Breaking news on dental marketing: dental direct mail wins the hearts of potential patients who look for reliable dental services. Although we all have switched to online communication and advertising, traditional postcard marketing still works wonders. Not only baby boomers, but also younger generations express their love for mail postcards. In the epoch of impersonal online advertising, printed postcards are something highly personalized and unique. The feel of paper, the smell of fresh print, and appealing postcard design make dental direct mail memorable. Yet it’s not only about a nice look and feel. With a 29% return on investment and a 43% response rate increase, dental direct mail is also a highly effective marketing medium.

In addition, dental direct mail is very versatile. You will find an option for every type of patient and occasion, be it a free examination offer or a birthday voucher. With the custom postcard builder offered by Inkit, the opportunities are even broader. You won’t have to hire a professional designer or attend design courses – just choose a professional template and adapt it to your needs. To help you with that, our article will cover the most common types of dental direct mail and the ways to automate dental marketing with Inkit.

Key Types of Direct Mail for Dentists

Promotional Self-Mailers

This type of direct mail is suitable for a dental office that doesn’t want to invest in market analysis or use highly targeted marketing. Choosing it, you will definitely save time and resources you would otherwise spend on mail customization. The printing cost will also be lower since you won’t have to splurge on envelopes and stamps. Besides, self-mailers have no size or form limitations, which creates extra space for your creative ideas. That’s why it’s a perfect dental direct mail for mass marketing not based on customized mailing lists. Yet in case you work locally or require more targeted marketing for dentists, you will have to substitute or supplement self-mailers with other kinds of dental direct mail.

‘New Mover’ Direct Mail

This direct mail requires more homework than promotional self-mailers. You will need to keep track of people who have just moved to your area. Why? Most probably, they will start searching for a dental office nearby, so your task is to give them the right directions. According to the research, 8.6% of potential patients consider the distance to a dental office a decisive factor in their choice of dental practices. Use direct mail to introduce yourself to the new movers and assure them of your customer service quality and skills. And when they respond to your dental direct mail and visit your clinic, this type of patient is very likely to become your most loyal customers.

Every Door Direct Mail

Acknowledging the importance of local marketing, the United States Postal Service has launched a program known as Every Door Direct Mail. It yields quick results for small businesses, including dental practices. You can use a USPS.com account to pick a mailing list based on a standard mailing route closest to your premises. The United States Postal Service will deliver dental direct mail to every person belonging to the selected route. Note that although Every Door Direct Mail program offers very attractive pricing, it isn’t as flexible as other mailing options. You will need to meet strict size criteria and send a certain number of mail postcards (from 200 to 5000) per day sacrificing personalization.

Dental Appointment Cards

Nobody likes phone calls that distract from work or interfere in daily routine. A dental postcard informing your patients about scheduled meetings may be a perfect way to solve this problem. Such a mail piece will not only make your work better coordinated but also serve its mail marketing purpose. You will increase your brand awareness and build stronger relationships with patients. Thanks to such dental direct mail marketing, they will appreciate your customer service and professionalism. By the way, overall services quality (19.72%), dentist’s respect for patients (6.39%), and respect for schedules (1.8) are among the top 10 factors that influence the decision of potential patients to use dental services. Note that for effective dental appointment card delivery, your account manager will need to process patient data through a CRM system and use mail automation. This will allow creating a detailed mailing list taking into account the personal needs of every single patient.

Discount Vouchers

Discount and special offer vouchers are an essential element of most mail campaigns. Offer your potential patients to exchange a voucher for a discount after they come to your dental office. It will convince the mail recipients to choose your dental practice over your competitors that don’t use dental marketing. Remember that to ensure return on investment from direct mail for dentists, a mailing list is a must. Find time and resources to research your target audience to know which type of patients is likely to become loyal customers and deserves a decent ‘welcoming’ of ‘loyal customer’ discount.

Dimensional Direct Mail for Dentists

Such mail campaigns usually require more investment than an ordinary postcard design with listed services, address, and pricing. Yet a 20% response rate is a compelling reason to use dimensional dental direct mail in your mail marketing. An appealing package has a lower chance to be tossed in the garbage than usual dental postcards. Anyone would want to open it and look what’s inside. For instance, to boost your dental direct mail marketing, you may consider sending potential patients a box with a branded travel toothbrush. Most people would love to keep it and recall your services every time they use the toothbrush.

How Can Inkit Boost Your Dental Direct Mail Marketing?

Many dental services are local companies that cannot afford a full-time marketing specialist to take care of their mail marketing. Also, they usually don’t want to invest in direct mail design as well as manage the printing and delivery process. If you run a dental office, you are probably looking for a third-party that will complete all these tasks. Well, that’s what Inkit helps with. Our automated services can simplify direct mail for dentists in the following ways:

• Custom template builder. With Inkit’s software, you can select from numerous templates and create postcard design to your liking. They are easily customized based on the types of dental direct mail you choose.
• Automatic printing and delivery. After you click ‘Send’, we automatically print and deliver the mail within 3-6 business days. No need to go to the post office or hire a printing subcontractor – Inkit is all in one place.
• CRM integration. In the case of targeted marketing, it’s essential to send different mail to different people. If you manage customer data using a CRM system, you can upload this information to Inkit to quickly create customized mailing lists.

Unlimited batch size. Using Inkit, you can deliver any number of mail pieces you need – from one postcard to millions of self-mailers. It’s an extremely convenient function if you want to test dental direct mail before large-scale delivery or send just several items to a few people.