Let’s talk about how to guarantee that your marketing will work because after all, we don’t all have ‘extra money to burn.’  This is a question I get quite often from clients who want to do everything they can to make sure their dental marketing strategy works.  There is nothing wrong with wanting to make sure your marketing strategy works except that it will put you in a defensive state.  A state of inaction.  Anything you do is better than nothing even though the short term might not suggest that.

As Bill Gates said in his book, “Business at the Speed of Thought”, people always hugely overestimate the short term result of everything they do and underestimate the long term result.  So people put their money into marketing strategies and complain that they didn’t work.  Most of the time, they don’t work because people didn’t keep them going.

Also, many of people’s strategies do not work because they try them one strategy at a time.  Then, when the marketing strategies they tried do not work, they become gun shy and do nothing.

Let’s scratch that and start from the beginning.  No war general’s strategy will be to first send in troops and wait until they are dead, then to send in the tanks and planes. Most small business’ marketing approach is like that though.  There is no synergy, no systematic approach and no strategy.  So what are some of the most cost effective strategies?  There are some things people need to have in mind before beginning their approach.

I understand that no one wants to lose too much when it comes to marketing.  But even the biggest marketing minds in the world lose some of what they put into marketing.  Not everything works, that is why we try different things and that is the point of a systematic strategy.  It is a little bit like a first love.  We try something thinking that it will last forever.   The realization that it won’t is a big part in growing up.

In internet dental marketing strategies, some dentists put out web sites alone and thought that that is all that is needed to be ‘found’ in the world wide web. Yet they failed to explore other strategies like social network media.   It is very inexpensive and should be a part of your dental marketing approach.  You should also approach public relations, getting the community leaders involved and most importantly, getting them to market for you.  This works through approaching a few people (via social media) who then approach other people (through their community of people) who approach other people (family, friends, etc.).  This can be done without spending thousands and thousands of dollars in one shot leaving you to hope your strategy works.

Remember: Never put your marketing in one basket. Don’t place all your hopes on one single dental advertising method alone. It is necessary to have multiple marketing sources