WHAT DENTISTS CAN LEARN FROM BIG BRANDS
When striving to build a strong brand for your dentistry, success strategies and inspiration can be found by looking at the best and most recognized brands in the world. Think Nike, Coca Cola, Apple, and all the other corporate giants that virtually everyone is familiar with. These brands follow some useful marketing rules that you can duplicate to achieve top-of-mind brand recognition with your patients and grow your dental office!
OFFER A FLAWLESS PATIENT EXPERIENCE
It’s not just treatments and price that ensure someone keeps coming back to your practice. Excellent patient experience is a key differentiator. People want a flawless, frictionless experience and usually have little patience when theirs is less than perfect. Nowadays, everyone has so many options and poor experience is a sure way for a dental office to lose a patient. Instead of seeing this as a challenge, consider it an opportunity to differentiate yourself and a way to deliver great value to your patients. To learn more about how you can achieve this read our blog post on Improving Your Patient Experience.
STAY ON TOP OF YOUR PATIENTS’ MINDS
By regularly communicating with your patients, you stay on top of their minds, which creates loyalty to your dentistry. Remind your patients regularly that you care about them, not just when they visit your practice. You can keep in touch through newsletters, your social media, and direct mail.
STAY CONSISTENT
Great brands have genuine, clearly articulated and consistent missions. Through consistency people easily understand, recognize and remember your brand. Unfortunately many dental offices fail at this early on and get too focused on only getting their dental services in front of as many eyes as possible. Meanwhile their brand is still inconsistent, showing up differently in each marketing collateral. Consider hiring a specialist who ensures that your brand remains consistent and fresh.
MARKET TO THE RIGHT AUDIENCE
Knowing who to target is important for an effective marketing campaign. Digital tools can help you narrow down an audience but did you know that you can also target your ideal patient in a highly predictable way through physical mail? Customizing your marketing with the help of specialists can get you better results. Learn more about how you can grow your practice rapidly through an effective direct mail program here.
MANAGE YOUR MARKETING
It’s not enough to just have a custom designed logo to maintain your brand. Good branding requires certain marketing efforts, such as maintaining email and content campaigns and notifying patients of any practice improvements (e.g. new equipment, updated treatments) they can benefit from.
While the world’s biggest brands all spend billions of dollars annually to ensure their branding is top-notch, you can still achieve great results within your marketing budget. The best brands excel in combining digital and physical advertising efforts. Consumers are everywhere and most companies have trouble reaching them if they only focus on one marketing channel. Commit to properly managing your marketing and leveraging all channels available to you to ensure that you yield the best results.
CONCLUSION
Corporate giants can teach a lot about good branding, growth and sustainability. Creating a vision for your dental practice will allow you to connect with your patients on a deeper level and maintain that connection over time. This creates loyalty and vital patient retention. Regardless of the size of your practice, don’t be afraid to think big by emulating the strategies of the world’s greatest brands and you’ll be sure to succeed as well.