You Can’t Turn The Clock Back On This
November 7, 2021Technology. It’s here to stay, constantly evolving, and its impact on your business increases every day. There’s no going back on much of it, so you might just as well embrace it, learn about it, and use it to your and your patents’ advantage.
As much as you might want or try to get off the grid personally, in your business, having a keen awareness of how technology is changing, how it works and how you can use it, can make the difference between practice growth and stagnation or worse.
A timely example of this is the new iOS 15 operating system coming to your, your patients’, and your prospects’ Apple devices soon.
This change is titled “Mail Privacy Protection” and it will markedly change marketing and patient communication. And even if you personally think it’s all for the better, you should know what it will mean for your practice and what you should do about it.
This new policy will markedly impact the effectiveness and cost of your current, Internet marketing. Using Google AdWords? Your costs will go up and it’s effectiveness will go down.Marketing experts say this new privacy protection feature could specifically impact the tracking of open rates and email-based A/B testing. Others maintain that it will make targeted advertising trickier, making it more difficult to gain a granular view of user behavior, which inhibits advertisers’ ability to serve targeted ads and measure the impacts of their efforts.
You might personally look at this as a welcome move. After all, it already seems that marketers are reading our minds. It seems as if Alexa and Siri are listening to our conversations. How else can something just discussed magically appear on my internet feed?
Here’s where your personal philosophy might clash with your financial interests.
But it doesn’t have to, if you know how to deal with it.
Frankly, I’m not even sure of all the nuances this new “policy” will mean. As with most, there will be some unintended consequences. I’m busy getting informed from my varied trusted, non-dental sources. These are savvy marketers and technology gurus, who are also still trying to figure it out. Marketing and communications is their full time job. Yours is dentistry.
The bottom line is that your patient list is still your most valuable asset. The challenge is that it is becoming more challenging to communicate with it.
One strategy is to use other technologies and tactics to compensate for this new normal. Here are 3 tactics that every practice should now consider.
So, while you might have already focused on getting emails and cell phone numbers, you might now want to make sure you also get physical addresses. And, make sure you ask people their preferred mode of communication.
And, you might want to focus on getting opt-in on text communications. And don’t limit texting to just patient reminders. Think about contactless financial transactions and even other messaging.
Live chat, to be truly effective, needs to be done well. Having your chat answered by someone who truly has no appreciation for your practice, your philosophy and your culture can have a negative impact. That’s why you should be careful when you deploy any such communications technology.
Regardless of how you communicate with your patients , and you should be doing more than just for appointment confirmation. For all communications, the tone, voice and overall character of all messaging should be the same. Putting personality into copy is an art form.
Think you’re the only one having staffing issues? These tech companies have the same issues you do. So that’s another question you should be asking such a company.
Want to find out more about live chat?
So change your clocks and change your attitude about how you are messaging your patients. Getting your patients to become stickier to your practice is the new Value Added Proposition. How you BOND your patients to your practice is an art form.
Want to discuss more? Want to strategize about marketing? You know how to reach me.
To your excellent clarity and communications,
Michael
Practice Success Insights

Dr. Michael Goldberg is one of the leading educators on dental practice management in the United States.
Michael ran and sold a prestigious group practice in Manhattan and has been on Faculty at Columbia University and New York-Presbyterian Medical Center for 30 years including Director of the GPR program and Director of the course on Practice Management.
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