A Dentist's Guide to Optimizing Marketing Automation Workflows for Patient Retention

Struggling with patient retention despite the best pricing, offers, and reputation? Optimizing marketing automation workflows (or setting one up if you haven't already) might be the missing puzzle piece in your practice's success! Modern-day dentists face increasing pressure to not only attract new patients but to keep existing ones engaged and loyal - especially when it comes to high-value services like dental implant marketing.

And in this digital-first world, patient retention is not a child's play. It's no longer about the casual reminders for six month cleanings that you send to your patients; it's about building a close-knit relationship with them that harbours lasting trust and satisfaction. This, obviously, requires a strong marketing strategy and consistent effort.How is a dentist running a busy practice (with already a ton of work on their plate) supposed to do this manually? It's practically impossible!

That's where marketing automation steps in. Marketing automation is everything you need to keep up your patient retention game, without you having to lift a finger! From sending timely recall emails, follow up reminders or delivering personalised oral health tips - marketing automation does it all effortlessly! The process is simple: marketing workflows are established and fed into your system, which then executes the workflows on autopilot. But there's a catch. Setting up workflows isn't enough. You need to 'optimize' the workflows for maximized, tangible results. 

Willing to learn it all? Read this blog! This blog will tell you exactly what a marketing automation workflow is, why it matters for your dental clinic and how to fine-tune the workflows to turn random visitors into lifelong patients.

What's A Marketing Automation Workflow?

Let's first understand what a marketing automation workflow is and make the concept digestible for our not-so-techy dentist fellows. In simple words, a marketing automation workflow is a set of predefined actions carried out by marketing software. These actions are triggered by specific patient behaviours/interactions and are carried out automatically by the software (which is exactly what 'automation' means). Some common examples of these actions are emails, SMS texts and other task assignments, all with one common goal: to nurture patient relationships without constant manual intervention.

Think of marketing automation as your clinic's silent assistant (with superhuman, round-the-clock work capabilities) - it knows your patient base all too well, sends them timely appointment reminders, birthday greetings, and customised oral health tips.

The result? Your patients feel connected, heard and understood, and they always run to you whenever faced with a dental issue. This is patient retention at best! Let's look at examples of some basic marketing workflows:

No step in the workflow is without purpose; it always has a 'goal' - whether it's to drive a booking, build trust or improve engagement. And when these steps are done right, they help deliver timely and relevant messages with no manual effort involved.

Why Marketing Automation Workflows Are Important For Dental Clinics

As we just saw, a marketing automation workflow doesn't just keep existing patients in the loop; it actually facilitates the entire patient journey from the very start, and doesn't let it end – the best part! But that's a very high level definition of what a marketing automation workflow does. To understand the full scope of its working, we must understand what it does on a ground level, and why it's important for dental clinics.

Here's why marketing automation workflows are vital for dental practices:

Improved Patient Retention

Most clinics focus on acquiring new patients, not realising that retaining existing ones is just (or perhaps more) important. It's in fact the real secret to long-term success. Interestingly, studies show that acquiring new patients is about 5-25 times more costly than retaining current ones. A wise practice owner would therefore invest more in retention than in acquisition. Wish to achieve maximised retention with one-time investment and minimal manual effort?A well crafted automation workflow is the best hack for this! 

It helps you stay at the top of mind of your patient. Sending timely recall reminders, followup requests and educational content keeps patient engaged at every step of their journey. It breeds patient loyalty, not only in theory but also in practice (research shows that practices that follow up with patients via emails/SMS have a 15-30% higher retention rate).

Consistent Communication

Marketing messages need to fulfill 3 criteria to be effective: they need to be 'relevant', 'timely' and 'consistent'. You might think you can manually send relevant and timely messages (which is true, you definitely can), but what about consistency? You can't guarantee consistency even with the most skillful team, especially while managing a large and diverse patient base. Automation ensures every patient receives timely, professional communication every time, which builds trust and dependability.

Operational Efficiency

When automation handles all communication and takes the manual burden off your team, your front desk staff can focus on more critical tasks. This reduces administrative errors and saves both time and money.

Personalized Patient Experience

The word 'automation' naturally evokes feelings of being robotic, cold or monotonous. That's wrong. Automation doesn't mean impersonal. Though it's run by machines, it can give a very heartfelt and personalized experience. This is done by segmenting the patient list (for example by procedure type, age or history), which lets the software send customized messages that speak directly to the patient's needs. This ties in perfectly with your growth as 80% of consumers are more likely to engage with brands offering personalised experiences. 

Better Treatment Acceptance

Patients often experience anxiety and paranoia before they undergo a treatment. The fears, the concerns, the 'what ifs' - there are way too many reasons for them to seek safety and reassurance before they commit. Followup workflows are built to foster this safety. Followup emails explain procedures, address common concerns or highlight financing options. All of this makes patients feel informed and cared for beyond the chair, increasing acceptance rates.

How To Optimize Marketing Automation Workflows For Patient Retention

Setting up a workflow is one thing, and setting it up in a way that's 'efficient' and 'optimized' for performance is a whole different thing altogether.

Here's how you can make that happen:

Map The Patient Journey

Since patient retention lies at the end of the patient journey, you must plan your entire journey around it.

Start by identifying important touchpoints/milestones in the patient lifecycle, such as:

These touchpoints are solid opportunities to reach the patients and automate communication. CRM platforms or specialized patient journey mapping tools to visualize these stages and identify where automation is worthwhile.

Use Behavioural Triggers 

Lifecycle touchpoints aren't the only chances for delivering marketing messages. There are basically time-based triggers, which will merely push the patient through the lifecycle (establishing dental patient journey automation in other words) but won't make them feel truly connected. For truly personalized, close-knit communication, it's important to identify the 'behavioural' triggers and automate based on patient actions. Patient missed an appointment? Send a rescheduling SMS. They opened an educational email but didn't book? Followup with a limited time offer. These micro interactions make your communication feel more personalized and relevant, keeping patients thoroughly engaged.

Segment Your Patient Base

All your patients require dental care, but they're individual human beings with unique demographics, interests and online behaviour. How do you target such a versatile group of people? Of course, there can't be a one-size-fits-all messaging that'd work here. You need to segment your patient base into categories, such as:

Then send customized emails to each category. You'll see a huge increase in open rates than if you were to send generalized mails to all contacts. This is backed by stats - segmented campaigns drive 14.31% more email opens and 100.95% more clicks than non-segmented campaigns, as per Mailchimp.

Send Personalised Content 

This is where the real work begins. After list segmentation, your task is to craft personalized content for each group (don’t worry, it’s a one-time effort - thanks to email automation, your messages will be sent to the entire group with the necessary modifications automatically). You can get as insightful and creative as you want, but for starters, it’s better to stick with the basics. Use the patient’s name, procedure history, and address relevant concerns in your message - and that should be it.

A simple but highly personalized email like “Hi Sarah, it’s been six months since your last cleaning. Set your appointment for the next cleaning using the link below, we’re waiting to see you again!” can do wonders! Such emails, when powered by email automation, improve click-through rates by 41% (and conversion rate by 29%) according to Experian

Automate Review Requests

Want patients to market for you for free? Give them the king behaviour during the treatment, then ask for reviews. Happy patients are your best marketers! Use automated workflows to request reviews after treatment. But make sure you don't come across as salesy or desperate in the requests. 

Here's a nice way to do it:

Why are reviews so important nowadays? They don't just build trust but have become a major channel of customer acquisition. 87% of all healthcare patients look at reviews before choosing a provider - make sure you leverage them right!

Optimize Timing And Frequency 

Don't we all hate emails that come during work hours, are too frequent or those that buzz your phone during sleep? Your patients feel just the same; don't overwhelm them with emails. But you don't know your patient's work or sleep schedules, so how would you ensure your emails are well received? This is where testing comes in. Test different times, days and frequencies to see what works best. 

Generally, these timings/frequencies work well:

You can also do A/B testing to compare subject lines and content for maximum engagement.

You don't have to rely only on emails, however.  Emails have genuine limitations when it comes to sending times, but SMS doesn't. SMS messages are in fact perfect for last minute reminders or urgent communication, offering a 98% open rate. So you can safely use SMS when emails aren't feasible. Just make sure you get proper consent before texting.

Monitor Workflow Performance 

Your workflows may perform well initially, but they need to be monitored (and refined) continuously for consistent performance. Review your marketing platform's analytics dashboard and track key metrics from there. Open rates, click through rates, appointment bookings and unsubscribes are some important metrics to be analysed. Monitor these, then compare them to your set KPI benchmarks.This will give you solid insights and data (and hence a clear direction) to refine workflows. 

Integrate Automation Software With Your Practice Management System 

Choose your automation software wisely! Go for more features, even if it comes at a little extra cost.If you have a limited budget and can't afford an advanced software, make sure it at least allows integration with your PMS. This is actually a basic and preliminary requirement, yet clinics tend to overlook it. Integration of PMS with your automation software enables seamless syncing of patient data, automatic trigger conditions (like 'last visit date') and easier workflow updates.

Conclusion

Want to increase patient retention without overwhelming your team? Marketing automation workflows are the way to go! They empower you to stay connected, deliver exceptional experiences, and increase retention without any manual effort. But like any tool, automation needs optimization to truly shine, and for that we highly recommend using our abovementioned tips. If you're looking to take your workflows to the next level, now is the perfect time to invest in smarter systems that keep your patients coming back smiling!

New to marketing automation or don't feel confident enough to handle it yourself? No worries! Partner up with Teraleads, a full arch dental marketing agency offering A-Z marketing solutions (including automation setup and management) to various premium dental practices located in the US and Canada.  Outsource your automation to us so you may focus on the more important task: tending to your hard-earned patients when they're in the chair!