Name or Company Name / Direct Mail List. Then attach your list in an Excel format with each recipient's first and last name together in column A followed by the full street address with any apt. or suite number, city, state and zip code. Also be sure to add your own name and address to receive a copy of your direct-response mailers at the same time as the patients on your mailing list. If you need to order a list or you have questions about your own list, please call our office at 877-477-8771 Toll-Free or send us an e-mail.
Q3: How many postcards need to be mailed on the 1st drop and subsequent drops?
A3: At least 5,000 pieces must be mailed monthly until the campaign is completed (a minimum of 12 months) in order for it to achieve adequate market penetration and effective frequency rates. Lower quantities or less frequency than that will not get the results needed to cover your costs and increase your profits by a reasonable percentage, let alone stimulate the number of calls from new, high-quality patients you want.
Q4: How much will each monthly mail drop cost? I understand there are design costs for customizing the mailers as well as printing, mailing list, labeling and postage costs. But how much is it going to cost TOTAL for me to get the postcards mailed out every month?
A4: The Get Quality Patients program is based on a minimum 5,000 piece-per-month mailing for a minimum of one year at a cost of 70 cents per piece. This translates to $3,500 per month and is inclusive of everything from start to finish. It includes marketing consultation, design customization, stock photography, printing, list selection and costs, preparing the mail, standard mail postage and delivery.
Payment Schedule - We collect a portion of the initial cost of production and printing up front then we finance the balance over the course of the year-long campaign as follows: $3,000 due on sign-up. $3,000 due upon approval of artwork. $3,000 due on completion of the printing. (The entire first year's supply of postcards is printed in one run in order to get the best possible price-to-quality ratio for you.) Once the monthly mailings begin, the initial $9,000 in payments is deducted from the total cost for the year. The balance is then divided by 12 to calculate a monthly fee of $2,750, which must be paid one week before each drop date.
Additional Quantity Discounts - Discounts are given when the volume is increased to 10,000 and 20,000 monthly mailers. For a quantity of 10,000 the cost is dropped from 70 cents to 60 cents per piece. For 20,000 or more monthly mailers another 5 cents is discounted, dropping the cost to 55 cents per piece. Our standard prices cover 2-color printing on the back of the postcards but as an added bonus, we include 4-color printing for FREE (which is a $500 savings for every 5,000 pieces).
Optional One-to-One Personalization with Variable-Data Printing (VDP) - To maximize the impact of your monthly mailings and drive-up response rates even higher, we offer a special premium package for One-to-One Marketing using the latest digital VDP techniques. But to also assure you get the best overall price, we pre-print six months worth of personalized postcards at a time. Then after six months, we assess the results, make adjustments to the database if deemed appropriate, print a second six-month supply and resume the mailings for the remainder of the 12-month cycle. This option adds 7.5 cents to the price of each piece for a total cost of $4.250 per month based on a minimum quantity of 5,000.
Q5: When do I have to pay for each mail drop?
A5: You will have to pay an agreed upon monthly fee before each mail drop is made.
EXAMPLE : Lets say you want us to mail out 5,000 postcards per month for 12 months at a total cost of 70 cents per piece. Since we charge an initial fee of $9,000 to cover the basic cost of pre-printing a year's worth of customized postcards in advance, that amount is deducted before a monthly fee is calculated. In this case, that would leave a 55 cents-per-piece balance that would need to be paid before the letter shop does the production work for each month's drop. Therefore you would need to pay $2,750 per month (.55 X 5,000 = $2,750).
Some clients want to mail more pieces per month (5,000 is the minimum we will mail per drop). It's up to you to determine what type of capacity you have for new patients and how well your staff is equipped to handle them. By having a minimum we accomplish two things. First, this assures that you market your practice enough to actually get a positive response and by using a large enough test group, we can analyze the results and make adjustments to increase efficiency and effectiveness. If you only mailed 500 or 1,000 pieces a month, you might see a good response (and we have actually have had dentists get HUGE responses from that small a number). However, our experience has shown us that the most accurate and effective minimum sample is 5,000.
When we conducted our own tests, we mailed between 5,000 and 15,000 direct-response postcards per month. Our business is quite mature and we can afford to spend that money to acquire new clients. However, if you are cash tight, you may want to test 5,000 at first and then adjust the quantity as you begin to get the initial results needed to increase your cash flow. We also understand that one of the biggest limitations within dental offices is capacity. But what one dentist considers full capacity, another finds inadequate to cover basic expenses. We can help you grow to stretch your limits so that you are making more money in the same amount of time that you currently putting in. We can help you focus all your time and energy on what you do best - seeing patients and running your practice - instead of constantly trying to find new, high-quality patients - which is what we do best.
Q6: Do I have to mail all the pieces at once?
A6: No and we do not recommend mailing all the postcards at one time. The exact quantity mailed each month will depend on your office capacity, amount of cash flow you have in hand, your specific market, the level of your immediate competition, and what your personal needs are. Our highly experienced Direct-Response Dental Marketing Specialists will help you make the best decisions and we will guide you through the entire process using a vast knowledge base accumulated over many years of making other dentists a great deal more successful than they ever were before.
Q7: How long does it take from the time the first mailers go out until my phones start ringing?
A7: You should allow about 7 to 10 business days from the time of your first mail drop. During this interim period, we recommend that your office staff prepare for a dynamic response from the new campaign. This is a good time for us to hold our staff-training seminar so your people are ready to handle the additional calls the right way. The lessons we teach should still be fresh in their minds and it is critical that they know exactly what to expect and how to react so the program gets off on the right foot. From there, it simply builds more and more momentum over time and your staff will already be up to the task.
Q8: Why should I let you handle the entire direct-response marketing program instead of doing all or part of it myself?
A8: Over the past 20+ years, we have developed a highly successful strategy for using direct mail to various markets with the past decade specifically focused on dental practices of all sizes. We have learned many lessons during this period by systematically analyzing exactly why certain things work and others do not. Our track record proves we are experts in this discipline, and we have developed solid relationships with related companies in the industry, which allows us to offer a complete, turnkey, direct-response marketing package with super high quality standards but still at a reasonable cost to you. Our mailing list experts know the best way to get a response from the most desirable new dental patients in any given market. So when you use our direct mail services, you are tapping into a deep pool of experience that has resulted in great returns for many dental clients. In a word, direct mail is our "home turf", it is what we do and we do it as well as anyone period.
Another important reason you should allow us to handle your direct-response dental marketing campaign is that our text and graphic elements (integral and crucial parts of any successful program) have been tested, tweaked and re-tested many times over many years. Our sales copy and designs have been PROVEN to get great results for this type of marketing for numerous other dentists and they will do the same for you.
Q9: Can I be an exclusive client in my market to avoid conflicts with my direct competition?
A9: Absolutely Yes! In fact we lock zip codes up on a first-come-first-served basis, so if you don’t act today this opportunity may slip into the hands of your competition! This is only good for as long as you continue to use us for ongoing direct-response mailings. If you decide to cancel, then your zip code will be made available to whoever would like to use it – including your biggest competitor.
Q10: Can I have you ONLY do the printing so I can do the rest of the letter shop work using my own labor?
A10: Sorry but no. Our carefully coordinated system requires the right level of expertise, the depth of experience and the continuous, hands-on involvement that our team of creative and marketing professionals provides for setting up and running the program from beginning to end. In the past, we have had clients attempt this difficult and often problematic task on their own and the results have ranged from disappointing to disastrous. Besides, you and your staff need to be seeing patients and running your practice - NOT doing this kind of time consuming, detailed marketing work!
Q11: Why does the Get Quality Patients program cost more than average direct-response dental mailers?
A11: Our complete, turnkey, direct-response dental marketing program includes the cost of standard postage, high-quality up-to-date mailing lists, an accurate demographic report and competitive analysis, all design, copywriting, high-quality stock photography (except the doctor's photo), art production and ultra high-quality printing on upgraded paper stock. We also provide pre-press proofs, press checks by qualified experts, the labor-intensive work required to prepare your pieces for mailing each month and hands-on staff training. Since we print an entire year's worth of postcards before the first monthly mailers begin to go out, we additionally supply bulk storage, handling and transportation to the letter shop through the 12-month cycle.
If you and your staff attempted to do all these things or if you sub-contracted the various elements to several different companies and had to coordinate them all, you simply wouldn't have time to see any patients. It would be a hugely time-consuming, logistical nightmare and in the end, you would not get the kind of results we can by utilizing a fully qualified, focused team of direct mail professionals who have spent years perfecting a system that works like a well-oiled machine.
