Growing any business is not that easy and it applies to all types of business including dental clinics and other business associated with it. There are other problems as well, as far as dentists are concerned, most of them are accomplished dentists with years of experience, expertise and of course qualifications. However, on the flip side there is no doubt that most of them are not expert marketers and at best many of them could be novices. Hence, they need marketing support and advice at each and every step. This is critical not only to their growth but also for their survival. The market for dentists is becoming quite tough. There are dozens of dental clinics in your neighborhood and many of them are targeting the same set of customers. Without the right dental marketing guide it is quite obvious that seven out of ten dental clinics will have to close shop. Being a professional dentist is one thing, and unless they are able to market themselves successfully, they’ll either have to close down or be satisfied with limited success. Hence, it would be a good idea to have a look at a few tips that could perhaps work as a useful marketing guide for dentist. It will help them to stay away from the crowd and be successful when compared to others. So without too much wasted time, let us look at the various tips that could help in small and medium size dental clinics to grow bigger and faster.
Target The Right Patients For Your Dental Practice
This is perhaps the first thing that one should do as a dentist. You have to be clear about the type and kind of patients that you wish to target. You should be clear whether you want to target the mass market by price discounts or would be happy catering to a select few customers. In case you are after number of customers then you should be prepared to have the right kind of setup to support it. Your infrastructure should be able to cater to increased number of customers. Further, you also must make sure the profile of customers you want to target. If you are keen on tapping on upper class patients, then you must focus on top notch executive, doctors, professionals, lawyers and others who have a sizable net worth.
Set Realistic And Achievable Goals
Once you are ready with the target market, the next important thing is to come up with the right goals for becoming successful in a competitive environment. Instead of using vague goals, like to attain as many patients as possible, you should quantify the numbers. However, make sure that the targets you set are realistic and achievable. Do not be over ambitious or do not set very low targets. Setting low targets will surely take away many customers from you and being overconfident with high numbers may result in investing big money with the returns not being commensurate. Hence, you should know how to set a realistic and achievable target.
Test Your Marketing Ideas
With your objectives and well defined niche marketing, the next step is to try and come out with some important numbers. These will ensure that you have a reasonably good marketing strategy in place. Further, you will also have to be sure that you that your marketing strategy is supported by numbers so that you can monitor the performance. Here are a few things that could help you with your numbers as far as objectively defining your marketing strategies is concerned.
Lifetime Value: You must understand how much a patient is worth over a period of time. When you have this number in hand in value term, you will be able to figure out as to how much you would like to spend on acquiring a customer. It need not be on individual basis and you could use an average to calculate the same. If you have a wide range of customers then it would be a good idea to segment the customers and ensure that they are easy to manage as far as putting numbers to each segment is concerned.
Customer Acquisition Cost or CAC is important because it helps you to make a distinction between operational costs and actual treatment costs. This will help you to target your finances better and avoid under budgeting or over budgeting. However, before you go in for marketing ideas please be sure that they are tested and tracked before you broad base it and pump in more money.
Tracking Success & Failure
Whether you are marketing your dental clinic online or through conventional sources, you should be able to track the direction in which your marketing efforts are headed. You could make use of many web analytic tools if you use the online mode of marketing. There are also some proven and time-tested techniques as far as monitoring conventional brick and mortar efforts are concerned. The monitoring should be done regularly and you should decide on the frequency. It should be on a daily basis to start with.
Importance of Being Present Online
Online presence is important for a number of reasons. Any small dental clinic would do well by having good online presence. The basic thing is to have a good website and you must have professionals doing the job for you. Your website must be good looking, informative and moving through pages should be easy, and it should happen naturally. Pay attention to the contents and information you provide.
Make it SEO optimized and ensure that your website ranks high in searches. This will be possible only if you have a good digital marketing strategy in pace. You could make use of local SEO strategies because you want only customers and patients from your neighborhood. There are many dental SEO tips that you could make use of.
Community Involvement
Learn how to promote your dental clinic within your community. Participate in various events and activities including organizing of free dental camps in schools, neighborhoods and other such things. Be professional and have a pleasing disposition.
Conclusion
The above is just a small example of the various things that form part of a good dental marketing guide. There are other things that you must try and follow and this includes having the right infrastructure, the right treatment procedures for before, during and after the treatment.