Successful dental practices make marketing a top priority. In this day and age, you certainly need to spend money to make money. I am advocating to my clients that they spend up to 3 to 4% of annual collections on marketing strategies to attract new patients. I also don’t believe that there is one magic bullet that will apply to every practice and every situation. And beware of people selling you on that concept. You need trackable data to justify every marketing plan, and you can’t be married to a plan forever. You have to be flexible –sometimes have the courage to abandon something that you thought was a good idea–and possibly invest more in strategies that seem to be working. Here are some possibilities to consider.

Internal Marketing – I have always been a huge fan of internal marketing because it is very inexpensive, but it can be very effective as long as it is done consistently. Internal marketing is defined as marketing to your existing patient base. I am big on rewarding patients in all kinds of ways for their referrals. Have fun with this–leave your comfort zone and do something different or unexpected. A key component of an effective internal marketing program is hand written notes from the doctor. I suggest there is the opportunity for at least two or three of these to be written everyday. Patients feel so very important when they receive a note from the doctor.

Internet Marketing – I have seen enormous benefits from Internet marketing that begins with the development of a great website,  that through various and clever SEO techniques, positions well on the local Google business map. It is hard for me to believe that something like 40% of all dentists still do not even have a website. They must be living under a rock! You simply have to play in the Internet world. Everyone these days searches for everything on Google–I mean why would you go anywhere else?

Google Adwords – Targeted campaigns are effective for specific services like same day crowns, implants, invisible braces, etc. These are the kind of popular services that are often searched. When people click on these campaigns, they can be directed to a very nicely designed landing page within your website. You can start to get into spending some serious money here, but you will definitely drive traffic. Again–in  competitive metropolitan areas where it is more difficult to get organic rankings of your website on the Google map–Adwords campaigns can level the playing field.

Facebook Advertising – I am starting to see more successful practices getting involved with Facebook advertising. It is much less expensive than Google Adwords. But in order to be successful with Facebook, you have to make a commitment to be responsive and reactive with posts on your Page. Successful practices have one or two staff members who  take this on as a project spending dedicated time every day creating new content and responding to comments. Most doctors do not have the time for this, or even more to the point, don’t understand it.

Direct mail–I recently wrote a post about this. I am feeling more positive about this marketing medium, and it is definitely something to consider.

Marketing and advertising is a business apart from dentistry, and there are experts out there that you can hire to help you. It really helps to have an objective advisor in this area.

In conclusion, I would like to make one very important point regarding patient retention. It is futile to try to attract a continual source of new patients–and absorb all of that cost–if you don’t continue to take good care of these people forever. It is critically important that you retain and please these patients on an ongoing basis. Having an inviting front door that is wide open will not help if the back door is open as well.

Providing exquisite customer service to your patient base is another important ingredient of successful dental practices. Customer service is absolutely a skill that can be learned. And it really is not that hard to be good at this when so many others are so bad. But I believe you need to be better than just good. Your practice needs to be extraordinary in order to separate yourself from the competition. Everyone in the practice–doctor and staff–needs to buy into the process. The commitment to maintaining and improving an exceptional customer service experience must be an integral part of the DNA of the practice. Here are some ideas for you that really work well.

• Emergencies should always be seen on the date of the call.

• Never say NO. This is a simple rule, but often hard to implement. Eight words that work well are ” the best way that I can help you is…”

• The key to great customer service is making people feel special. Nothing is too difficult. Nothing is a problem. Leave it to us to take good care of you.

• The telephone is the entrance to every dental practice. Great customer service is especially important when any new patient contacts the office. The new patient call is your first opportunity to build a relationship. That telephone call, if done well, could routinely be a 15 minute conversation. That patient should get off the phone and say “WOW – I never had that kind of experience with any office that I ever called!” The person answering your telephone just might be the most important person in your office. If anyone is interested, I have a great new patient telephone intake slip that I am happy to share.

• I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. You just can’t overestimate the importance of post-treatment telephone calls by the doctor at the end of every day to patients that have had extensive dental procedures.

My very first post in this series on successful doctors discussed the importance of having a great staff. Providing an exceptional customer service experience for your patients is obviously a lot easier to deliver when you have the right team in place. Having patients all over town raving about how well they are treated  in your office creates a huge funnel for attracting new patients. And new patients equal success.

I have always felt that the ultimate key to success in any business–more important than skills–more important than your grades in school–certainly more important than clinical acumen in a dental practice –is the ability to communicate well and to get your ideas understood and accepted. Unfortunately, communication skills are tough to teach. Superb communications skills are really a gift–and you either have them naturally or you don’t. But I do believe that communication skills can be improved, and since they are so important to success, I feel it is definitely worth the effort.

Successful doctors are passionate about dentistry and the benefits of quality restorative and cosmetic care. When you truly have that passion, it is infinitely easier to sell dentistry. There’s nothing illegal about selling. It is what we need to do well in order to be successful. So don’t be afraid of selling. I love Fred Joyal’s definition of selling: selling is communication with a purpose!

There is an old saying that says people like to buy, but they don’t like to be sold. But before you can expect someone to buy something from you, they must trust you. Nothing gains trust more than making that person feel special and taking the time to truly listen to their concerns. Then – using great communication skills which include proper body language and certainly eye contact – you explain your goals and your treatment choices (offering choices is a must) in language that a ten year old can understand. And good old-fashioned honesty and sincerity will win out every time.

In an increasingly insurance dependant environment, communication skills are more important then ever before. Confidant, articulate treatment presentations using understated laid back conversational techniques are what is necessary to let your patients understand that dental insurance is only a stipend towards quadrant and arch dentistry.

Part of the art of communication is also the ability to recognize when a patient might not be ready to make the decision to go forward with one of your recommended treatment options. It is so important to know how to back away and not be perceived  as being pushy. Allowing the patient to feel comfortable with their decision to delay for a while will more often than not eventually work to your benefit. Remember that the ultimate mission is to have people do dentistry in your office and not somewhere else down the street.