We all experience the fun and joy of playing games either interactive or electronic today. Accepting challenges, breaking high scores, reaching final levels, and winning make us engage more with these games and be happy. Imagine you are learning dentistry with the same feeling, not for exams nor completing continuing education hours for license renewal, but for the fact it is a joy to learn about this topic. In another scenario, our society has serious problems regarding oral health.
Dental caries is still the most widespread disease among children and many people are unaware of the influence of maintaining good oral health on their bodies. What if we include game elements to aware people and help them change their dental behavior and attitude? Having gamification concepts would encourage patients to visit their dentists on a regular basis.
Also, help us in the marketing for our private clinics. In the presentation, we will explore and learn about this concept and how it has influenced many fields in our lives. It is the time to use gamification smartly to take dentistry to a new stage of evolution.
Gamification encourages the four I’s of engagement in the following ways:
Involvement
Gamification allows dentists to increase participation among existing and prospective patients, leading to increased referrals, new patient appointments, and case acceptance.
Interaction
The content becomes more meaningful to patients when they are connected to a specific dentist. Gamification gives players incentives to interact with the practice, leading to the increased likelihood of case acceptance, treatment, and referral. We can leverage an action/reward dynamic for the activities and behaviors our dentist clients want to increase, such as referrals.
Intimacy
A big challenge for dentists is making their brand more personable. By tapping gaming strategies, dentists can spark a real-time, intimate connection with patients through fun and rewards.
Influence
Incentives such as tokens, badges, and offers encourage patients to share games with their social contacts. Encouraging these social bragging rights helps boost word-of-mouth, encourages bystanders and peers to join the game, and ultimately increases new patient traffic.
Through these four areas, dentists can develop a gamification strategy that drives action (new patient appointments, case acceptance, etc.) and improve patient retention. If you would like to know more about implementing a gamification strategy into your dental marketing program, contact Dr. Ken Newhouse at Growth Hacker Central. If you want to know more about the benefits of Growth Hacking your Dental Practice you can download the Definitive Guide to Growth Hacking Your Dental Practice Marketing.