Marketing is about timing, right? Yes… but maybe not in the way you might think. As with any type of investing, it’s extremely difficult to time the market, and most people who try will not be successful. That is why nine times out of ten, your investment consultant is going to recommend consistency over time. The same advice applies when it comes to marketing your dental practice. You can attempt to time the market, but it is not likely to net the return you are hoping for.
However, if you invest in marketing your dental practice consistently over time, you are far more likely to come out ahead.
Marketing is an investment, and it behaves like one too. Making consistent contributions to your marketing strategy over time is more likely to give you better, more reliable results. You cannot expect to start a marketing campaign out of nothing and be instantly successful. You’ve got to give a campaign enough time to work for you.
A lot of practices make the mistake of neglecting to think about marketing until they are in a tight spot. Then, they expect that hiring a marketing agency to run a campaign is going to fix everything right away. This is unreasonable and will surely end up in frustration for everyone involved.
Marketing is not an instantaneous process. It takes time to, first of all, find the right partner, someone who understands your practice and its unique needs, and someone who also has qualified experience in dentistry. Once you find that perfect partner, they need sufficient time to develop an effective strategy based on what your practice is aiming to achieve.
The next step is to implement your campaigns, which can involve several marketing channels — digital, as well as traditional. The campaign also needs time to gain traction. It’s not likely that a marketing campaign will be successful from day one, especially if it is the first marketing campaign your dental practice has ever run.
In order for your marketing strategy to be successful, it must resonate with your target audience, and that takes some finesse.
In other words, the campaign has to find its way to the right people on the right channels, and it has to be compelling enough to make them want to take action. That does not happen overnight. It involves building your practice’s presence in the market through various means, and that requires experts in several areas who know how to “work the system.”
One flyer in the mail is not likely going to be enough. One Google ad is probably not going to have the impact you want it to on day one. However, if your practice engages multiple channels consistently, then the patients you are trying to reach will become aware of your brand and what it stands for.
Then, when you want to make a push for a certain treatment or attract a lot of new patients in a short period of time, you are more likely to see the results you want because you have taken the time beforehand to build your practice’s reputation, and the people you are trying to reach are going to be more receptive to your message.
This approach may seem like a lot, but it really is not. It is what a professional dental marketing agency does for its clients on the most basic level.
A consistent investment over time means that, in the long run, you end up spending less and getting better results. Waiting until the need is urgent puts your practice in a difficult situation, because the funds you have available may not be adequate to get the outcome you require to make it worthwhile.
Don’t get your practice into a sticky situation where marketing is the one thing you need to grow successfully, but the funds just aren’t there to do it the right way.
Take the time now to invest in a long-term marketing strategy that will establish your practice’s presence in the market and start working for you sooner rather than later.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With more than a decade of experience in corporate dental laboratory marketing and brand development, Jackie Ulasewich-Cullen decided to take her passion for the dental business and marketing to the next level by founding My Dental Agency.
Since starting her company, she and her team have helped a wide variety of practices all over the nation focus their message, reach their target audience, and increase their sales through effective marketing campaigns.
She can be reached at (800) 689-6434 or via email at jackie@mydentalagency.com.
FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.
