As dental professionals, we face unprecedented challenges in managing and marketing our practice. We face intense competition (both locally and internationally), an overpopulation of dentists, rising costs of practice management, and increasing patient awareness of various dental issues. In addition, patients are becoming more demanding of the specialists they visit, with many patients traveling abroad for treatment.
For our practice to be successful, it is important to build long-term relationships with both our current and potential patients. Long-term patients are much more likely to be satisfied. They are the ones who will refer people to us and who will continue to use our services in the future.
Here are the mistakes a marketing consultant finds in hundreds of dentists that prevent them from successfully advertising their practices.
- We do not know or track the statistics of our practice's activities.
One of the most common mistakes is that many dental practices simply do not keep statistics on their activities. As the saying goes: if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. It is of utmost importance to track all data related to our business, and marketing costs are no exception. Particularly important statistics that we need to know and track relate to:
- average value for each patient;
- return on investment in marketing;
- new patients:
- loss of patients.
2. We have no idea who our ideal patient is.
One of the cornerstones of any marketing campaign is knowing who your ideal patient is. Many practices, in their eagerness to get down to the business of marketing, often make the mistake of not identifying this factor early on. We need to think carefully about who we are targeting, what this group of patients wants, what problems they have, and what solutions they need. The key to implementing a strategic marketing plan is identifying the profile of your practice’s ideal (or target) patient. Once we have researched the market, we need to decide how to best communicate with these potential clients.
3. We hope for a miracle.
It’s not easy to market your dental practice in a way that will attract the right patients, keep them engaged, and encourage them to recommend you to their friends. Many practices believe (and hope) that a miracle will happen that will solve all their marketing problems. This leaves them vulnerable to unscrupulous marketers and ultimately leaves them frustrated and angry when their efforts fail. The number of companies trying to sell us the marketing dream that will alleviate all our worries is constantly increasing. On the other side are well-meaning friends, colleagues, and patients who will give us advice on what they think we should do to successfully market our practice. The spectrum of media channels is constantly changing, and it’s impossible to keep up with the rapid changes in the online marketing field.
4. We take an approach without specific focus
Many dentists say they have tried many different marketing approaches, but they have all failed and nothing has worked. However, upon closer analysis, it turns out that these dentists have actually tried many different approaches but almost all of them have been random and for short periods of time. This is called “indiscriminate” marketing. You can’t try one approach for a month or two in a haphazard manner without monitoring the results or changing the campaign as needed. This will always end in failure. It has been proven that it takes between 6 and 11 repetitions for patients to hear or see a message before they take any action on it. Do you know how many ways and how often you communicate with your patients?
5. We do everything alone
Let's not forget that patients are more informed than ever before. They are constantly exposed to a huge amount of advertising messages and their expectations of what is and is not professional are constantly rising. The reality is that we are competing with corporations, so we need to make sure our marketing is up to par.
Често срещана практика е денталните практики да поръчат професионален брандинг и лого дизайн, след което решават, че могат да поемат нещата в свои ръце и произвеждат самоделни брошури и други рекламни материали, върху които поставят логото си в други цветове, шрифтове и дори версии. Ако не сме постоянни, нашите опити да създадем собствен бранд ще бъдат неефективни.
6. We postpone
When it comes to dental marketing, there are many factors to consider. How do we make a website that is effective? Should we engage our patients on social media and how do we start doing it? We know we need to educate our patients on a regular basis, but what are the best ways to do that? We need reactivation and retargeting campaigns, but we have no idea how to execute them in a professional and consistent manner. It is not uncommon to be so confused and not know where to start, and this often leads to constant procrastination and doing nothing.
7. We're not getting advice from the right people.
When you own or run a dental practice, or any business for that matter, you will never be short of marketing advice; in fact, you will soon be swimming in a sea of advice. You may even have wasted time or money on bad advice. The problem is that many dentists are not getting advice from the right people and are likely to be listening to many different sources, and their opinions are being influenced by people who have no understanding of the business of dentistry.
Conclusion
Successful marketing of our practice is not achieved by magic. To put it simply, it comes down to the following:
- to choose very carefully the aspects of marketing that we want to use;
- to be confident that no matter what marketing activities we undertake, we are doing the best we can within our capabilities and budget;
- to be consistent and monitor our results – to set goals and revise them regularly, to seek good advice from trusted experts in the field of marketing
All of this takes time, but the effort we put in will be rewarded with more patients, increased productivity, better relationships with our team and patients and a sense of control over the advertising of our practice. So it's time to focus on marketing. If we are careful and consistent in our actions, we can avoid the most common mistakes that many other practices make.
The article was first published in CAD/CAM international magazine of digital dentistry, No. 02/2016.
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