Today I’m here to point the finger right at you and accuse you of killing your own marketing efforts – if you haven’t answered three key questions.
This is the first of two parts because I think it is important enough to spend some time on. This is really where a marketing plan has to start.
Dentists call me all the time interested in doing business with us because they say that their current marketing isn’t working. Rarely is the answer as obvious as they aren’t putting in enough money or they don’t have a website.
In fact, many of them have paid someone or several someone’s their hard-earned money for a marketing plan that just isn’t working.
- Maybe the website is dated.
- Maybe they focus too much on low ROI efforts like social media.
- There can be many reasons for this.
Sometimes, YOU Are the Problem
But sometimes, the culprit is none other than the doctor himself – and he doesn’t even know it. Marketing is a lot like being a shooter.
- Maybe he’s attracting the wrong patients – bad aim.
- Maybe he’s trying to be all things to all people – shotgun approach.
- Maybe he thinks too small – hunting rhinos with a .22 rifle.
- Maybe he’s not kept his marketing current – misfiring.
What he ends up doing is shooting his own marketing efforts dead.
So here are three questions any dentist should ask before they begin a marketing plan to make sure that it will hit the mark:
- What do I want out of my practice?
- What should someone choose me over any other dentist?
- What do you know and what do you want to know?
You’ve Got to Know the Answers to Even Start
Without answering these three questions, any marketing plan will fail.
- The first, knowing what you want out of your practice, is a key business question – THE fundamental question that should drive all of your business decisions, marketing included. If you don’t know where you’re going, how can you get there?
- The second is the issue of differentiation that ANY business has to answer if it wants to not only stay in business but thrive.
- The third really answers how do you get the second question to answer the first question. Knowing HOW to use differentiation to achieve your practice goals is the key part of the formula.
We’ll talk about all three of those things in the next blog.
Until then, keep moving forward.