Marketing Concepts

A dental office is a business just like any other business. This is an often overlooked concept. One characteristic of most businesses is that they have a marketing plan and budget. Marketing is what keeps a business in a "Growth Phase" and away from stagnation.

Most business analysts recommend a 10-15% marketing budget for an established business - a little higher for a relatively new business. The main marketing goal for a dental practice is to bring new patients through the door. So any marketing tool that is utilized should address this goal as efficiently as possible.

What marketing tools are available to dental professionals?

Virtually all marketing tools aim at increasing the "visibility" and "exposure" of the dental office. Some of the more popular marketing tools include:

Advertising in the local media:

This is probably the most utilized form of advertising. Advertising in print media is the most traditional form that cerates the fastest exposure to the target audience, however it can be very expensive and lacks any kind of interactivity. Advertising on television and radio is also a popular alternative, however this too can be very expensive.

Internet presence:

This form of advertising is gaining popularity at a very rapid rate. Patients use the internet more and more to look for their doctors. A well designed website that offers good quality information to a casual browser will often times convert the browser into a patient. It is important, however that the emphasis of the website is more patient oriented than practice oriented. In other words, design the website so that it focuses more on giving the reader quality information about the kind of dentistry that is being done, and less on the "greatness" of the office. A good example of such a website can be seen HERE.

Direct Mail:

Real Estate agents are masters at this. Their entire business depends on marketing and keeping the visual exposure level "up" at all times. The idea is to send out informative post cards to certain sections of the surrounding community at regular intervals - and that is the key to success here. These mailings need to be generated at least once every month. Statistics show that the return rate is approximately 1% from regular mailings. As an example if one office would send out 2500 post cards every month ($400 - $600 in printing cost + bulk mailing cost) it would probably generate at least 25 new patients every month, on average. To tighten up the results a little towards high-end dentistry, one could target only residents or new home buyers in certain property value categories. These databases can be obtain rather inexpensively on CDs.

Referrals from patients or other professionals:

Specialists are already very well trained in this. They go out and meet other dentists for lunch in order to increase their referral base. General dentists, however, get many of their new patients from their very own patients - and those are usually the best referrals and also the cheapest form of marketing. Most of the time, all that is necessary is to simply ask a satisfied patient to "think about your office" when they know anybody that is in seed of a great dentist. This is called viral marketing and can be a very powerful marketing tool. This can also be enhanced in certain ways. Try too keep reminding your patients of your "presence". send them monthly newsletters, have an annual patient party (rent a ballroom for this one - or your house may never look the same), as an alternate, have an annual movie night for your patients. Guess who the main topic of conversation is on that particular evening - that's right YOU!!! Here is another good one:Upon completion of a really big case, surprise the patient with a catered dinner party for four (assuming the patient has a spouse), so that they can invite another couple and enjoy their new teeth. Guess who the topic of conversation is going to be that evening - that's right: YOU!! And guess what dentist the other couple is going to pick from now on - you guessed again - YOU!! (make sure the caterer leaves plenty of business cards at the table. As you can see, the marketing possibilities are only limited by your own imagination.

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