Right Message + Right Audience = More Sleep Patients

In the last issue we identified the market potential for dental sleep medicine. This month we’ll discuss how the right message to the right audience will help you attract more sleep patients.  

Understand your audience segments

There are likely thousands of potential sleep patients within a few miles of your practice. And each of them is in a different place with regard to their sleep issues. Here are a few examples:

  • Always tired and don’t know why
  • Snoring is negatively affecting their relationships
  • Having health issues that physicians can’t explain
  • Been told they need a sleep test, but don’t want to spend the night in a sleep lab
  • Been diagnosed with OSA, but unwilling to try CPAP
  • Have a CPAP and are non-compliant
  • Have a CPAP and use it regularly, but hate to travel with it
  • Have an oral appliance that’s not working, broken, causing discomfort, etc.

Customize your message

In order to resonate with each of these patient groups, your marketing message needs to be tailored to them. A message that pushes an emotional hot button with one audience will fall on deaf ears with another.

Professional copywriters refer to this concept as “joining the conversation that’s going on in the prospects mind”.  Each of these groups will have very different internal conversations taking place.

An ad touting the benefits of traveling with an oral appliance vs. a CPAP machine is going to have little impact on someone who has never used a CPAP. Talking about the convenience of home sleep tests to someone who has recently been tested and diagnosed with OSA is pointless.  

To maximize the effectiveness of your marketing, you want each touchpoint to speak to that specific patient. When they see your ads, they should be thinking “that’s me, that’s exactly how I feel”. When they land on your website there should be a message that’s consistent with the ad they saw. This continues to move them down the path to scheduling a sleep consult with you.

The right message + the right audience

Consider a campaign targeting non-compliant CPAP patients. This campaign may include ads on Google and Facebook. The ads are designed and worded to create awareness of oral appliance therapy (OAT) as an effective, convenient alternative to CPAP. The ads might take them to a landing page that highlights the common frustrations with CPAP and clearly explains the benefits of OAT. Everything from the images to the verbiage would be very different than a campaign targeting snorers who may have no idea they have sleep apnea.

This simple shift in strategy will maximize your advertising budget and yield significant increases in your return on investment.

If you’d like to discuss your market and brainstorm ideas to attract more sleep patients visit BullseyeDental.com/Call to book a complimentary strategy call.