When you became a dentist, marketing was probably the furthest thing from your mind. But if you have your own practice, effective marketing is actually key to your very survival. If you've not given the idea of marketing for dentists much thought before now, you should.
Without bogging you down in the details, the essence of marketing for dentists is about attracting enough customers to your practice to achieve critical mass and maintain profitability - then attracting even more customers to grow your practice to whatever size you wish it to be (no upper limit here, except the physical limitations imposed by the space you're in and the population of the area you're serving). At a minimum, you need to be thinking about two things, when it comes to marketing for dentists: getting your message out and defining exactly what that message will be.
How productive are you during a given day or week? How many procedures do you find yourself doing? Are they scheduled properly, or are there big gaps and lags during the day which you could be making better and more efficient use of? One thing is for certain - nothing gets better without an honest evaluation of the current state of affairs. That is the catalyst for positive change. Before you can fix it, you have to know what's broken. If nothing is outright broken, you have to know what areas you could improve or shore up to further improve performance.
Work-Life Balance: Dr. Schuster has devised a mechanism he calls "The Balancing Wheel" which is designed to be a quick, easy, painless way to restore work-life balance to your world. No, it's not a magic cure-all that will make long hours vanish, but it is a practical set of guidelines that will help you get an out of control work life under control and give you some much needed breathing room.
Assessment, however, is only the first step in the process. Assessment without action is a largely meaningless exercise. What impels action are goals. In order for goals to do that, however, they must be both measurable and realistic. In other words, they have to be clearly defined, attainable goals. Spelling those goals out gives you waypoints and markers you can use to gauge and chart the progress of your improvement. Without them, you're essentially flying blind and taking shots in the dark. Some of what you do might lead to an improvement, and other things may not. You need a solid plan if you want to maximize your chances for success.
Think about marketing for dentists from the perspective of your patients. For non-dentists, all dentists are pretty much the same. They're the somewhat unpleasant place you go when you have a problem with your teeth. That's it. You ask ten non-dentists what dentist's offices are all about, and nine of them will give you some variation of that answer. Your brand is your opportunity to differentiate yourself from your competition. It's your story, and an accounting of what makes you different. What makes your practice unique. Take a close look at the practices of the ten most successful dentist's offices you know about. In every single case, you'll find a compelling message and brand. They have a story to tell, and they tell it to their potential customers very well. That's what you need to be doing too.
Without bogging you down in the details, the essence of marketing for dentists is about attracting enough customers to your practice to achieve critical mass and maintain profitability - then attracting even more customers to grow your practice to whatever size you wish it to be (no upper limit here, except the physical limitations imposed by the space you're in and the population of the area you're serving). At a minimum, you need to be thinking about two things, when it comes to marketing for dentists: getting your message out and defining exactly what that message will be.
How productive are you during a given day or week? How many procedures do you find yourself doing? Are they scheduled properly, or are there big gaps and lags during the day which you could be making better and more efficient use of? One thing is for certain - nothing gets better without an honest evaluation of the current state of affairs. That is the catalyst for positive change. Before you can fix it, you have to know what's broken. If nothing is outright broken, you have to know what areas you could improve or shore up to further improve performance.
Work-Life Balance: Dr. Schuster has devised a mechanism he calls "The Balancing Wheel" which is designed to be a quick, easy, painless way to restore work-life balance to your world. No, it's not a magic cure-all that will make long hours vanish, but it is a practical set of guidelines that will help you get an out of control work life under control and give you some much needed breathing room.
Assessment, however, is only the first step in the process. Assessment without action is a largely meaningless exercise. What impels action are goals. In order for goals to do that, however, they must be both measurable and realistic. In other words, they have to be clearly defined, attainable goals. Spelling those goals out gives you waypoints and markers you can use to gauge and chart the progress of your improvement. Without them, you're essentially flying blind and taking shots in the dark. Some of what you do might lead to an improvement, and other things may not. You need a solid plan if you want to maximize your chances for success.
Think about marketing for dentists from the perspective of your patients. For non-dentists, all dentists are pretty much the same. They're the somewhat unpleasant place you go when you have a problem with your teeth. That's it. You ask ten non-dentists what dentist's offices are all about, and nine of them will give you some variation of that answer. Your brand is your opportunity to differentiate yourself from your competition. It's your story, and an accounting of what makes you different. What makes your practice unique. Take a close look at the practices of the ten most successful dentist's offices you know about. In every single case, you'll find a compelling message and brand. They have a story to tell, and they tell it to their potential customers very well. That's what you need to be doing too.
About the Author:
Learn about dental marketing to help your office succeed from the Schuster Center.. This article, Under-Performing Dental Office is available for free reprint.
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