I have been talking a lot with my team members here at BoomCloud about what it takes to be successful with a membership program. We are seeing a lot of practices succeed with this business model and we also see practices that don’t succeed. We want to be a resource and help all of our users be successful. Here are some tips for becoming successful as you launch your program in your office.
- Don’t set it and forget it
Most practices think when they sign up with BoomCloud that they can just set up everything and connect BoomCloud to their website and then patients will sign up automatically. Although this may happen, this is completely false and the wrong mindset for success. Your membership program will need a lot of work especially if you are just getting started, You will need to make sure your staff is trained on presenting and selling this to existing and new patients, you will need to have an external and internal marketing strategy. If you think your plan will market itself you shouldn’t be setting up a membership program.
Anything of value takes good old fashioned work to get started and maintained. If you want to be a practice that signs up over 1,000 patients in one year then you need to work for it. The good news is when you work and put the effort into something that will provide value for both your practice and your patients you will always be successful. You reap what you sow.
Train your staff
Your staff is a critical component to your membership program success. If you do not communicate to your staff about what you would like them to do to help sell your membership program they will not do what you want. They cannot read your mind. Set goals with your staff, educate them on the benefits of a membership program and why it will make their job easier and educate them on the benefits for the patients. We see practices all the time that to do not communicate effectively which will result in a failed membership program.
3. Understand your patients
I think it is critical to understand your patients. My team and I have been reading the book called “Ask” by Ryan Levesque. He teaches us that we should ask our clients, users, patients, etc about problems they are dealing with so that we can understand the trends and patterns. If you create a survey and ask your patients what they are struggling with in regards to dental care, you will start to pick up the trends and understand exactly what they need. Ask open ended questions and do your best to help your patients. Most practices just assume what their patients need, start communicating with them and asking them questions, you will be surprised what you will learn.
4. Focus on external marketing
Every practice has attrition no matter how good of a dentist you are. You need to have a continual stream of leads and potential new patients for your practice. If you are not focusing on growth you are slowly shrinking because every business and practice deals with attrition. When a practice starts a membership program understand that it is a marketing tool as well as a patient loyalty tool, case acceptance tool, a valuation tool and a cash flow/ recurring revenue tool. Marketing is so crucial for growth, use direct mail marketing, facebook ads and other channels to help generate awareness about your membership program. I am consistently thinking about awareness marketing strategies to help fill the stream of leads for my business, I think dental practices should focus on this more, you will have more opportunities come to your door if you do.
Conclusion
There is a lot more we can talk about when it comes to creating a successful membership program. Talk with one of our team members today and we can educate and help you get started on the right foot with your membership program. Schedule a demo here – https://boomcloudapps.com/demo-schedule/
Best,
Jordon Comstock
Founder, CEO
BoomCloud
