Are you a “comfort zone” dentist?
I’m not talking about your professional preferences. I’m talking about your approach to marketing your dental practice.
I’m the son of a very successful dentist. I get that you didn’t go to dental school to study marketing, and in fact they likely didn’t offer a single class on the subject.
That can be a problem for a lot of dentists.
How did you decide to market your practice? Did you talk with established colleagues, analyze what the other dentists in your area were doing, or read a few articles or books on the subject?
And then maybe you settled on some newspaper ads, a Yellow Pages ad, a website, or perhaps some direct mail.
Whatever marketing options you chose, whatever investment you decided to make in each option, that first decision became your baseline. As time went on your measured the results you got against that initial “system” of marketing.
If you’ve been in practice for more than a few years, you’ve likely changed some things about your marketing approach. Based on my experience with dentists, which is considerable, it’s not likely that you’ve completely revamped your marketing… whether it’s working or not.
Why? Because you’re doing what you know how to do. And that’s advertising.
In a sense, advertising has become your marketing “tool.” Your hammer, if you will.
And Abraham Maslow, a widely-renowned psychologist, is credited with the phrase, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
A hammer isn’t the right tool for all jobs, and advertising isn’t the right tool to attract more and better patients in a highly competitive marketplace. Advertising chases patients by offering specials, discounts, free consultations, and the like. If you’re offering those things, it’s a safe bet that your competitors are, too.
And with that approach, what kind of patients do you get for your advertising dollar? Generally you’ll get price-shoppers, one-and-dones, and heavily insurance-driven patients. You’ll work yourself to death trying to build a successful practice with those patients.
It’s time to put down the hammer and adopt a more flexible approach.
Instead of chasing patients, try attracting them. That means you put in the work to be the only logical choice for prospective dental patients in your area who are looking for the services you offer.
Attracting patients requires you to have a strong presence on organic search; a website that features content that is useful, informative, and fresh for your patients; a social media presence that helps position you not only as a dental expert but also as a likeable and trustworthy dentist; a carefully considered email and e-newsletter program to keep you top-of-mind with patients; and a reliable means of tracking how well each aspect of your marketing is performing.
In short, you need a system. A Patient Attraction System™.
My company works with over 450 dentists on three continents to help them get more patients, more profits, and more freedom. We offer our proven, industry-leading Patient Attraction System™ that can offer select dentists “double your practice” growth.
Are you ready to fast-track your success? Are you ready for more patients, more profits, and more freedom? If so, go to www.smartboxwebmarketing.com/application or just www.smartboxwebmarketing.com and click the green button on the right that says, “Get Your Marketing Analysis.”
Take the flexible marketing path. Put down the hammer, and start up the system.