Most of us spend our marketing money unwisely. We spend a lot of money attracting new patients to our practice. But when the person we market to is not quite ready for our chair, we throw them over the side. Then when they finally are ready, they are just as likely to go to the Internet and find a different dentist. They don't remember us anyway.

I call this drive-by marketing. I wrote about it in the January, 2008 issue of Dentistry Today.

So now I want to talk about what works better than drive-by marketing and that means talking about what makes someone set an appointment in the first place. And we'll then see the correct strategy for dental marketing dental patient list building.

There are two factors that propel people to make an appointment. One is a dental emergency. The other is what I have long called the change principle.

The change principle is the key to successful dental marketing

The change principle says that people are normally not receptive to getting "unusual" stuff done in their life. They are normally not interested in buying big screen televisions, or going on trips when they don't travel often, or going to the dentist.

But when some Big Event changes their life — then they become receptive.

I point to Dr. Thomas Stanley's pioneering research in this area. Dr. Stanley is well known for the pop marketing book "The Millionaire Next Door". But what is more interesting is the real work he has done on marketing to affluent people. Dr. Stanley found that affluent people get paid in big occasional chunks rather than steadily. And affluent people get their success in big chunks too. When they get written about in the paper, or accomplish something that results in recognition, they become temporarily euphoric.

And then they buy stuff.

Affluent people are receptive to sales messages only occasionally. And when they are, that's when you are going to sell your $15,000 set of veneers, or the six crowns that have been put off for two long.

Well, I found that the change principle works in a similar way but for the vast majority of people (including affluent ones.)

List building secrets for dental patients - the impending event

How many times have you done a lot of cosmetic work when a patient has their daughter's big wedding coming up? Or a new job or promotion? Or a big family reunion?

That is the change principle at work. That is why in many cases mailing to people who just moved into a new home works. I would imagine that mailing to people who just had a baby would work, too, if they had the time to pry themselves away from baby (which they don't.) The point is that a major impending or actual change in people's lives gets them to want dentistry.

How does this tie into Internet marketing? Here is how. If you use your marketing to build a list, you can work that list so that you are positioned in your prospect's mind for when they do have a life change. Then they will have you do their dentistry. And a lot of it, too.

This is the single most neglected part of Internet marketing. See Dental Marketing: How to multiply your website's results for more.

Everyone goes for the kill — the patient visit — in their websites. They don't go for the opt-in. And yet, that is how they can cut their acquisition cost for a new patient and slash the costs of their marketing over the longer term.

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