As highly technical people we in the dental profession get a thrill and a kick out of understanding the technical side of how something works, and some of the most common questions I get asked with online marketing are around this same area – how do I link my blog to my website? How do I get my blog to Facebook and Twitter? And even, how do I get individual patients from Facebook to book an appointment?
These questions are all perfectly valid and need an answer, however they are all “HOW” questions. The key is to know that answering the how questions does not make marketing work any more effectively, it’s the “WHY” questions that really will make your online marketing work more effectively.
If you are trying to attract a patient to the practice, then understanding how to link a blog to your website or how to make Facebook posts automatically is not the most important thing. What will make patient take action is knowing that they can trust you, that you understand their problems, that you would treat them with respect, that you are different from other practices and can ultimately solve their problems better than anyone else.
The function of marketing is to take you as a solution provider and to find people with a problem that needs solving, then to simply put the to 2 of you together.
Get the message right
There’s no need for high-pressure sales techniques, no need for anything complex and no need to make it any more complicated than it is. You just need to:
- Offer the right solution to their problem.
- Offer that solution at a convenient time and place.
- After that solution at the right price.
- Help them to understand that your solution is better able to solve the problem than other dentists.
- Let them know that they can trust you.
- Help them to understand that your solution offers the lowest risk.
I’m often asked to help dental practice with the technicalities of online marketing, linking blogs to websites, automatic posting to Facebook, automatic replies to tweets on Twitter. This is of course important, however if the message is not right then the technicalities become irrelevant.
You need to be very focused around the points mentioned above if your marketing message is going to be effective, however you get that message out there, whether it be leaflets, Flyers, and A-board or Facebook.
Questions you need to ask about your practice
So what you need to do now is to answer the following questions:
- Why are you different from the practice down the road?
- As a patient, why should I come to you, what is unique about what you do?
- As a patient, why should I trust you?
- as a patient, why are you a lower risk option than the practice down the road?
Who are your customers?
You then need to know who your customers are? They could be:
- over 55s.
- ‘Ladies that lunch’, wives of rich husbands.
- Young professionals.
- Families.
- Successful small business owners.
- Young women that are working their way up the ladder to be ‘ladies that lunch’.
- Single men or women.
- Children.