Afternoon. On the phone yesterday you mentioned your newsletter and the Portal we supply. To a strategic digital marketing company like AcctWeb these two items are part of a bigger practice development strategy that I’ve outlined below.
As you know we have never been in favour of Newsletters as they do nothing but transfer information and suit only 6-8% of your clients (they do nothing for the remaining 90%). Newsletters have only ever made the practice feel it’s doing something. However, as far as long term practice development goes Newsletters do very little. Portals have also struggled after the great fanfare of the past and the promotion by companies such as MYOB. There are examples of successful Portal use but again it takes time that most practices don’t have and, it seems, only ‘6-8%’ of clients use them as well
The problems with all that’s gone before in regard to client development is an overall lack of strategy integration; a belief within practices that they have the time and expertise to use the available digital resources; and the fact that a client base, while having a lot of potential, has not had the focus it deserves.
We believe we’ve finally fixed this problem but it requires a change of thinking within a practice. In short, we take over the client development part as well, which is 60% of the effectiveness of digital resources. The ‘parts’ I’m referring to here are the website, the interactive content, and client development (using your digital infrastructure).
Also we do this without increasing the ‘real’ cost to a practice but we do generate the results needed for long term practice development.
How is this done?
Below is an image that describes the process and it’s all about improving client experience (ICE) and practice development from maximising referrals, increasing website traffic (something Google rewards), and greater penetration of clients’ networks into the future.
What’s involved and what change is needed?
- A good website. You should switch to the new site asap because the new design shows the practice is moving forward and it’s fully responsive to device size and that’s also something Google likes. Your current website isn’t responsive.
- You have all the interactive content you need to develop your client base and to generate extra website traffic.
- Client
communications. Currently you send a monthly newsletter via the
Portal we supply. Unfortunately only some 6-8% of propel are readers
(e-mail Opens do not reflect this) and it including a lot of information
that slows clients down further. Practices had almost stopped
sending printed newsletters before the digital revolution because of poor
readership. A digitised version helps with cost but it doesn’t
improve readership. Also, a client communication should have as many
as 20 hyperlinks to the practice’s website and that’s not the case here.
Our solution means that for an extra $125 a month, though you could save a net $41 a month ($186 if Portal isn’t needed – $125 – $20 (estimated Mailchimp account cost) and we would take over the newsletter role. If you’re not using the Portal as a Vault for clients then I think it should be replaced by a Mailchimp account. Blackburn Lazer can have as much input as wanted into what we send but it’s the links and the other items of interest such as videos that suit different groupings within your client base and therefore more have a better experience. Really, long term practice development and value is greatly enhanced by ICE but history has shown that ICE isn’t something a practice can realistically do itself.
Practices are increasingly taking up our ICE solution.
I look forward to discussing this again shortly. Below is an ICE diagram and a copy of one of our live Newsletters but please don’t ring that client. It has to be live so you can see how the links etc work.