Do I have your attention with that headline? You might notice I have a bit of a pet peeve, or even a chip on my shoulder about orthodontic and dental marketing. I have come to the conclusion that big marketing and advertising companies are taking advantage of orthodontists and dentists. While working with orthodontists and dentists since 2001 I have seen some good marketing and some bad…mostly bad. All of is has been very expensive.
Dentists and orthodontists understand that with the current level of competition in most markets they have to do more, or be better at marketing themselves and their practices. What they typically don’t know is how exactly to do that. Here come the marketing firms, ad agencies, and sales reps telling you they can solve your problems and then give you the same crap everyone else spews out.
Don’t fall for it…please! Do the yellow pages reps call you and tell you their marketing department can write your ad for you? They can, but it’s going to be just like everyone else’s and none of it works. Were you told to run a postcard campaign because it’s less expensive and the big pictures will get noticed in the big pile of junk mail? Did they also mention that you are getting the same postcard everyone else uses with little to no results? Did they mention that the average person needs to see an ad about 7 times before it registers and about 9 times before they take any action? You would have to mail that postcard a lot to the same houses to have much of an impact.
If you want your marketing to work harder for you and you don’t have a fortune to spend on it then follow a few key rules.
1) Have a great headline – if your headline doesn’t get the readers attention they won’t even see anything else. Think of the headline as your one shot to get them to read the first sentence. The first sentence is your one shot to get them to read the second sentence and so on. No headline? Then why would anyone read it?
2) Have a clear call to action – why are you marketing to this person? Do you want them to call for an appointment? Go to your website to fill out a form or join in on a contest? Is your offer good enough or interesting enough to get them to take the action you want? Do you even have an offer?
3) Talk about benefits to the patient, not features of the office or your credentials – It’s hard when it’s your practice to think about benefits vs features. So think of it this way…when you think something is important enough to include in your marketing efforts, ask the question “who cares?” If you can’t answer the question, leave it out. If you can, then write the answer! And when in doubt, add “and what that means to you is…” will help ensure that you described a benefit.
I hope you find this information useful. I’m tired of seeing good money being wasted on bad marketing and advertising. The dental community deserves more so I’ll keep giving you what I can here. Let me know your questions, concerns, comments and what you might like to hear more about.
Bye for now,
Brian
