For many dentists, a full schedule and waiting room seem to contradict the need for advertising and marketing. At the same time, many are put off by the advertising efforts of far too aggressive colleagues.
These impressions (coupled with a lack of business savvy and understanding) have kept many in our profession from recognizing how all the benefits of marketing, advertising, public relations and business planning can contribute to a thriving practice. While we may be doing well financially, we can accomplish so much more with a sophisticated marketing approach. Name a successful business that doesn't market, advertise and have a strong public relations campaign in their community.
For the last five years, in the creation of Dear Doctor magazine, we have studied with the same due diligence we use for our clinical practice and created a complete marketing concept for dentistry. We believe marketing - an essential element in any business model - should be different in execution for healthcare professionals than other businesses. We wanted to create a marketing product of high quality that truly represented the dignity our profession should demand and receive.
This concept had to accomplish more than simply promoting a dentist and his practice - the Yellow Pages can do that. Given the level of sophistication of our target market, this product must offer some form of value that connects patients with the dentist. We believe that that value is patient education.
We are all familiar with patient education - our clinics are full of brochures and videos describing various aspects of dentistry. Dear Doctor actually creates a new "partnership" environment between the patient and dentist with two basic thrusts.
First, we offer patients solid information on all aspects of dentistry. Each issue contains several articles, consultations and special features on a variety of dental services, involving many different types of treatment including care from a variety of different specialties. Our contributors are all highly esteemed clinicians and researchers known for their expertise in their particular fields, so readers are receiving up-to-date, expert information in all disciplines of dentistry. Dear Doctor is, in effect, a dental journal for patients - it empowers them to think and evaluate issues related to their dental healthcare in a more informed and confident manner.
The other thrust is to provide patients with a reliable and accurate source that can help them solve their dental problems which they have learned about through the magazine. This source is you, the dentist, who provided them with Dear Doctor in the first place. To best facilitate this, we do not distribute our magazine directly to consumers. Instead, we enter into contract with individual dentists and distribute the magazine through them to their patients and potential patient base.
We then customize each client's distributed issues by including their own professional profile in the first two to eight pages of the magazine. This profile introduces the dentist and his or her practice to the reader, along with philosophy of practice and the range of services offered. These are prime advertising and revenue pages for any magazine; by dedicating them to our dental clients we offer them a prime opportunity to promote themselves in a professional manner and connect with readers. They not only learn more about the issues of dentistry, but also where to obtain solutions in their community. Our goal is to form a connection you and your patients or potential patients.
These impressions (coupled with a lack of business savvy and understanding) have kept many in our profession from recognizing how all the benefits of marketing, advertising, public relations and business planning can contribute to a thriving practice. While we may be doing well financially, we can accomplish so much more with a sophisticated marketing approach. Name a successful business that doesn't market, advertise and have a strong public relations campaign in their community.
For the last five years, in the creation of Dear Doctor magazine, we have studied with the same due diligence we use for our clinical practice and created a complete marketing concept for dentistry. We believe marketing - an essential element in any business model - should be different in execution for healthcare professionals than other businesses. We wanted to create a marketing product of high quality that truly represented the dignity our profession should demand and receive.
This concept had to accomplish more than simply promoting a dentist and his practice - the Yellow Pages can do that. Given the level of sophistication of our target market, this product must offer some form of value that connects patients with the dentist. We believe that that value is patient education.
We are all familiar with patient education - our clinics are full of brochures and videos describing various aspects of dentistry. Dear Doctor actually creates a new "partnership" environment between the patient and dentist with two basic thrusts.
First, we offer patients solid information on all aspects of dentistry. Each issue contains several articles, consultations and special features on a variety of dental services, involving many different types of treatment including care from a variety of different specialties. Our contributors are all highly esteemed clinicians and researchers known for their expertise in their particular fields, so readers are receiving up-to-date, expert information in all disciplines of dentistry. Dear Doctor is, in effect, a dental journal for patients - it empowers them to think and evaluate issues related to their dental healthcare in a more informed and confident manner.
The other thrust is to provide patients with a reliable and accurate source that can help them solve their dental problems which they have learned about through the magazine. This source is you, the dentist, who provided them with Dear Doctor in the first place. To best facilitate this, we do not distribute our magazine directly to consumers. Instead, we enter into contract with individual dentists and distribute the magazine through them to their patients and potential patient base.
We then customize each client's distributed issues by including their own professional profile in the first two to eight pages of the magazine. This profile introduces the dentist and his or her practice to the reader, along with philosophy of practice and the range of services offered. These are prime advertising and revenue pages for any magazine; by dedicating them to our dental clients we offer them a prime opportunity to promote themselves in a professional manner and connect with readers. They not only learn more about the issues of dentistry, but also where to obtain solutions in their community. Our goal is to form a connection you and your patients or potential patients.
Labels: Patient Education Magazine, Professional Dental Advertising, Professional Dental Marketing
.gif){kind=small}