We see too many dentists doing their own marketing.
Dentists know dentistry better than anyone else. Many believe that somehow the use of social media and owning a business translates into the expertise of both domains. Further, many young dentists who have acquired their first practice believe that marketing and social media posting are synonymous. When it comes to “business”, this is often defined as “thinking about the practice” a couple of hours a week.
Marketing isn’t posting on social media.
Business is more than thinking.
And communication is more than talking.
The world of marketing is indeed different than it once was. Most would agree that signs on buses matter less than they used to because of attention dilution. Posting on social media is even less effective unless you’ve got something that engages the right audience.
If you’re growing a practice and using marketing to reach prospective patients, get clear on your brand. You may be likable, but the way to get patients to meet you is often with a unique value proposition (UVP). What’s unique about how you care for your patients? What makes your practice truly different? It has to be more than the procedures, the hours, and the aquarium in the waiting room. It has to matter to the community you serve. Once you’re clear on this, how can you communicate that UVP in one or two sentences? Maybe it’s a “We believe” statement, or a “Why we do what we do, the way we do it” statement. And then, once you’ve got your UVP and your concise and effective language written, the third step is hand it over to a capable person or company and BE RELENTLESS. Share it everywhere, over, and over, and over, and over, and over. Marketing is about consistency and the long game. You’re competing with a lot of noise out there.
Burnout often comes from not doing what you love and/or not getting the results you expected from the work you do. It rarely comes from doing too much of what we love…atleast that’s what we see amongst dentists. So, if you don’t love marketing more than you love doing dentistry and if you’re not as good at marketing as you are at dentistry, get someone else to do it for you. But before you do, clarify your unique value proposition and tell them you need your acquisition cost to be less than $300 per new patient if they are going to keep you as a client.
