Tuesday, November 1, 2011

5 Inexpensive Ways to Increase Awareness About Your Practice

When you are running a small dental practice, it can be very difficult for you to create awareness about your practice with little or no budget at all. In order for you to grow your practice and gain more patients, you need to factor in new competitors who may have a more aggressive campaign than you, lack of marketing, poor reputation and overall scarceness of resources. All of these things can hinder the growth of your practice and may even lead to the decline in the number of your patients.
As a dentist, being responsible for taking care of the dental health of your patients at the same time having to take care of your practice’s marketing campaign is a no non-sense job. In order to help you out with this daunting task, here are a few inexpensive ways for you to spread awareness regarding your practice.

1. Contribute to Local Homeowner’s Association

Tie up with local homeowners’ associations and offer to write articles or tips to them. These associations often have community bulletins or newsletters which are often running low on material. You can offer to write a couple of articles for them weekly or give talks regarding dental health. You’re not only creating awareness for your practice but you are also building trust and confidence among your prospective patients.

2. Contribute to Local Chamber of Commerce

You can also approach local chambers of commerce and offer to provide education information to the small businesses in your community. You can talk about occupational situations wherein these employees’ dental safety is at stake.

3. Run Inexpensive Local Paper Ads

Try running inexpensive advertisements in your local community paper. You can also offer to write articles or have advertorials, a mix between advertisements and editorials.

4. Befriend Local Realtors

Make friends with the realtors in your community and target new families who are moving into your community. Chances are that these newly transferred families do not have a dentist in their new area yet. You can ask realtors to refer you to these families and individuals when they are in the process of buying a new house. You can provide brochures or business cards for these realtors to give out.

5. Participate in an “Ask Dr. X” Column in Local Paper

Persuade your local newspaper to come up with a “health” section to their website. You can show your support by being available for interviews or questions should any healthcare related queries suddenly come up. You can also provide tips to readers who send in their questions or run a column.

Your Ideas

These ideas are just scratching the surface. Do you have additional low-cost methods of raising awareness for dental practices? Please share in a comment below.