Healthcare and Dental Marketing: Increasing New Patients Without Advertising

pSuccessful health care and dental practice managementnbsp;has to include marketing methods that can get lots of good patients into the door without expensive advertising. Traditional healthcare and a title=dental marketing href=http://unadvertise.com/ target=_blankdental marketing/a tends to be restricted by only internal marketing or external advertising./p
pYet, it is more and more true that most healthcarenbsp;and dental practices that do advertising alone are throwing their hard-earned money out the window. They might increase the total collection but almost never the bottom line./p
pThe reason is easy to understand: advertising is hardly noticed and definitely not believed. The amount of advertising in this countrynbsp;is way up, but for most business ownersnbsp;it means an ever decreasing profits./p
pstrongHere are some of the downfall of advertising:/strong/p
p1) If your advertising messagenbsp;only mentionsnbsp;the benefitsnbsp;of your services and your experience and which school you went to, you will sound alike with your competitorsrsquo; messages. Patients cannot choose easily among services which are similar./p
p2) You are tooting your own horn. People do not 100% trust an ad . Your prospects already expect you to say, We have state-of-the-artnbsp;technology, We are experienced,nbsp;etc./p
p3) Ads have little staying power in creating deep impressions. The daynbsp;younbsp;pull your advertising, no onenbsp;will remember you.nbsp;Out-of-sight means out-of-mind almost immediately./p
p4) Your prospects are bombarded by 5000 advertising appeals a day. You are tryingnbsp;to get your message heard in an overcrowded marketing environment. Thus advertising cost goes up and returnsnbsp;decrease./p
pstrongProblems ofnbsp;dependence of customer referrals and networking:/strong/p
p1) Many offices depend on word-of-mouthnbsp;as their primary source of new patients, but depending only on internal marketing alone could not help you to break through income plateaus.nbsp;Especially in a bad economy, most offices find their new patient referrals going down or at best staying below a ceiling. Patients are changingnbsp;doctors immediatelynbsp;due to loss of jobs and insurances./p
p2) Networking meetings and luncheons to stimulate patient referrals from other doctors and related businesses are too time-consuming. You can send your staff to bring small giftsnbsp;to another doctorrsquo;s office to thank them for referrals but how many lsquo;lets-bring-em-chocolatersquo; trips can you make to ALL the possible referral sources? This time-consuming and costly lsquo;gift-givingrsquo; will eventually dead-end for most ndash; due to not enough time for the doctor and for the staff to do.nbsp;/p
pstrongWhat is the solution? Un-Advertising resolves the above problems./strong/p
pUn-Advertising is about getting other entities, media, business owners and health care professionals etc in your community to say how good you are, instead of you having to toot your own horn./p
pPut your messages onto other organizations existing communication channels. It is like hooking onto a high speed train to travel to your destination instead of trying to build your own railroad and train!/p
pThis strategy builds trust and reputation very quickly in the community without advertising and the best of all, it does not require the budget as in normal advertising.nbsp;br /br /To get your prospects to see you, you need a spark – something that turns their heads. Without this initial spark, there is no fire that could start ndash; thus no wind can spread this non-existing fire! Advertising is the wind and doing advertising without first establishing a position or perception which was put in peoplersquo;s minds by other sources than you will be a waste of dollars./p
pYour message must be believed, it must build trust, increase customer loyalty and make your practice stand out from your competition, especially in hardnbsp;economic times./p
pRemember: Healthcare and a title=dental advertising href=http://unadvertise.com/newpatientsmarketing/?p=665 target=_blankdental advertising/a can help get new patients and grow your business but if you do not wish to waste money in your healthcare and dental marketing efforts, you must include establishing trust and reputation in a broader and cheaper way. And that method is known as Un-advertising. There are numerous articles on this a title=healthcare marketing href=blog.unadvertise.com target=_blanksubject/a./p