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Making Dollars And Sense Of Dental Marketing

Making Dollars And Sense Of Dental Marketing
by Naomi Cooper

Five questions to determine the effectiveness of your external marketing efforts

While working in the field of dental marketing for the past 15 years, I’ve heard a variety of reasons for why marketing “doesn’t work.” It’s expensive. It’s a challenge to execute. It’s hard to measure. While these statements may sometimes apply, they certainly don’t have to represent the reality at your practice. By creating a plan ahead of time and sticking to it, dental marketing can actually be a fun and engaging way to grow your practice with a steady stream of new patients, making it a truly worthy investment of your hard-earned dollars. However, the success of a marketing campaign is never a given, so here are five questions to ask ahead of time to help ensure your future marketing efforts will bring the results you’re looking for.

1. Why Are You Investing in Marketing?

It’s nearly impossible to develop a strategy without having a goal in mind, so first, decide what it is that you hope to accomplish through external marketing. For example, a strategy to increase brand awareness will look different than one aimed at boosting new patient numbers, so it’s critical to have a clear idea of what your practice needs to gain from external marketing before setting any plans into motion.

Failing to set objectives and establish measures of success from the beginning leaves you and your practice vulnerable to subjective analysis based on anecdotal evidence and “gut-based” decision-making. After all, there are plenty of vendors calling your practice, each one promising better results than the last, and usually for a sizable amount of money. Rather than wasting time, money, and effort on starting, implementing, and eventually cancelling a series of campaigns that fail to generate real results for your bottom line, do yourself a favor and take the time to chart your marketing course before ever spending a dime.

Read full article on Inside Dentistry.