Arnie, a colleague and friend, mentioned this winning idea of attracting your local community in to your practice!
I’ve tweaked it slightly to be used for promoting dental practices.
It’s the Coffee On Us! campaign.
Imagine heading to work in the morning. You make your way to the local cafe to get your morning coffee to drink during your commute. Instead of the barista taking your money, they happily tell you that you don’t need to pay today. That your coffee is being covered by your local dental surgery!
Wow! What a good feeling that would give you! This unexpected bonus is certainly a happy way to start the day.
The barista then hands you a voucher card from the surgery that gives you a 20% discount on a check-up and cleaning.
The primary reason I love this idea is that the dental practice is tapping in to RECIPROCITY.
Renowned behavioural psychologist Robert Cialdini states in his book ‘Influence’ that one of the six factors that influence our behaviour is reciprocity. Someone does something good for us, and we in turn feel compelled to do something good for them.
There are significant benefits to the cafe owner as well, using this strategy. Customers will become more loyal because of the principle of reciprocity in action.
To arrange this for your practice, print business-sized cards similar to the image above. Then take 20 or 50…or 100 to your local cafe. Pay the cafe for the number of coffee vouchers you hand over. As the morning crowd come in (your market), the cafe hands over the gifts and delights your potential patients.
You could roll out this promotion spasmodically or monthly.
Track the response to see if a cafe local to your practice, or one that is close to the local train station yields a greater return.
Local community awareness is a smart marketing strategy. This Coffee On Us! campaign provides a perfect opportunity.
In my next blog I will consider different ways to use this strategy and how you can monitor its effectiveness.