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Most dentists turn to marketing their practices out of desperation. They have a slow down in their practice and they panic and place ads, do a newsletter, brochure, offer free items or services, do a coupon, or sign up for managed care*.

These are generally one shot efforts and they fail miserably. The dentist wastes hundreds or thousands of dollars and gets very discouraged.

How can you avoid this trap? *What do the marketing pros (Harry Beckwith and Adrienne Zoble) have to say about how to effectively use service marketing for your dental practice?

1. Marketing campaigns need to be well thought out, planned and written down. Do it now. Start at zero. Erase the blackboard. Think differently. It takes time and effort to prepare an effective marketing plan. Your marketing efforts need to be planned, congruent, and appropriate for your market and practice. Effective marketing strategies need to be repeated and repeated.

Don't try to create a marketing plan all at once. Create the plan over several short 15 to 30 minute sessions. This is easier on everyone's brain.

Be relentless in planning and executing your marketing efforts.

2. One shot or sporadic marketing campaigns are doomed to fail. It takes time for the seeds of marketing to germinate in patient's minds. Research shows that most people need to hear or see a message at least 8 times before they act.

When you do a one shot brochure, post card mailing, newsletter, coupon, free consultation, and Welcome Wagon you are wasting your money. The experts guarantee that isolated, disconnected marketing will not produce results.

The more specialized your service and the more of a negative perception it has, the longer it will take patients to respond. One shot or sporadic marketing campaigns are doomed to fail.

3. Don't like selling? Educate. Use mailings, newsletters, web sites, press releases, articles in newspapers, Google Ad Words, and seminars to educate your existing and potential patients. This helps people to know you and gives them confidence and trust in you. Education is the foundation of service marketing.

4. The best place to increase your new patient flow is by internal marketing. Create a congruent, written marketing plan to educate and generate referrals from your existing patients.

5. Marketing is not logical - it is emotional. In all of your marketing remember to provide answers to the patient's "What's in it for me?" question before it is asked. By doing this you can provide answers to questions of which the patient was not aware.

Remember service marketing is about building relationships.

6. Include your team in all of your marketing efforts. Make them aware of and include them in all of your marketing plans and ideas. Ask them what patients are saying and asking. Do this in team meetings.

What is your profile in the community? What is unique about your practice? Use your and your team's natural spheres of influence to market your practice. Make sure all team members have their own business cards. Make sure team members are consistently asking for referrals in appropriate ways from your patients and the people they meet outside of the office.

7. Network, Network, Network. Get out in your community and volunteer by participating in activities you enjoy. Create and meet regularly in support groups with like-minded people in different professions and businesses - ask them to refer to you. Join service clubs, a church, participate in your children's activities. Be a coach, scoutmaster, volunteer. Join a non-profit agency board.

Ask your team to do the same.

8. Don't underestimate people. Marketing is not about fooling people or manipulating them. Educate. Use service marketing where you honestly believe that the services you are marketing are in the best interest of patients. Understand what are their wants and needs. Remember the phrase "Find out what people want and give it to them".

The co-diagnosis process is a prime example.

9. Remember to create missionaries out of your patients. Ask for referrals. Do post case presentations. Revisit where the patient was when they first started with you and where they are now.

Stay in touch with your specialists and blue-bird patients with notes, phone calls and by mailing them items of interest.

10. Ask for help from experts in marketing a dental practice if your do-it-yourself efforts fail.

* These tips are for dentists with established practices. They are not for dentists just starting out. Scratch starts require a whole different way of marketing. You need existing patients to do service marketing.

*The bible for service marketing is "Selling the Invisible" by Harry Beckwith, Warner Books, 1997.

Beckwith has this to say about service marketing - 'The new marketing is more than a way of doing; it is a way of thinking. - 'The core of service marketing is the service itself.' -'If you are selling a service, you are selling a relationship.' - 'Every act is a marketing act. Make every employee a marketing person.' - ' Prospects don't buy how good you are at what you do. They buy how good you are at who you are."

Buy the book. Read it often.

*Another outstanding and cost effective resource is "The Do-able Marketing Plan" workbook by Adrienne Zoble. She can be reached by e-mailing her at: azoble@azobleassoc.com. She also publishes a free bi-monthly "Do-able Marketing" newsletter. Her web site is www.azobleassoc.com. Toll free phone: 866-282-1150

Zoble has this to say about marketing: 'Remember the delay factor', 'There are no quick fixes in marketing', 'Marketing is not about conning people. It's about educating them on what you can do to help them with their various needs.'

Click on "Win/Win marketing" under "Departments" http://www.spiritofcaring.com/members/department33.cfm to see articles on marketing.

Distribution rights: © 2004 - The article is copyrighted. You are free to distribute it to others without any deletions or changes, and with full attribution to the author including contact information. (See below) With permission in advance, we are happy to make edits to suit your space requirements or editorial needs. Lynn Carlisle, DDS @ webmaster@spiritofcaring.com. ____________________________________________________________

Lynn D. Carlisle, DDS, FAGD practices dentistry in Fort Collins, Colorado. He has served on the Board of Directors of The Pankey Institute and has been president of The Bob Barkley Foundation. He is the author of the highly acclaimed book, In a Spirit of Caring. He is the publisher and editor of the web site In a Spirit of Caring. The web site is dedicated to helping dentists and teams with the people part of dentistry. For more information on the web site, go to www.spiritofcaring.com.