I've had quite a few patients over the years that were police officers and one of them was telling me about something called the primacy effect.
Primacy effect is used in many ways, but police use it to control crowds and people when they show up on a scene.
Basically, the idea of the primacy effect is that our experience with somebody or something in the first few moments is more powerful than our experience with it 10 minutes later or an hour later.
What this means is that when cops show up to a scene, they need to immediately impose control. And sometimes that means they need to impose order and tell someone to do something right away.
My friend told me you don't want cops to show up on scene and take things real easy, because 10 minutes in, there will be no control whatsoever and nobody will look at the cops as a force providing order.
At that point, he said, “It's very difficult to regain control.”
Now, what does this have to do with marketing?
Well, it's very simple.
The experience our new patients have with us in their very first visit is more impactful than almost any other visit they have along the way.
Certainly, it's the most important out of all the singular visits.
Perhaps the last five or six visits combined will help them have a positive experience if we unfortunately screwed it up the first time.
When we think about marketing that goes on internally in the office while the patients are there, it's important for those patients to have a wonderful experience.
And if we can blow their minds on the first visit, then
- They're much more likely to refer their friends.
- They're much more likely to write a wonderful, lengthy five star review
- And they're much more likely to think of us and keep us top of mind for their future injury needs.
That's a perfect situation.
Now, the primacy effect doesn't just happen with police, but it also happens in organizations like Nordstrom and Disney.
They want your experience walking into that store to be amazing.
They want your experience walking into Disneyland to be incredible.
Everything at the entrance of Disneyland is put together in a way to get you in a certain mood long before you've ever ridden a ride.
That's why you need to make sure that the experience of walking into your office for the first time is so smooth that it'll leave a lasting good impression in your patients.
Tomorrow I'll give you ideas and suggestions of where to apply the primacy effect to your advantage – new patients will already be impressed even before they walk in!
And speaking of starting on top, how about attending our webinar about starting 2021 with the best results coming in?
We had this webinar on Saturday, and there was such a positive feedback that I decided to give people a second chance at attending.
If you weren't there but still want solutions to finish 2020 in a great place and make 2021 your best year yet, join us!
I'll see you on Thursday at 6pm PST on the webinar