Some myths and misconceptions are just that—they are plain old myths. And then, there are those that could potentially harm your dental practice and affect your dental marketing strategies. Most of the myths we hear about dental marketing are pretty believable but don’t be fooled. They are trapdoors, designed to be familiar-sounding truths but are actually deceptive and harmless and unforgiving. They can suck your marketing efforts dry and leave you with a fledgling business.
Other dentists tell me that “those” won’t work
Are your dentist-friends also marketers? How would they know what will work for your dental practice or not? Did they study your target market and its demographics? Have they tried the same campaign on your practice? What is the basis of their judgment? Never trust people who have no real background on the topic at hand. Leave the marketing issues to the marketers and let the dentists worry about our oral health and regimen.
I would never respond to that type of ad
Look, you are not the target market because if you are, you would have been part of the sample audience that marketers would survey. It is very difficult to separate ourselves from our values—what we believe in and how we will respond to certain provocative ads. You are not the same as your patients so what works for them might really not work for you.
Let’s promote my new clinic technology
Dentists often make the mistake of basing their marketing efforts on the new technology or machine they use in the clinic. Patients want to know how tech can provide a better service but not the specifications of your new machine. Instead of highlighting the different features of the machine, why not focus on how it can help in making the dental procedure less painful and a whole lot quicker?
Dental marketing strategies can be expensive
Only bad marketing is expensive because you spend so much on campaigns without them resulting in effective outputs. Good dental marketing strategies that produce results can never be expensive, no matter what the upfront fee is. These campaigns can work for years and can bring your business success. Could marketing really be expensive in the grand scheme of things?
I don’t need a patient tracking system
How will you identify the source of new patients without a tracking system? How will you effectively influence their decision to go to your dental practice if you don’t know how a campaign affects them? It is not possible to monitor the progress of each campaign and to identify the many idiosyncrasies of patients without a tracking and measuring system.