CEREC marketing can be a game changer for your practice. It can increase your office’s revenue, and it can turn your patients into reliable advocates for your practice. But there’s a catch: these days, CEREC marketing takes more than just one-off brochures or posters. It requires a full-fledge plan.
If you’re a CEREC owner, you know the amazing value this technology can bring to a dental office. From higher case acceptance to increased production and greater patient satisfaction, the CEREC program can take your practice to the next level.
Yet for most CEREC owners out there (especially ones who are just starting out), realizing these benefits becomes a game of building awareness and communicating the advantages of CEREC to the existing patient base.
Who’s the Right Audience for Your CEREC Marketing?
Marketing your CEREC services to your current patients carries a greater return on investment than marketing to new patients.
Why?
Well, your patients already know you. They’re easy to reach. And you can target them precisely, using their demographics, health conditions, and even insurance eligibility. And we all know that when you send the right message to the right patient at the right time, they’re more likely to respond to your marketing and education efforts.
The 120-day CEREC Marketing Blueprint
Capitalizing on the profit potential of CEREC means you’ve got to know how to market its appeal to your patient base. But who has time to learn all that? We decided to do some of the heavy lifting for you: we build a CEREC marketing blueprint to help you market the technology effectively. The plan is simple to follow: all you need is four months’ time, a fondness for teaching, and the desire to make it work.
Day 1 – Educate
The real key to expanding your practice and increasing your bottom line is education. So, first, you have to let your patients know what CEREC can do for them.
You can accomplish this in three ways:
- Sending out an introductory email newsletter to all patients
- Creating conversation about it on social media
- Mailing a letter to each household that has an active adult patient who visited in the last 24 months
Here are two things you can refer to in each of your messages:
- Introduce them to the basics of CEREC,
- Showcase the convenience of CAD/CAM technology
- Tell them about single-visit crowns, inlays, onlays, veneers, and that those produced with CEREC technology are a clinically proven solution for their needs
Day 20 – Educate a Little More
Just a little shy of a month out, reach out again to all patients via email to explain how the CEREC restoration process works.
Discuss the state-of-the-art impression acquisition, design, and milling processes that can have the patient in and out in just one hour.
Crowns in an hour?! Patients will be ecstatic about this! It’s a large part of why you invested in CEREC in the first place – so, tell ’em!
Also, don’t forget to support your overall communication effort with Facebook and Twitter posts inviting patients to learn more.
Day 45 – Time to Promote
By promoting treatment case acceptance, you’re helping patients and your practice remain healthy. Having $500K sitting on the books in uncaptured treatment plan revenue is not where you want to be.
Here’s a CEREC marketing tactic that can help you avoid that:
Around day 45, send an email to all patients with outstanding crown, inlay or onlay treatment plans that are less than six months old.
For those patients without an email address, send a postcard instead. You’ll also want to use Facebook and Twitter to promote the convenience of same-day restorations.
Day 70 – Fire Up the Teacher in You, Again
In the third month of your campaign, launch another education-driven campaign. But this time, use three different channels:
- Use email to educate your patients about the health benefits of CAD/CAM
- Send a newsletter to all your patients describing how CEREC restorations preserve more natural tooth structure and reduce the risk of recurrent decay
- Push out messages across social media to showcase CEREC before-and-after cases.
(With all this education you’re leading, you may want to think about applying for that Golden Apple Award!)
Day 90 – Generate Demand for Cosmetic Restorations
At three months, you should be noticing an uptick in conversations about CEREC in your office. And because you consistently promoted CEREC, patients are starting to pay attention.
Around day 90, you’ll want to go back to the automatic, tried-and-true power of one-click emailing: send a newsletter to all patients that expands on inlays and onlays and that reminds patients about how they can get back their youthful smile by replacing old amalgam.
If you’re feeling generous (and like a real CEREC marketer!), offer an optional incentive within the email. Perhaps, a free whitening with any cosmetic service.
Again, to be a broken record, use Facebook and Twitter posts to drive awareness.
Day 120 – The Finish Line
Bring it home by promoting the convenience of same-day restorations.
Email newsletters that feature the “One Crown, One Visit” theme tend to be a big draw for patients. Email this newsletter to all patients who have an email address on file.
For patients with no email addresses and outstanding crown, inlay, or onlay treatment plans less than 12 months old, send a postcard. (At RevenueWell, we’ve seen practices do well at this stage by offering the optional incentive of a free consultation, so consider that as well.)
And, that’s it. You’ve mastered the art and science of CEREC marketing. Now go fire up that CEREC teacher in you!
RevenueWell worked with Sirona Dental to create an entire marketing plan for CEREC inside RevenueWell, complete with prebuilt content, advanced patient segmentation tools, and all the support you need to make this outreach program uniquely yours. Learn more about how RevenueWell can generate demand for your CEREC services, educate patients on the benefits of CEREC restorations, and increase treatment plan acceptations.
