When does radio advertising make sense for a dental practice?
I’m one of the biggest proponents of radio advertising because I’ve worked with so many practices who have seen great success from it. My company, Ridgway Consulting, is best known for radio campaigns. That being said, it’s not right for every practice.
Radio is a broadcast medium, like TV, and the radio signal often reaches a larger geographic area than what you might consider your practice’s base. Depending on the population in your area, you may see mostly patients that are within five, ten or twenty miles of your practice. Some radio stations have the signal strength to reach listeners that are hours away. The challenge with enormous “reach” like that is economic. When you advertise, you get what you pay for; in radio terms, that means radio stations charge you based upon the amount of listeners. So the problem is this: how can you be efficient when you are spending a portion of your marketing dollars to reach people who won’t travel as far as your office for dentistry?
Radio only makes sense if you can offer something the other local practices are not offering. You need to give people a reason to pass by the other offices and make you their dentist of choice. That unique service, whether it be invisalign, implants, sedation dentistry, or whatever, also needs to be a relatively profitable service. It’s difficult to make an acceptable ROI when you advertise a low-dollar service like cleanings or whitenings. Instead, use radio to advertise something like sedation. One big case, from someone who’s been away from dentistry for years, can pay for months worth of advertising.
