Crafting a Compelling Message Part 3 - Master Your Practice

Crafting a Compelling Message Part 3

Compelling means to cause a response. That response can be acquisition of a lead, a phone call to make an appointment or purchasing some product or service.

Earlier, I spoke of the parts and concepts of that compelling message.

Who is the Market?

Who are you?

Why should I choose you versus every other option?

What is your proposition?

What is your practice promise?

So what remains? Actually quite a lot is left!

The reality is that few marketing messages contain everything that they should. Most contain some. The better ones contain more. This is one reason alone that sometimes it takes multiple messages to get a prospect’s attention and arouse enough interest to go to the next step.

Where is the Proof? That is the mental question everyone asks when receiving any marketing. For some, there is a virtual sneer in that mental voice that says, “ Prove it!”

Others are more tolerant and less jaded. Still, it behooves you to give proof of your assertions early and often.

So few marketing communications contain any proof. The public has become more skeptical, not less. Missouri, The Show Me State” has a whole country of like- minded, red-blooded Americans (and Canadians for that matter) wanting to become honorary members!

So many claims have been made that turned out false or negative that the public cast a critical, judgmental eye towards any marketing sans proof of claims.

So what are good ways to prove your message/ claims? Here is a good workable list that should get you started:

  • Books
  • Articles
  • Free Reports and White Papers
  • Videos
  • Patient Education Explanations
  • Pictures intraoral
  • Statistics
  • Testimonials
  • Reviews, Rankings and Ratings
  • Case Reports
  • Stories of other patients
  • Before and After Pictures of  Patients

The more proofs offered the better, usually.

Beyond three or four of these categories and you can start to run into some overkill.

Offer and Timing

An offer is an inducement to act now.

The juicer the offer, the more likely it will get response.

Too few dentists know enough financial information and patient value metrics to recognize how much they can afford to offer. Most offer too little, particularly when new patient values are high for a particular office.

Most businesses lose money on offers and inducements to gain a customer. They are willing because they know the value of a customer over the average expected lifetime of that customer being with them.

Dentists generally do not have to go negative to acquire a new patient. So… you would think that dentists would be more aggressive with offers and inducements.

An offer is really part of the proposition you give to a prospective patient. Note the word –part. The offer should not be all of the proposition. You must give other reasons why you prospective patient says yes. These other reasons plus the offer, make up the proposition.

Offers do get stale over time. When do you know to change offers? When the response continues to drop every time you mail or use a piece of marketing.

As long as it is profitable, you could continue.


Because of inertia resistance (easier to stay the same than to change) and the natural question: why should I take you up on your offer now?

An inducement to act now can be an important part of your compelling message.

People are busy. They need reasons to act now. Once the proposition has appealed to a prospective patient, then the reasons to respond now can be the final propellant to send them over the good side – you.

The most common ways to do this are a deadline and a limited number available. Paradoxically, once a prospect has moved to a least a moderate degree of “I want it’, the deadline in the form of a date or a limited number induces a fear of losing it. FOMO The power of Fear of Missing Out is underestimated. This is especially true when you can give a good reason for the limitation of date or number available. The better the reason, the more believable the limitation becomes.

Weak reasons or no reasons at all smack of hype, hyperbole and inauthenticity.

These spell rejection and cause a mark inside the heads of the prospects on the mental “don’t trust” ledger.

Urgency with reasons why to act now give your message the muscle to get your prospect moving.

A SPECIAL NOTE: With the cultural/societal change in thinking, there has been a rise in the requirement for details and substantial information to be provided in your message. This can be a boon or a boondoggle for your message. Messages need to be longer to provide this kind of info.

The good news is that this is the perfect fit for lead generation marketing!

One-step marketing will have more and more problems, as people today need more data and details. People are being more careful how they spend their money. Appeal to that and you have instant attention.

A particularly effective offer is for something that seldom gets offered by others at a fee or price that is a “no brainer” good deal.

The offer must be for an item that people want or can be made to want at a fee that says “take advantage now.”

What can you think of that could be “that good “of an inducement? Stay with this idea. Just the thinking about it could be enough to spring forth a remarkable ah-ha that could bring new patients to your door and dollars to your bank account.