Every once and a while you need to look to the past for a strategy for the present/future. Print marketing has always worked because it is the simplest example of direct response marketing. It is similar to a billboard but delivered personally to your target market. Like your signage, postcards, or newsletters, door hangers need to be preceded by your ability to actually be marketable. Be sure that your internal marketing is firing on all eight cylinders and your domain name, practice, location, hours, and logo are optimized for the greatest synergism to reinforce any external marketing you choose to do. Here are half a dozen or so quick boxes you need to check off to have success with door hangers.
- Understand that door hangers can be used as a one off, stand-alone campaign when time is of the essence and getting your message out to the public is important. It should reflect the overall look, color, and other offers you are already using on your web site and/or other marketing strategies.
- Keep it simple: Like the billboard strategies that we have discussed in previous descriptions of marketing outreach, door hangers need to be able to be quickly and easily read, very obvious that it is from a dentist, and what the offer is (direct response marketing) all in about 2-3 seconds.
- Attention grabber: Make sure the overall graphic design is a sure fire attention grabber. The headline must have stopping power. The goal is for them to take the time to read the offer and act on it before the door hanger heads for the trash bin.
- Compelling offer: You can’t get better at giving people something they don’t want. Make sure you have considered your audience (demographics) when crafting the offer. (Example: If your office is in a retirement community, don’t offer a discount on braces.)
- Design: This is a little different than the attention grabber aspect. We all know that 92% of all dental appointments are made by a female. With that in mind we need to have an overriding goal to make everything from ad copy to colors and photos appeal to a female’s eye.
- Quality appearance: This includes, but is not limited to, the quality of the paper, overall appearance, and the income group that will view it. Quality is always voted on by the target marketed to, not the marketer. Miss this subtle fact and the ad goes nowhere. Only the client gets to decide what quality is.
- Two-sided: Don’t waste your opportunity by only using one side of the door hanger. The side that shows when hung on the doorknob needs to fulfill all of these criteria listed here, but the flip side needs to deliver the goods by enforcing the fact that we have a compelling offer, with a simple design, and designed to grab the attention of the female viewer. The flip side gives you the opportunity to tell more of your story in a compelling and inspiring manner.
- Perforation: Because of the oversized format of the door hanger (part of making it compelling and noticeable), it is important that we have a perforated portion that allows the viewer to gently separate the offer, our location, website and phone number from the body of the throw away portion of the door hanger. Remember to make sure that when it is separated the back side is also something you want them to retain and remember.
So where can we use this strategy? I am finding a lot of locations where apartment dwellers are prevalent. This indicates that they are more nomadic and tend to move from the apartment in two years or less. It is a huge mistake to think that apartment dwellers are not interested in what you have to offer or can’t afford your fees. In some cases we see that some apartments are more expensive than homes and are merely a lifestyle choice for their occupants. Home canvassing or large high rise businesses or apartment buildings are perfect for this strategy. Finally, we have used these as car marketing for events, health fairs, and/or targeted marketing with a tight time line to reach your audience. Just be sure there is no rain in the forecast.
Don’t forget the convenience and relevance of door hangers in your armamentarium of marketing strategies. This is how you Summit.
Michael Abernathy, DDS
972-523-4660 cell
PS — We have raving fans when it comes to the Ops Tracker. Doctors all over the US and Canada as well as Australia are taking advantage of this simple way to track treatment, stay on schedule, and not keep patients waiting. As a bonus, it provides the ability to message within the office with real time efficiency and not having to use expensive and intrusive radios. Here is a link to an article and short video to help you see the brilliance in this low cost way to insure you are giving patients what they want. https://summitpracticesolutions.com/2016/09/19/the-ops-tracker/