Dental Marketing: Seven Sure Sailing Strategies

Everyone wants a solution that sets sail successfully the first time. Most dentists have just skirted around the edges of marketing. Actually that is what most businesses do. Unfortunately, at some point the winds change and luck, location (cubed), and trial and error are no longer on their side.

A strong, consistent, proactive communication strategy is the only way to sail on these rough seas.

Here are seven dental marketing strategies that will completely unfurl your sales!

1) Right Your Dental Website

Most dental websites are listing in a generic Internet sea. Lots of dental services are written about but little or no real human warmth can be found in this frigid North Sea of uninspired content.

Write, write, and write to right your website. With all the sites out there now, you need to say dentistry with real people in mind. Your dental web site content should be worth knowing about rather than just floating out there like a buoy without a real-life perspective mooring.

2) Sales Faster With Dental Direct Mail

Communicating effectively often requires someone to take the lead. Direct mail gets out in front faster than almost anything you can do. Dental practices that want more than galley leftovers need to mutiny against generic marketing and take the fight for hearts and minds to the home front and mailbox.

Nothing else is as local, as targeted or as proactive. Rather than waiting for consumers like all other marketing it goes right to the head of household and says, “Look at me, why wait, you need it now!” You need to say it the right way and with an eye on building value. But you can use dental postcards; a brochure-mailer or whatever works best for your dentistry brand. Direct mail puts significant wind in the sales of your Internet strategy as well.

3) Gain Supremacy of The Online Seas for Your Dental Practice

Web surfers are searching for exactly what you offer. Whether its dental implants or porcelain veneers, smile makeovers or advanced cosmetic dentistry, you can be the one with the phone calls, new patients, and revenue booty. Even in dangerous economic waters, it is possible to sale well.

This is not brute force online advertising. It’s a niche strategy for the dental practice that wants patients who are ready to buy what they offer. No longer haggle about price. Say heave ho to the dental insurance anchor. Start steering your online strategy toward your higher-lever services and the consumers who will pay for them in a good and not so good economy.

4) Define Your Dental Niche Rather Than Being A Dentistry Parrot

If you say the same things every other dentist is saying, you will be like a parrot on a creativity lacking, dental marketing pirate shoulder that’s squawking and hawking the same thing. Instead, say less about dental services and focus more on your dental expertise.

Consumers will never see the value in your expertise if you hoist the same flag (grocery list of dental services) your competition does.

5) Real Dental Branding Halts The Plank Walk To Irrelevance

First, dental logos are not brands. They are brand elements. Completely transform your brand like you want your patients to transform their smiles. Otherwise Davy Jones’ Locker is ready to swallow your sales numbers.

You no longer work on teeth. Currently, consumers see teeth in your brand when price, low value, and dental insurance are still magnets in their compass. With effective brand development, the consumer will know you see THEM. Then the focus is not on their teeth, which have less value to them. They are not their teeth, their mouths or even their smiles.

Create a brand around your dentistry expertise and the value you offer PEOPLE. Tooth and toothbrush logos, half off whitening coupons and the like are grounds for plank walking in this tight market. Quit degrading your value. Branding prevents dental expertise irrelevance.

6) Be Unique To Avoid Being Set Adrift in a Dentist Without Differentiation Dinghy

The market has gotten crowded with “we do dental care like that too” competitors. Sameness will sink almost every communication ship you set sail in with the today’s hyper-competition for the consumer’s money.

Dental insurance reliance takes more profits out with the tide. The low price dentistry sales method is taking on water like mad because it has nowhere to go but down. Taking your dental practice into unique waters is often a calmer experience. The waters are clear, making it easier for consumers to see you, evaluate your value, and start appreciating the worth of your dental expertise.

7) Guide Your Marketing Efficiently With A Sturdy Dental Coaching Rudder

Why get a dental marketing coach? Actually you can do it all yourself. Like I could voyage into megapascal math and meth mouth makeovers, you could set sail on a masters (and commander) graduate course in dental marketing. Or we can each do what we do best, and I can help you sail to your port of call a whole knot quicker.

Running your dental practice aground is easy to do if the winds change. Get command of a seaworthy craft with an expertly righted, communication strategy. Of course, it’s always your choice whether you go with an expert or not. Likewise, the consumer has many choices. You need Niche Dental coaching services to give you the helm during dental consults.

Niche Dental helps consumers see YOUR expertise as valid and valuable before they arrive, releasing the knot of objections in case acceptance. Otherwise consumers will continue to open the rum barrel of low value, minimal results, and never-pay-out-of-pocket dentistry.

Either take this route or invest in my new book and we can make money on these wading-in-low-waters consumers. It will be sold on the All-Generic Dentistry, All The Time cable channel and DentalOverStockOverBoard.com. The book, Dental Care for Rummies, makes consumers feel good about low priced, insurance covered, fast-paced, and simplistic solutions dentistry.

CONCLUSION: Sailing Your Dental Practice Through a Downturn

Wanting a simple solution to your dental marketing dilemma is a natural expectation. But if you think about how the consumer often reacts to anything without a dental insurance life raft, the simple expectation sinks quickly. While there are some “simple” solutions in dentistry and marketing, they often cost more, require more time, or need an expert touch.

Paying for dental coaching, spending more for the right marketing, and developing a long term plan makes sense, even now. In an economic downturn, many consumers actually spin the helm toward a counterintuitive bearing. They start looking for value, wanting more bang for their doubloon. It’s counterintuitive because expensive purchases are not removed from the table. The value treasure chest is still very full for many consumers, especially the 77 million baby boomers who need more dentistry.

Promoting your expertise in higher-level dental treatment will standout. Consumers will notice because everyone else will be retreating to cheap and cheaper marketing waters. Fly the flag of the low priced pirate dental marketer and see your frigate get hit with the cannons of low profit and work your butt off dentistry. Avoid the low value services bottleneck; catch the wind a change in direction provides.

If you are not ready to string me up on the mizzen because of all my sailing references, call me to discuss your dental marketing needs. Then we can get everything shipshape in a matter of few nautical miles.