Take It From Someone Who Knows
Dr. David Pearce built a highly successful and profitable dental practice that allowed him to become financially independent and retire early. I use “retire” loosely because he’s so passionate about dentistry that he couldn’t stay out of the game for long. He now dedicates his time to coaching other practice owners on how to become as successful as he was, and a key aspect of his current vocation is teaching the value of quality marketing.
In the video, Dr. Pearce makes an excellent point about why marketing is fundamental for any business that wants to build brand awareness, including a dental practice. Regardless of what you think about marketing, your current and future patients have a choice. Even if you don’t believe that the other practices in your area can hold a candle to yours, there is always the possibility that a potential patient will not choose you, and a lack of marketing or poor marketing practices will do nothing to tip the scales in your favor.
Ask yourself these questions: If you aren’t actively marketing your dental practice, how do people even know about you? Are the patients who find you ideal for your practice? Do you see an abundance of quality patients? Does your practice hit its revenue target each month? If you are doing some marketing, how do you know if what you’re doing is working?
Marketing Is a Science
As Dr. Pearce so aptly explains in the video, marketing should be treated as the science that it is. A lot goes into marketing a dental practice. It’s not just coming up with a catchy phrase or a flashy graphic. It’s about knowing the industry as a whole and also understanding various specialties as well as the nuances that make each dental practice unique. It’s about knowing trends nationwide and in individual markets, being able to identify the right people to target in your specific market. It’s about precise planning and implementation, consistency, and measuring outcomes. It’s about the psychology of consumer decision marketing, knowing when, where and how to launch a campaign, seeing it through, and so much more.
Marketing Is Universal
All your favorite brands invest in quality marketing, which is a big part of why they are successful. Marketing has a profound effect on how consumers make decisions, whether they want to admit it or not. This applies equally across all the products and services we use. Why should dentistry be any different? Marketing serves to remind your existing and potential patients that you are there, so that when it comes time for them to choose which dentist to see, your dental practice is top of mind. That’s how famous brands do it, and that’s how dental practices should do it too.
I may be biased, given that I’ve built my career on dental marketing, but Dr. Pearce is not. He speaks solely based on years of experience running a successful practice. He had many choices to make as a practice owner, and he chose quality marketing to take his practice to the next level and beyond. That is a decision he would make again and again because, in his words, “marketing matters.”
