Subscribe: RSS

Welcome to this week’s episode of GrowOrtho! In today’s episode, we hear from Aliza Ray, Director of Marketing at Fishbein Orthodontics in Florida.

Tune in to hear her thoughts about:

  • What her day-to-day role looks like as director of marketing
  • Strategies that help internal marketing teams work within departments — and within the external community, too
  • The building blocks of internal marketing that help a company grow efficiently and effectively
  • How to track and evaluate new patient referrals and ROI (and how to scale what works)
  • What Aliza thinks is one of the biggest mistakes orthodontics practices are making that holds them back from growth
  • The importance of the customer experience — and what Fishbein does a little differently to capitalize on it
  • The journey of a future Fishbein patient — from their first phone call onward (and why it’s not just the patients who get rewarded)

Now, let’s take a bird’s-eye view of our enlightening conversation:

  • While there are no “typical days” of internal marketing at Fishbein, Aliza says she usually starts her workday as part of the team huddle at Fishbein’s flagship location in Pensacola. It’s a great way to connect with the team to share the news of whatever’s going on. Her goal is to run at least two to four employee events per month, so keeping everyone up-to-date is key.
  • One thing Aliza really wants to know is which outreach efforts are really connecting with the community. She urges their call center team to dive deep with new patients and figure out who or what got them to call in. Does the patient cite more than one marketing tool? Aliza wants specifics: “What was the last thing you saw or heard that made you decide you need to make an appointment?”
  • Aliza was just the twelfth employee when she joined Fishbein Orthodontics. Clearly, this company has experienced huge growth since then! A key factor in their success, Aliza says, is the fact that Fishbein was able to create a specific marketing department. Being able to step into the role full-time allowed Aliza to hone her focus on marketing efforts. “It’s super important,” she later says of the marketing role.
  • One of the first things she started capitalizing on? She began to focus on direct-to-consumer marketing, which “was taboo” as recently as five years ago. But though they may have surprised people with things like billboards, radio ads, and direct mailers, Aliza and her team found that these multiple marketing channels helped the practice gain a huge community presence, which was elemental for their overall growth.
  • Aliza also says that, especially in the beginning, not saying “no” to outreach opportunities was helpful — and yes, they did have to learn the hard way occasionally, with some projects offering less-than-stellar ROIs. Fortunately, Fishbein dedicates over 7 percent of their collections to their marketing budget, which gives Aliza and her team more “freedom to try new things and see where that money can take us.”
  • Even with multiple marketing channels in operation, Aliza says word-of-mouth referrals from existing patients still make up about 40 percent of their referral base, which says a lot about the customer experience they create. “It’s not just business for us,” she says. “It’s our job to make people smile.”
  • She adds that hiring people who really match the Fishbein culture is a huge part of their success. After all, you can teach skill, but, Aliza says, “you can’t teach personality and drive.”

To connect with Aliza, you can reach out to her via email at aliza@fishortho.com.