Only 4 Months to More Revenue With CEREC

Investments run deep in your practice: the best staff, the most efficient operations, and more advanced technology. If part of this effort involves CEREC, you understand patients aren’t the only beneficiaries of this amazing machine. Capitalizing on the profit potential of CEREC, however, means you’ve got to know how to market its appeal to your patient base. So, we decided to do some of the heavy lifting for you and designed a blueprint to help you market effectively. It’s simple to follow. All you need is four months’ time and the desire to make it work.

Day 1 – Educate

The real key to expanding your practice and increasing your bottom line is education. Sales trainer Jeffrey Gitomer loves to say people “don’t like to be sold, but they love to buy.” So, first, you have to let your patients know what CEREC can do for them. You can accomplish this by sending out an introductory email newsletter to all patients, by talking about it on your social media accounts, and by mailing an actual letter to each household that has an active adult patient who visited in the last 24 months. Try a combination of all three. And, yes, we are talking about a real letter (sent via the post office) – it still works! Here are two things you can refer to in your correspondence:

1. Introduce them to the basics of CEREC, and showcase the convenience of CAD/CAM technology.
2. 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 – A Little More Education

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 want this, right? 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 a Little Bit

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 part of the solution:

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. At this point, you should be using Facebook and Twitter to promote the convenience of same-day restorations.

Day 70 – Again, Fire up the Teacher in You

In the third month of your campaign, educate patients via email about the health benefits of CAD/CAM. Send a newsletter to all patients that refers to how CEREC restorations preserve more natural tooth structure, and reduce the risk of recurrent decay. For this effort, use social media to showcase CEREC before/after cases. Don’t have your own pictures yet? Visit cereconline.com.

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 were consistent in your efforts to promote CEREC, patients are starting to pay attention. Around day 90, you’ll want to again be leveraging the automatic power of one-click emailing by sending a newsletter to all patients. This time, expand on your brief touch from day one about inlays and onlays, reminding patients that replacing old amalgam contributes to a younger looking smile.

If you’re feeling generous (and like a real 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 offering the optional incentive of a free consultation, so you may wish to consider that as well.

And, that’s it. Dead simple. CEREC isn’t just a clinical technology that helps you deliver better patient care. That’s why we’ve 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. It can transform your business with more new patient referrals, higher treatment acceptance and greater sales of elective services. However, the key to achieving these outcomes is effective patient communication. So, if you like the plan we’ve outlined for you here, we’d be happy to automate the entire process for you.