Whenever we talk about dental practices, images of painful dental procedures come to mind. These are mostly magnified by some Hollywood films that deem it their responsibility to use dental procedures to connote unbearable pain. Hollywood films are not beneficial to dental marketing.
In Marathon Man, Laurence Olivier drilled into Dustin Hoffman’s cavities without anesthesia. And even in films like Mel Gibson’s Lethal Weapon, dentistry was used as comic relief.
Yep, Hollywood movies don’t do dental practices any good. In films, dentists are either psychopaths or purveyors of pain. But that can all change by carefully and strategically planning a marketing campaign that aims for only one thing: clear the misconceptions about dental products and services.
This campaign should not be “all over the place.” Meaning, it should not try to promote the dental practice on social media or engage customers on comments and blog posts. It should only aim for clarity.
Here’s how you should do it:
Define all misconceptions about dental services and practices
List down all the misconceptions you heard about dental products and services. Some of the most common ones are root canal is as painful as childbirth, bleeding gums is normal, braces are for kids only, people don’t need to floss, dentist equates to pain, children don’t need dentists, and dental treatments cause a fortune. These are all completely wrong and you need to write down your answers and explanations for each and every one of these claims.
Work out a message that will eliminate all these myths
What is the one message that can eliminate all these misconceptions about dentists? It needs to be a motherhood statement. A potential customer needs to look and read that one statement to understand what your dental marketing campaign is about.
Make it catchy and interesting and unique and even, to some extent, comedic. People love to laugh and if you can make them laugh and question their own beliefs about dentistry with a one-liner, you’re on your way to a successful campaign.
Choose a channel that will reach your target audience
You can use a mixture of all available platforms—websites, blog posts, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even LinkedIn. It is important to define the channel you are going to use initially for distributing the message because the wrong one could kill the essence of the campaign almost immediately. If you want to reach more people, you might be better off creating a dental marketing campaign that is suited for Facebook.