Klooster Family Dentistry

The Situation

Klooster Family Dentistry is located in the small-town-feel suburb of Holly Springs, NC — just 20 miles outside of Raleigh, NC. When Dr. Arend Klooster first took over the dental practice in January 2016, they were getting about 15 new patients a month and making about $900,000 in revenue every year.

Initially, he tried different forms of local marketing, including advertisements in magazines and a new neighbor campaign. However, the results weren’t great.

When he started hearing about the incredible successes of small businesses who tried direct mail with PostcardMania, he decided to give postcards a try.

The Solution

Klooster Family Dentistry is located in the small-town-feel suburb of Holly Springs, NC — just 20 miles outside of Raleigh, NC. When Dr. When Dr. Arend Klooster first took over the dental practice in January 2016, they were getting about 15 new patients a month and making about $900,000 in revenue every year.

Initially, he tried different forms of local marketing, including advertisements in magazines and a new neighbor campaign. However, the results weren’t great. After hearing about the incredible successes of small businesses who tried direct mail with PostcardMania, he decided to give postcards a try.

For his first postcard campaign, Dr. Klooster sent out 7,500 postcards every month for 6 months from February to August of 2017. He used a resident/occupant mailing list and targeted residents who lived near his practice.

As the mailings went out, he started to notice an uptick of new patients. It took a bit of time for the responses to gain some momentum, but at the end of the 6 months, they saw significant improvement of their return on investment.

Upon seeing the success of the first campaign, Dr. Klooster quadrupled his postcard marketing efforts and purchased 266,200 postcards in January 2018. He mailed between 8,000 and 13,000 postcards every month for the following 2 years.

One benefit of paying for a long-term campaign up front and using a resident/occupant mailing list was saving money on each postcard. He saved 5.4 cents per mail piece, amounting to a total savings of $10,800. This time around, he also narrowed down his mailing list and focused it on a smaller perimeter around his business. Instead of purchasing 4 mailing lists, he bought two and alternated them every month so that every recipient would receive a postcard every other month.

At the end of 2018, he had doubled his new patient numbers and moved forward with opening a second practice in Raleigh, NC. At that point, Dr. Klooster started postcard marketing for his new location in March 2019 in addition to his first practice.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, Klooster Family Dentistry didn’t stagnate. They actually increased their postcard mailings from 266,200 to 502,365. Dr. Klooster continued to improve his marketing strategies for the two locations by starting a new offer of a free Sonicare toothbrush and new postcard designs.

One of their most recent postcards, [pictured above] included the following features:

• A five-star review from a happy patient, recommending their services
• Three offers, including free whitening for Invisalign patients, free iTERO scan, and a free consultation
• A friendly photo of Dr. Klooster and his bio on the back, giving the card a personalized touch
• A QR code that quickly directs the recipient to the website
• A strong call to action: “Schedule your appointment today!”

Despite all of the challenges they faced during the COVID-19 shutdowns in 2020, the new Raleigh location increased their collections to 1.54 million and their new patients to 576 due to their consistent marketing. The Holly Springs office had a slight dip in new patient numbers from 520 to 482.

Klooster Family Dentistry continued consistently mailing out postcards in 2021 and received their highest returns ever. The Raleigh, NC location collected 1.86 million that year and earned 635 new patients, while their Holly Springs, NC location brought in 676 new patients and collected $2.73 million.

Today, Klooster Family Dentistry’s appointment books are almost always full, and patients wait a month for an appointment.

The Results

We doubled our practice size, tripled our new patient numbers, and opened a second location!

Since Klooster Family Dentistry started postcard marketing 5 years ago, their Holly Springs, NC office has doubled in size! They have brought on more doctors, hygienists, dental assistants, and front desk staff.

They also tripled their monthly new patient numbers over the last 5 years and have been able to expand and open another location in Raleigh, NC.

They went from averaging 15 new patients a month to averaging 56 new patients a month. Klooster Family Dentistry also added approximately $2 million in production to their location in Holly Springs and nearly $1 million to the practice in Raleigh.

Today, Dr. Klooster continues to send out his monthly postcards at both dental offices and has a third location in his sights.

You can read a full interview with Dr. Arend Klooster on DentalEconomics.com.

Interested in doing a similar campaign for your business? Call us and we will get you connected with a marketing consultant who has experience creating campaigns for other dentists.