Direct Mail Marketing For Healthcare Clinics

While here at ClinicSense we encourage clinics to use their website and email as the main form of communication with their clients, we also know a thing or two about offline marketing techniques.

Today we’ll discuss client acquisition post cards. Specifically, we’ll talk about basic strategy and what to do to stand out from the crowd.

Strategy

Direct mail strategy comes down to four main parts: (1) location, (2) timing, (3) a good offer, and (4) measurement.

Location: You typically want to send your postcards to houses within a certain radius of your business. If you’re in a densely populated city, this might be only half of a mile, in more rural areas, perhaps several miles. The area you select will also depend on your budget. On average you want to allocate about $0.75 per house, so a budget of $1000 will reach around 1,300 homes.

Timing: If you are usually booked solid in December, it doesn’t make sense to send out a direct mail piece that month. Find a time when you are traditionally slow and send your postcards to help boost business.

The offer: Direct mail (aka snail mail) often works best when you have a special offer. For example, ask the potential client to redeem the coupon for $10 off their first treatment. You really want to make the offer something valuable – while you may be discounting your first treatment, if that client books additional appointments you will get a great return on your investment.

Measurement: Often overlooked, it’s important to track how many of your postcards were redeemed so that you can know how many appointments were booked from your mail campaign. You also want to track how many appointments a customer that finds you via your mail piece books over time, because the return you get on your investment is not just from their first appointment, it’s how much money they generate over their lifetime. So if you spent $1000 your campaign and that leads to 10 new customers, who each book 5 appointments (at a cost of $50 per treatment) then you made $2500 in revenue from your investment.

How To Stand Out

Quality: Do your cards resemble the quality that you offer in your clinic? Remember, everything that you do reflects your image, so quality is very important when choosing your cards. Your cards should be printed on a sturdy card stock to represent the strength of your practice. When ordering, you will see numbers like 12pt, 14pt, or 16pt. All you need to know is that the higher the number, the thicker and higher quality the card.

Color: Having color on both sides of the card allows you to make sure that important information stands out on either side. Adding an AQ (low gloss) or UV (high gloss) coating to your cards will add a professional touch.

Size: Despite what some people try to convince themselves, size does matter! Small cards will get lost among the rest of your clients’ mail. Try and use a card size of minimum 4” x 6”, and don’t be afraid to try some irregular sizes to stand out.

Imagery: Your cards should have high quality images on them in order to ensure that they are kept. Something clean and easy on the eye will stand out the most.