? Frequently Asked Questions ?
EMC Dental Marketing...

We get a lot of questions about our services here at EMC Dental Marketing. Here is a collection of some of the most frequently asked.

General Questions

Q. Where are you located?
A. We are located in Salem which is the capitol city of Oregon on the West coast.
 
Q. How long have you been in business?
A. The business was started in 1994 by Dr. Travis Mcfee DDS, FAGD, and was later sold to Jerry Jones who later sold it to James Erickson.
 
Q. Who is James Erickson?
A. James is the CEO of EMC Dental Marketing, a direct marketer, copywriting expert, and all around good guy. James has been involved in marketing and advertising for over 8 years, and specifically focussed on the dental market for 4 years.
 
Q. What is SofTouch dental?
A. SofTouch dental is a practice management company operating in Salem, OR. WE test a majority of our services there before they even see the light of day. If we offer it as a product... Simple Green Postcard, RARE System, New Movers... SofTouch uses it.
 
Q. How many clients do you have?
A. We work with about 400 clients on a daily basis. The majority of them begin with our monthly Dentistry Confidential system and move on to send the RARE system monthly newsletter, or the Simple Green Postcards.
 
Q. Why should I work with you?
A. There are plenty of reasons you should work with us. We have over 4 years of experience working with dentists from all over the United States. We also are the only independent dental marketing agency that has contracted with a practice management company to test our services. That means we practice what we preach. We don't introduce new programs until we've tested them ourselves.

RARE System Patient Newsletter

Q. Can I mail it quarterly, bi-monthly, twice a year?
A. All of our programs are set up to give you the best results possible. The RARE system is a MONTHLY program due to our past experience showing that you get when you give. If you want referrals and patients on a monthly basis, you need to send a monthly newsletter. The results of the constant contact with your patients is incredible, and the results decrease the less often you send the newsletter to them.
 
Q. Who do I mail it to?
A. Our suggestion is that you send it to all of your head of households that have been active in the past year. Also, make sure to include those that refer people in, or have been referred in as those people are most likely to refer in the future.
 
Q. What are the costs?
A. The price of the system is on a graduating scale. The more newsletters you send each month, the less you pay per newsletter. Please call for the most current breakdown.
 
Q. Can I just get the pieces from you and put it together myself?
A. We would love to send you all of the pieces and let you put the package together (less work for us). But what tends to happen is the newsletter gets pushed off as a secondary action in your office, and pretty soon you have boxes of newsletter pieces sitting around from three months ago. This is why we offer the full service, so you can concentrate on doing dentistry (what you're best at), and not stuffing envelopes.
 
Q. How long does it take to get my first one out?
A. From the time you submit your application to your first newsletter going out can be anywhere between 14 and 30 days. In that time, we have to set up your referral card, receive your patient list, and get initial printing done.

Simple Green Postcard Mailing Program

Q. Why does it go every three weeks?
A. Through our testing at our SofTouch office, we have tried to eliminate the peaks and valleys of new patient flow. We've tested monthly postcards, and weekly postcards, and have found that the best consistent new patient flow comes when the cards are mailed every 3 weeks.
 
Q. Who does it go to?
A. We work very closely with you (the dentist) to figure out who the card goes to. Our suggestion is that you mail to every house within a radius (5-10 miles depending on population saturation) with an average household income or higher. We have had great success with these "radius" mailings.
 
Q. Does it go to the same people every time?
A. We do not mail to the same people every three weeks. However, if we saturate your area with postcards, the same people will receive a second postcard, but not within 3 months of the first.
 
Q. Can I put my website on it?
A. In a quick answer, NO. We have done testing with websites and found that they destroy results. The focus of the card is to get patients to call your office, not draw them to a distracting website.
 
Q. I don't think it represents my practice well. Can I change it?
A. By all means, go ahead and change the card. But realize that the design and wording that we have, has been refined over the past 4 years into the patient producing mailing that it is today. We don't suggest changes, because more often than not, the changes kill your response rates.
 
Q. What kind of results can I expect?
A. On average we see 4 to 6 patients coming from 1000 postcards. In extreme cases, we have had 14, 16, and 22 patients from a single mailing of 1000 cards. But the record so far is 28 new patients from only 1000 cards. The production record from 1000 cards is $82,500. Long distance award goes to a lady from Holland who had the card forwarded to her, and actually flew to the United States to get her dental work done. True story.
 
Q. How long does it take to get started?
A. Allow about 3 weeks after you submit your application to get your first card out.
 
Q. How much does it cost.
A. There is a $495 setup fee, and then a $993.27 fee for each mailing of the cards. The first mailing is 2000 cards, and every three weeks, 1500 more cards get sent.

New Mover Mailings

Q. Who does it go to?
A. The lists we use in the program include people that have purchased homes in the last 3 to 6 months. This will eliminate new construction home purchases, and hit the new move-in at the time when their lives have settled down. When anyone moves into a home, there are many tasks that you must take care of before you begin to think about dentistry. We have found the 3 month window is a good time to invite them into your practice.
 
Q. How does the follow up system work?
A. The first month, your recipient receives an invitation letter. The second month, the same recipient receives a postcard. The next month, a "last chance" letter, and finally in the fourth month, a "final chance" postcard.
 
Q. What is a "grabber"?
A. A grabber is an item that is inserted into a mailing to make it lumpy and more interesting to the recipient. We do this in our new mover program with wooden nickels or coasters. The same effect can be made with erasers or magnets.

OTHER QUESTIONS

Q. What other services do you have?
A. Check our SERVICES page for a complete list of services. If you don't see it there, give us a call and we can set it up, or if we can't do it, we can tell you who we would recommend.
 
Q. My yellow page deadline is tomorrow, can I get an ad designed?
A. Sorry doctor, our custom Yellow Page ads take at least 30 to 60 days to completely design (unless the price is right). By waiting this long to plan, you have put yourself at a disadvantage to all of those other dentists that planned ahead. We have a saying here at EMC Dental Marketing when it comes to custom design projects. "Speed, Quality, Low Price... pick 2."

If you have any questions for us you don't see answered above, we would love to hear them. Please call us at 1-800-311-1390.