When you advertise whitening, it is important to remember the marketing axiom of promoting benefits instead of features.  Your audience is not interested in the exact percentage of peroxide that you use or the name of your take-home-whitening kit.  But they will respond to a message that tells them a dentist can whiten their teeth better than any over-the-counter product.  Everyone wants “the best”, and only a dentist can offer it.

Your competition, of course, is not just the other dentists.  See this article, comparing over-the counter products: http://www.realsimple.com/realsimple/gallery/0,21863,1629594,00.html.  The headline reads, “These shining at-home brighteners will give you something to smile about (without having to face the dentist)”.  Apparently, some view not seeing a dentist as a benefit.  Counter this with the truth - your method is undisputable better than anything else available.

It makes sense to hire experts.  Most of us shouldn’t fix our own plumbing, repair our own cars, or prepare our own tax returns.  We hire experts to take care of these things. 

Dentists are experts in oral care, but generally, have only very basic knowledge, and no expertise in marketing.  There are hundreds of dental marketing experts out there.  Why do so many dentists hesitate to hire them?  I have a few theories.

Most dentists want to avoid unnecessary confrontation.  They suspect that the minute they contact a marketing expert they will be bombarded with a high pressure sales pitch.  Who needs that in their life?

Some of the “experts” try to package everything together and charge standard monthly fees for membership or licenses.  You probably have enough monthly expenses, and don’t need more, especially if you don’t need the whole “bundle”.

Some dentists have found that they can do some of their own marketing - and get decent results.  Why pay someone to do what you can do yourself?

The reality is this:  If you have the time, patience and money, you can eventually learn to market yourself as well as a good marketing expert.  For most this doesn’t make sense.  Most would be best served spending their time in the operatory - where it is most valuable. 

Oh and don’t kid yourself - you can’t buy media better than a professional media buyer.  Neither can I.  If it seems like you can it’s probably because your information is coming entirely from the media representatives you are buying from.  They only make money by keeping you coming back for more.

Different experts are good at different things.  If you see a direct mail piece that makes sense for your practice, find out if you can hire the expert just to do that piece - without buying the whole service bundle.  It may be that you can - and you just have to ask.  If not, move on.  There are experts who work like you do - fee-for-service.  Don’t buy more than you need.

There are marketing experts out there who are excellent at what they do, and earn every penny you pay them by dramatically increasing your ROI.  I work with people like this every day.  Find the ones that fit your personality, that have the services you need, and are willing to sell you just what you want, and not just their standard “package”.

Some times we don’t make any changes to what we’re doing simply because the changes never occur to us.  Just in case you need a little inspiration, here are some things your colleagues are up to, and projects I’ve been working on lately:

1. New Radio Commercials.  Your current commercials may be generating patients just fine, but you may do even better if you add a couple new commercials to the library.  Sometimes a different twist on the message is all it takes to inspire that new patient to call.
2. Effective Web Content.  People look at web sites before they buy.  Make sure that the information on your site is accurate and compelling.  When’s the last time you read it? 
3. Solid Logo.  This is an easy one.  If you don’t have one - get one.
4. Promotions and Offers.  Lifetime whitening and referral incentives are still solid producers.  Add one to your message.
5. Non-specialty specialties.  Your State Board determines what is technically a specialty, but you can still offer non-specialty services that set you apart from the crowd.  Let the community know if you offer sedation, implants, Invisalign, six-month braces or Lumineers.
6. Good print pieces.  Review your direct mail, brochure and yellow pages ad.  Make sure that the message is still accurate and compelling.
7. Video.  Dental practices are using video for their web sites, patient info DVDs informational loops for the waiting room, and 30-second tv commercials.

A marketing campaign is like a shark - it needs to keep moving.  If yours has been standing still lately, pick a project off of this list and get started.

To a certain extent, you are who you say you are.  If you continually reinforce to the public that you are the “implant dentist” or “the sedation dentist”, eventually that reputation takes on a life of its own.

“Owning”  your market means penetrating the public consciousness to a degree that you become the default choice for the service you own.  This requires a serious and long term commitment to your marketing campaign, and most likely will use a variety of media.  Some clients of mine who “own” their markets use a combination of web, radio, direct mail, tv and billboards.  That’s sounds like a big investment - and it is.  But none of my clients started their campaigns so aggressively.  Each started with a modest budget, using one or two media, and grew the campaign over a period of years as the ROI built them a marketing warchest.

I have clients spending as little as $1000 a month and as much as $20,000 a month on radio advertising.  Both of these are exceptional cases, and you’ll most likely have a budget somewhere in between.  Most of my dental clients start with budgets between $2500 and $5000 a month. 

That may sound expensive, especially when you multiply by twelve to see your annual spending.  Maybe you think you can’t afford it.  But if it is done right, there is no such thing as advertising that is too expensive.  If it gets you the expected return, advertising is an investment, not an expense.

Proper planning, that views advertising like an investment, will budget advertising dollars for the course of the year in the same way that you should be funding all your investments.  Marketing is not something you spend money on when there is a little extra at the end of the month.  You need to make a long-term plan, commit to it, and stick with it.

So sure, $5000 a month does add up to $60,000 a year.  That same campaign, if properly planned, should add a minimum of a quarter-million to your production that same year - and likely much more.  Can you afford that?

Marketing is a marathon, not a sprint.  This is especially true with higher ticket items like advanced dentistry.  I love fast results, and have been fortunate to see them on many occasions, but I always caution my dentist clients to focus on the ROI of months and year’s - not days and weeks.

Not every campaign works, and at some point you have to stop throwing good money after bad.  But if you have a good plan, and a sound strategy, it is best to give your campaign time to mature.  Most dental advertising campaigns have some element of direct response - we love when people respond immediately. But you’re also branding the practice and building up your presence in the mind of the community.  This pays dividends over time, and gets better and better with the passing months and years.

Don’t spend all your time, energy, and resources constantly revising the plan.  Don’t come home from every seminar with visions of duplicating someone else’s plan, only to change your mind in a month or two, and head in another direction.  Figure out who you are, who you want to be, and devise a plan to let the community know.  Then stay focused on the plan, and give it some time to work.

The yellow pages are not dead.  Neither is terrestrial radio.  Newspapers are still kicking.  All three of these mediums are in decline due to increased competition from newer technologies, but they are not dead yet.

Search engines provide a new way for consumers to find products and services in their area.  Many rely exclusively on the internet for their consumer reasearch and information, and never even pick up  a phone book.  But if you think that nobody uses the yellow pages anymore, you’re just wrong.

People have been predicting the collapse of terrestrial radio from the first days of Sirius and XM satellite radio.  They’ve both been transmitting for over five years now, but they are still very far from dominating the market.

You can’t ignore the impact that new media is having on old media, but you don’t need to abandon what’s working either.  It’s all about efficiency.  If it ain’t broke - don’t fix it.

You should be tracking the reults of all your marketing.  If yellow page leads are slipping, consider downsizing your ad.  But before you eliminate it completely realize that that many patients who have heard about you may still go looking for you in the yellow pages to find your number before they call.  Don’t spend money on a radio ad that leads a potential patient to the yellow page ad for your competitor, just because they couldn’t find you.  Keep a token presence at least.

Satellite radio has taken away some terrestrial radio listeners.  But it will never be able to replace the local news, weather, and traffic available from terrestrial radio, and it can’t give the local flavor that listeners enjoy from their hometown stations.  CNN and Fox News will never replace you local tv news programming, and terrestrial radio has a lot more life in it for listeners as well as advertisers.

Many dentists hesitate to start an ad campaign on the radio because of fear.  They fear that the campaign won’t be cost-effective, that the public will be offended by their campaign, and that the local dental community will be displeased.

If you know what you’re doing, the campaign will be cost-effective.  Radio campaigns can be extremely profitable for dental practices.  No ad campaign offers 100% guarantees, but smartly designed and well executed plans have proven successful for thousands of dentists.  If you know your target market and efficiently reach them with a compelling message, you have a good chance of success too.

I have executed radio campaigns for hundreds of dentists, and I have never seen any appreciable public backlash to a dentist advertising on the radio.  If your message is appropriate and respectful, you will actually get compliments.

But your peers may hate you.  Advertising on the radio still feels unconventional to old-school dentists, and some of these guys have been resisting every new media since dentists started appearing in the yellow pages.  Some dentists will also dislike your ads out of a feeling of self-preservation.  Orthodontists sometimes feel threatened by Invisalign and “Six-Month Braces”; many oral surgeons fear competition from dentists using sedation; and even general dentists may worry about losing business to the guy who just started speaking to the community over the airwaves, when he couldn’t or wouldn’t do it himself.

You can’t worry about those guys.  You didn’t start advertising to win a popularity contest.  You did it to grow your business by letting the community know about the services you have to offer.  If another dentist feels threatened by this - that is their problem, not yours. 

A recent New York Times article described a dropoff in Lasik eye surgery procedures: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/24/business/24lasik.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=lasik&st=nyt&oref=slogin  This slowdown is also affecting other elective medical procedures like breast augmentation and botox skin injections.  Since cosmetic dentistry often competes for those same discretionary dollars, this reduction is consumer demand has implications for the dental community as well.

If we assume that the sluggish economy will make some consumers less likely to opt for elective procedures, like veneers, for instance, what is the proper response from a marketing standpoint.  Does it make sense to reduce your marketing campaign until the economy turns around and the target customers are more ready to spend?

One might consider shifting dollars from purely aesthetic procedures to more “necessary” dentistry, but I’m not sure even that step is necessary.  If you’ve been branding yourself as “The Cosmetic Dentist”, you want to keep building and reinforcing that brand, even in tough times.  During the Great Depression, brands like Chevrolet, Kelloggs, Proctor & Gamble, and Camel made great leaps in market share by continuing and even increasing their marketing efforts.  Some companies who pulled back never made it out of the Depression.

People will always have needs, regardless of the economy.  There will always be a market for your services, even if the pool shrinks some.  Make sure that your voice continues to be heard.  When the economy improves, consistency and longevity will be part of your brand, and the public may have forgotten the name of your competition.

Last month my media buyer presented her recommendations to a dentist who was new to radio advertising. His market is relatively small, so the budget allowed us to use three different stations.  Two of the stations made sense to him, but he hesitated to accept our recommendation for the third, saying, “Nobody listens to that station.”

What he was really saying was, “I don’t listen to that station and neither do the ladies in the office.”  Since they don’t listen to it, they all assumed that nobody else did either.  Now this kind of anecdotal evidence has some value, especially in smaller markets where accurate statistics aren’t as easy to come by.  But personal preference, and the listening habits of friends and family, should not be the the main factors in your decision. 

Here’s the right way to do it:  Decide who you need to reach, and then find out what stations they listen to.  If your target is soccer moms, you’ll find that they tend to listen to different stations than middle-aged businessmen.

Hundreds of markets are carefully tracked, some up to four times a year, to see who’s listening to each station.  This tracking collects an enormous amount of information, but the most important to you are age, sex and wealth.  Analyze this to find out where your target patients are.  Make a list of the five best stations, and then  compare rates to see which is the most efficient.

I don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh myself, but I’m a big fan of his results for my clients.  His program attracts high income 35-64 year-olds that I’m looking for in many of my campaigns.  The point is this - it doesn’t matter what you like, it just matters where the right customers are.

By the way, that third station, that the dentist resisted, generated more than half of his phone calls last month.