Every new practice we work with does extensive marketing in the first and, usually, the second year. This marketing grows the practice and creates a nice solid financial basis for the doctor. This also creates a very busy practice where the last thing the doctor and staff want to think about is more growth and busier days. Unfortunately when an office ceases to grow, it also begins to slip. Picture a graph with the production line going up and up, then the line stops going up and levels off. In a hospital, this would be flat lining and, as we all know, that’s never a good thing.
Every year your marketing should be at least 2% of your yearly production for the practice to stay alive and continue to thrive. As soon as you let your marketing slip, you’re opening the door for the next ambitious young doctor to start taking your patients. No matter how much you think your patients like you, there is very little loyalty in our current society to dentists. If the office down the street is running a good promotion and providing similar service, you just might lose patients to them. Marketing is what keeps your office fresh in their minds and brings in more patients.
The really toughest thing about marketing is that it needs to be done when you’re busy, to prepare for the quiet times. That means that in your very busy summer or end of year, you need to be continuing strong marketing so the fall or first of the year don’t look like a ghost town in your office.
In most offices the marketing is put onto the shoulders of one staff member, when it’s actually a task that thrives with more hands in the pot. Create a marketing group in your office comprised of at least one management person, one front office person and one op staff person. Getting many thoughts, perspectives and ideas will produce the best marketing projects and attract the largest number of new patients. It also makes the task less daunting when a number of people are helping. This distribution of thoughts and tasks helps guarantee the job will get done even in busy months……and will even out the dips and valleys in production that make it difficult to decide on staff hiring and new equipment purchases. Marketing on a regular basis keeps the practice running more smoothly and with a great deal more predictability, helping the doctor rest easier at night during the entire year!
