Nearly half of dental practitioners spend between $1,000 and $5,000 on dental marketing each month.
Dentists understand that they need to find new patients in order to build a sustainable dental practice. However, there’s a lot of misinformation that can lead dentists to invest in the wrong marketing strategies.
If you want to make the most of your marketing budget, it’s necessary to know the main dental marketing myths and how to avoid them.
1. Dentists Only Need Word of Mouth Marketing
A new dental practice might try to get a few patients and then rely on word of mouth marketing to do the rest.
Word of mouth marketing is valuable, but it’s not the best way to build a practice. You need to add other tactics to your dental marketing strategy.
You have no control over your dental practice because you’re waiting for patients to refer people to you. Take control of your marketing and use word of mouth marketing along with other marketing strategies.
2. It’s OK to Target Everyone Who Needs a Dentist
General dentists fall into this trap because they want to reach as many people as possible. They don’t realize that the more specific they are, the easier it is for people to find them.
For instance, people will be able to refer others to a pediatric dentist because you tell them that’s what you do.
You can also target dental implant patients. They’re looking for a dentist that has experience in this area of dentistry. This guide has more on implant patient leads.
3. Marketing Is Too Expensive
You might think that spending up to $5,000 a month on marketing is crazy. Dentists fall into a trap where they spend $20 on a promoted Facebook post and expect it to work miracles.
Look at dental marketing from a return on investment perspective. Spend marketing dollars and measure how much a patient is worth to your dental practice.
That’s the lifetime value of a patient, and you’ll find that they generate enough to cover the monthly expense.
4. Everyone Knows You
The longer you’re in business, the more you get to know people and their families.
A trip to the grocery store makes you feel like the mayor of town because you run into so many people you know. It’s a little deceiving because you think everyone in town knows you, so you don’t need to market your dental practice.
You’re missing out on an important point. About 13% of the population moves every year. You’ll lose 13% of your patients, and you don’t give yourself a chance to earn the trust of the new people in town looking for a dentist.
Don’t Buy These Dental Marketing Myths
Dental marketing is already tough because of increased competition. Don’t make it harder on yourself because you bought into common dental marketing myths.
You just learned some of the most common myths and how they can hurt your business. Avoid them, and you’ll be on your way to building a thriving private dental practice.
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