When you’re planning out a new dental practice, there are many little decisions you need to make. But chief among these decisions is the right dental marketing strategy and the budget you need to execute these strategies. Without patients, nothing else matters, right? It doesn’t matter how good your reception hall looks like or how wonderful the new paint of the clinic is. All it matters is if your dental clinic is welcoming patients and making appointments.
Dental practice needs dental marketing. That’s all you need to know about that. No ifs. No buts. You need a marketing strategy to put your dental practice on the radar of your patients. The only question that matters is how much you are willing to spend on it or more importantly, how much should dentists be spending on their marketing tactics?
Your dental marketing budget should be a percentage of your business’ gross revenue. The gross revenue refers to the total amount that your business generated from sales and services. If you already have an established practice, you should spend at least 15% of your gross revenue on marketing strategies. This means that if you earned $350,000 in gross profit for the year, you have to set aside around $52,500 for marketing. That’s $4,375 a month. That’s good enough to implement some great marketing strategies.
But this amount is only possible for practices that have been around for more than a year or so. Those who are starting in the industry need to go slow and low. You won’t have the same kind of money to invest in your practice. It is also quite understandable that newbie dentists are more scared to put their hard-earned money into a risky endeavor such as a marketing strategy.
However, here’s the thing: no one knows about your dental practice yet. This is the time when you take risks and dive into the relative unknown. Generally speaking, you should at least put 20% to 30% of your gross revenue in marketing your products and services. At least, that’s how it should be for the first year of your business. if the competition is light, 20% is just enough to capture your market’s attention. If there is more competition, raise this percentage to about 30%.
Most of your dental marketing money should go into having a grand launch party. This is the first time that your market will get to know about your practice. Make sure that you invite as many people as possible so they are aware that your clinic exists and is ready to accept patients.