Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Patient Referrals: It's All About the "THANK YOU".

The goal of any growing practice is new patients.  It's commonly accepted that the least expensive way to acquire those new patients is through word of mouth referrals from existing patients.

Generating more patient referrals doesn't have to be difficult. For starters, let's review what not to do.   

Noted marketing expert Bob Burg, makes a great argument for why a practice should never offer a "bribe" for referrals.  The word "bribe" has a very negative connotation, and it applies to any incentive offered in advance in exchange for a referral. Mr. Burg cites two issues with these type of incentives.
1. If the referrals are not based on loyalty and “know, like and trust” but rather on reward alone, it tends not to be sustainable.
2. (Most importantly) Those to whom you are referred will most likely feel resentful upon discovering they were referred because you bought and paid for the referral. How will they find out? When you tell them that they will receive an incentive for referring you to others.
Instead of offering an upfront incentive, Mr. Burg advocates a simple strategy. Ask for referrals and make sure you say "Thank You" to the referring person after the fact.  Why is this so effective? According to Mr. Burg:
Remember: “Behavior that gets rewarded…gets repeated.”
Key: They don’t feel “bought” but they do feel appreciated.
Of course there are many ways you can say "Thank You".  Handwritten notes are free. Gift cards can be valuable but expensive over time.  A custom thank you message and movie of their choice delivered by txtMovies for only $1.99, well that fits almost everyone's budget. Try txtMovies for free.

About txtMovies
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Saturday, April 12, 2014

Increase Response Rates for CIRP Freshman Survey

Each year hundreds of thousands of college freshmen are asked to participate in the CIRP Freshman Survey.

Getting millennials to take a survey is a known challenge.  The Higher Education Research Institute has published guidelines for encouraging participation including offering survey incentives.

txtMovies offers an ideal survey incentive to increase response rates for CIRP surveys.  Redbox Movie Rental Codes from txtMovies can be redeemed for a 1-night Blu-ray DVD movie rental including many of the latest blockbusters. Redbox codes from txtMovies are:
  • Easily distributed post-survey by TEXT (SMS) message or EMAIL 
  • Redeemable at 35,000+ Redbox kiosks in the US
  • Affordable - only $1.99 per delivered code
Setting up a txtMovies account takes less than 3 minutes. txtMovies provides survey administrators with a survey incentive landing page where respondents will enter their mobile phone number or email address to receive the movie rental code.

Try txtMovies for FREE

About txtMovies
txtMovies enables businesses to deliver customer appreciation via cost effective, easy to use tools. In addition to texting Movie Rental Codes, we offer custom texting solutions. Our customers come from a variety of industries including healthcare, automobile, financial services, retail, associations and not for profit. For more information please visit www.txtMovies.com.