- December 2004 - Greetings, Welcome to our end of the year special issue. This month I want to discuss the most important marketing and practice building issue that is most frequently overlooked by doctors. Namely, the important uses and management of an in-house mailing list. Your mailing list can dramatically improve your income. One doctor heard me speak about living off nothing but the mailing list, and ever since he s used his existing base of patients to build a financially stable lifestyle. What is a mailing list? The term mailing list means The name and address of everyone who has purchased your services over the years. For doctors, this would of course be your patients. Who should be part of your mailing list? The answer depends on the purposes and needs of that particular marketing project. Here s what I mean: If you wanted to stimulate reactivations and referrals, you might commence a monthly newsletter to stay in touch. A newsletter is a great way to indirectly stimulate new business without appearing to be begging for it. (I ve seen a newsletter improve collections by $5,000 a month, regularly, for exactly this reason) Who should receive your newsletter? Should everyone on your mailing list get it? 1
The answer is it depends. It depends on: The budget you re working with What goal you wish to accomplish How fresh your mailing list is What s your budget? The first consideration is what do you want to invest? If you have say $500 to invest in your monthly newsletter, for most practices your best option would be mailing only to your active patients. We know that active patients have a 2-times higher likelihood of referring and coming in for additional products and services compared to inactive patients. If you have $1,000 than I would mail to all my actives and my inactives going back 2-3 years. If you have more of a budget to work with, than you could mail it to the entire mailing list. What are you trying to accomplish? The second consideration is what is your goal in sending out the newsletter? If it were primarily reactivations, than you would most likely not send it to your active patients. Instead you would segment your mailing list by mailing only to those inactive patients. However you d want what we call the recent inactives. People that haven t been in for up to 3 years, but no longer than that. The longer a patient is considered inactive, the less likely the practice is to see them again. So now we begin to balance the budget constraints against what goal you re trying to accomplish. This provides a context for making the decision as to what part of your mailing list to use! How fresh is your mailing list? We are referring to how accurate your database is (or isn t). I factor this in to my decision making process. Because if a doctor has a limited budget say under $300, and he informs me he has never mailed to his inactives previously, chances are good that a percentage of that mailing list is no longer accurate. As much as 30% of a doctors budget can be wasted by mailing to undeliverable addresses. A secret weapon that can save you up to 30% in wasted marketing costs I d like to share with you a secret weapon that I ve been teaching private clients for years. We use this tool in our own business. 2
People toss around the phrase secret too frequently. But this truly is a secret that very few people know about. It make save you significant money over the years. It can make you a lot more income, when doing Mailing List Marketing! Here s a secret that can save you 65% on postage! One of the biggest costs to doctors is postage. The second biggest cost is wasting money on postage, to people that have moved. This is simply money down the drain. The USPS doesn t give you a refund on postage for people that have moved! One practice I know of once mailed a reactivation letter to over 6,000 inactive patients. At the time first class postage was 32-cents, or about $1920 spent on postage. I learned that nearly 40% of the mail was returned to his office as non-deliverable. That s about $800 down the drain. Do you know that he could have prevented most of this waste? Cleaning, removing dupes, correcting and certifying your mail list before you mail can significantly increase delivery rate while reducing mailing costs by as much as 65%. Here's how to do it. CASS Certified What is it and how it can save you $$ There is software that enables you to: Determine the accuracy of your mailing list Removes / corrects the non-deliverables automatically Prints out a CASS 5 digit bar code, that makes you eligible for a significant postage discount! Being in private practice is like being in any business: Certain one-time investments are required, if you desire to run a profitable stable business If you re going to be staying in practice for any period of time, it s almost always advisable to CASS certify your entire mailing list Before doing marketing to that list. Here s how this works: Before I do any mailings to a mailing list, I would run the list through a CASS certified mail list cleaning and certification program to determine how many invalid addresses were on the list, how many duplicates, how many undeliverables, and get a demographic breakdown of the addresses on the list. I would use the CASS certification program to clean up and correct all addresses on the list, and then take advantage of CASS 5 digit bar code savings from the post office to save 65% on mailing (and reduce undeliverables to under 1%). 3
CASS Certification of mailing lists Here s what Bill Myers, an experienced entrepreneur and marketer says about getting your mailing list CASS certified : If you are doing a mailing to a list of more than a few hundred addresses, it pays to use a address cleaning, dupe checking, CASS certification program to clean and correct the mailing addresses before you mail. Doing so can mean that instead of paying 37 cents for a first class postage, you pay 27 cents - a savings of $92 per 1,000 pieces you mail. More importantly, doing a CASS certification means you virtually eliminate undeliverables. You won't be sending mail to dead-end addresses - which can easily save you 80 cents or more per undeliverable item. (Imagine what you would save if you were doing a dollar bill mailing - where you include a dollar in each envelope you mail!) Getting CASS certified Bill Myers gives some pointers about getting your mail CASS certified: To be CASS Certified, a mailing must have a minimum score of 98% accuracy for ZIP+4, 100% accuracy for delivery point coding, and 98% accuracy for carrier route and five-digit coding. Getting these kinds of high accuracy scores is easy - regardless of what file format your mailing list is in. All you need to do is to use a CASS certified mailing list cleaning program which inputs, analyzes, corrects, and certifies your mailing list. Where can you obtain this software? The program most often recommended is called Mailers+4 Standard. This is sold by a company called Melissa Data. At the time of this writing, the cost is $195. Most doctors will save this much (at least!) the first time they use the software to clean their mailing list. Remember, we re talking about a major savings in postage here. I ll save you the boring details about how the software works, but it s as easy as: Locating the mailing list on your computer Opening the file in Mailers+4 Standard Then, letting the software work its magic! Bill Myers uses this software as do I and so do many of our clients. 4
What s great about this software is in a matter of moments And without needing to understand anything about how CASS certifying even works This software will: Run an address dupe check Then it will do an address correction (based on USPS deliverable addresses) Followed by the creation of a mailing label file Finally, it will create CASS certification forms and reports (filled out) ready for the post office! In addition, using this software the mailing labels are pre-sorted for lowest postal rates! It does this automatically for you! With postal bar codes below the address, and ready to print either on labels or direct to envelopes. Save yourself thousands Progressive doctors understand the importance of keeping in touch with their patients. This means that over a career of 20 years, the average practice will be mailing things approximately 20,000 to 50,000 times. That sounds like a lot, but consider all the mail that leaves your office: Reminder postcards Newsletters Promotional flyers and letters Postcards Bills And more. Using Mailters+4 software can save you significant amounts of money on these mailings. Find out more about Mailers+4 by visiting http://www.melissadata.com/mp4.html. Be sure to run the interactive tour (find link in the upper right corner of http://www.melissadata.com/mp4.html). Getting your mailing list ready Some doctors reading this might be thinking, But my database isn t computerized. Actually, chances are good that it already is computerized. You just didn t realize it. If you re using any sort of office management software such as Medisoft, you have the capability to export your database as popular database file such as.csv and the like. Trust me, this will repay you in spades! Learning how to export your database so that you can electronically print out labels and run your database through a CASS certification software can save you tremendous amounts of money. It will save you hours of handwriting addresses. It will bring you into the modern age! If you re the type who doesn t like or understand computers, it s worthwhile to hire a young person to assist you. Everything we ve talked about is easy to do and anyone with Excel or computer experience can easily help you with. 5
This will make your marketing job much easier It will speed up your ability to mail newsletters, postcards, flyers, etc., which means more income generated in the practice! The first thing to do once you have your Mailing List ready When s the last time you did a recall / reactivation mailing? It can be an extremely valuable activity. One example I talk about in the Monster Patient Flow course (Vol 1) is about a doctor who generated over $30,000 from a cheap recall program. As I discuss in this program, the ingredients to an effective and profitable recall program are: It must be ongoing No one shot recall activities It must be GENTLE not annoying The last dentist I used was technically an excellent doctor. Well trained. He had the latest technology. He understood good dental technique. Even his staff was well trained and courteous. However there was a period of about 5 months in which I traveled extensively and was flying in and out of Rochester constantly. This dentists office called me no less than a half dozen to a dozen times, sent me letters, postcards and the like with a mild threatening tone. In short, I am no longer his patient. And will never go back. You see, he did everything else correct. Yet all his good intentioned efforts were shattered with an overly aggressive recall / reactivation program. He probably learned his recall methods at one of these fly-by-night practice management seminars that roll into town. If he only knew the extent to which his actions were harming long term practice equity! A recall program can make you money If you haven t contacted your patients in some while If there are hundreds of thousands of patients you haven t seen for 3 months or longer You would be well served to consider a Recall Marketing Program. It can bring in substantial income. 6
When a Recall Program fails Some doctors have used overly-aggressive Case Presentations with patients. They blow patients out of the water with such high pressure methods. When they try to reactivate them later, they attain little results. Isn t it obvious the reasons why? No person in their right mind would want to subject themselves to such an experience a second time! Low results from recall efforts is a symptom of low practice equity. In other words, there is little value left inherent within the base of patients because the doctor has alienated so many of the patients. When a recall program succeeds When the doctor has good relationships with his patients his recall efforts can be extremely profitable. Other uses for a mailing list The theme of this newsletter is the effective use and management of a practices mailing list. We covered what a mailing list is, how to clean it up, remove the duplicates, save a lot of money using it, and some ideas on how to use your mailing list to generate new income. That s plenty to get you started! What are some other uses and ways to make money with a practice mailing list? Here are just a few extra ideas I d thought I d provide to you, to get the wheels turning: Patient Appreciation Days: The most effective way to notify patients about these events is through the mail and face to face (when you see patients) One doctor generated over $10,000 in new business from his Patient Appreciation Day by mailing cheap postcard announcing the event, to all his active patients + all inactives not seen in the last 36 months. Announcing back end programs and services: People in our Mentor Program learn about how much income can be generated through the addition of back end health programs. Things such as Weight Loss Programs, Anti-Aging Programs, nutritional based programs, and the like. We advise clients to first launch such programs by doing a targeted mailing to the Active patients. Once again, with proper mailing list management such a mailing takes minutes to print out and get started! 7
By the way, weight loss services are in extreme demand this time of year. One doctor merely mentioned he would be offering weight loss hypnosis and in a single afternoon had over a dozen female patients interested... and trying to hand him money for this service! There is big income potential to be made, offering high end services to an existing base of patients. Don t forget it! The A-B-C Strategy: Segment patients according to their value. A clients being the highest value / highest rate of referral, B being the second, and C being everyone else. By segmenting your mailing list in this manner, you can engage in extremely profitable relationship building methods with your most valuable / most likely to refer patients. Recently, one doctor in my Mentor Program told us this strategy as responsible for him attaining collections of $50,000 a month for the first time. In his career. (I cover this strategy in some great detail in Monster Patient Flow Vol 1) Charity-based Marketing: One of the most favorable forms of marketing for patients, is to get behind a charity / worthwhile cause. It creates goodwill in the community. It makes the doctor look like a good guy / girl. It can produce higher / better results than other forms of marketing! At least 2-3 times a month, I post current articles on Practice Building Center online about doctors using Charity Marketing to generate patient flow, positive media attention, and free advertising. This short list only scratches the surface! There are hundreds of profitable ways to use your Mailing List to build your practice. In summary, you can grow your practice with a Mailing List and with proper maintenance of that list in the form of CASS Certification and proper upkeep. If you re not a techie hire someone who is to assist you. Today s modern practice should be computerized and have ready access to their mailing list as a database file. If not, you are costing yourself thousands of dollars per year in unrealized potential. The fist thing to do with that list is begin a Recall / Reactivation Program. This is a program that should be ongoing, and constantly cycles patients through. A recall program works if there is practice equity, and it doesn t work if the doctor has been using high-pressure tactics to force patients into large treatment plans against their will. There are hundreds of other uses for a mailing list! Promotion of new products and services, the launch of other aspects of the practice, appreciation days, charity promotions and others can and do grow the practice and bring awareness to patients. We like to call this Top of Mind Marketing. It works, plain and simple! Have a great New Year! I hope you ve found this treatise on the use and upkeep of a practice mailing list to be helpful and informative. But do you know what will make me really happy? If you now go out and use this information to enrich the lives of your patients and your own! To your success in practice, Ben Cummings 8