Increase Marketing Or Close Your Doors
In an economic catastrophe the dentist basically has two choices.
He or she must be prepared to close their doors and go out of business, or stay productive by increasing their marketing efforts proportionate to the loss in patient acquisition and retention.
When money’s tight — dental care is one of the first things people will avoid.
And when dollars are scarce, it makes good sense to spend your advertising money wisely on proven, foundational strategies to market your practice. Depending on the location and target market, the following are considered standard, promotional foundations that you can establish and improve upon:
- highly visible dental site that converts
- prominent easy-to-read signage out front
- internal marketing to established patients
- resolving any issues at the front desk
You can probably think of lots of ways to refine and add to the above, such as:
- evening random care calls to patients
- a patient referral system
- curb appeal/outside appearance
- pleasant sights, sounds and smells inside
- community involvement
- ensure patients are seen on-time
- offer alternative payment options
To be sure, there are many types of advertising and promotional channels available to the dentist – some more productive than others. Yet until you’ve established a solid marketing foundation, it’s this writer’s opinion that you could be wasting your money, especially if the front desk is not effectively handling new patient inquiries.
Ultimately, advertising is simply a method to attract patients to the practice; once they are there, the real job is to provide high-quality, valuable dentistry and making patients feel (and look) like a million bucks.
March 30th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
I think that your point in regards to the front desk is very important. Many successful practices will train their front desk staff to handle new patient calls properly. Other practices will hire “sales” employees to handle the new patient calls ensuring that those prospective new patients on the fence will turn into actual patients.
Chris
May 24th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Another means of practice boosting is to increase services and create incentives for patient visits. Developing and activating a set of protocols for early detection and treatment of oral lesions will create enthusiastic patients who will promote your practice.