Читать книгу Managing Marketing: Guidelines for Practice Success - American Dental Association - Страница 7

Marketing is more than just advertising and, whether you realize it or not, you’ve been marketing your practice since the first day you started treating patients. Every interaction with every patient, vendor, supplier and neighbor is an opportunity to market the practice. So is your presence in the community.

Every interaction with every patient, vendor, supplier and neighbor is an opportunity to market the practice.

Marketing can be approached in many ways: it can be done on the fly, strategically, or somewhere in between the two. To be successful, it must be effective. To be effective, it must give you the platform to educate patients, both current and prospective ones, and engage with them. Engagement, or feeling involved with your practice, is especially important to patients who see themselves as health care consumers; these individuals expect to have equal responsibility and authority for managing their health care. Often, they actively research providers, treatment options and even pricing.

If patient engagement sounds like more than you’re ready for, make sure that your marketing keeps your practice visible, provides information, and highlights how your practice stands out from others in the community.

Effective marketing will help you gain the attention of the types of prospective patients that you want. It will also help you keep them in your practice for years to come.

A good rule of thumb when budgeting for marketing expenses is to allow 3-6% of a new practice’s expenses; 2-3% for mature practices; and about 4% for practices that are in the middle.

While marketing budgets in most practices vary, mature practices or those nearing a transition in ownership typically invest more on marketing; new ones usually invest less since they’re also dealing with the costs of starting the business. A good rule of thumb when budgeting for marketing expenses is to allow 3-6% of a new practice’s expenses; 2-3% for mature practices; and about 4% for practices that are in the middle. Dentists in new practices should plan on spending about $40,000 on marketing during the first year and can include that amount in the overall financing of the practice. How you invest your marketing budget will depend on your goals, the market you’re in and the channels and tactics you use. When determining your total marketing budget, you should consider earmarking 5-10% of that amount to updating your website.

Don’t Forget! Check your state’s dental practice to see what’s allowable and legal under local laws and regulations before you make any marketing plans. Regulations vary so it’s important that you know your state’s restrictions, requirements, and even its stipulations about contests and “thank you” gifts for patient referrals.

It’s also a good idea to review the ADA Principles of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct for guidance; pay special attention to sections 5.F., 5.H. and 5.I: these sections review advertising, announcing specialization and limitation of practice, and general practitioner announcement of services.