4 Ways To Strengthen Your Brand Dental Marketing Experts
Establish Your Brand 1First, what does brand mean? A brand is a name, term, design or other feature that distinguishes one seller s product from those of others. So how does that fit with a dental office? You need to figure out how to distinguish your office from other dental offices. Maybe you are just starting your practice, or have been in business for years - either way going through these questions will help strengthen your brand. Here are some questions that will get you started: 1. What kind of dentistry do you practice? If you specialize in something like Pediatrics, Implants or Periodontics, then this step is a little easier for you. If you practice general dentistry, then you really have to look at what sets you apart - why should someone come to you for a cleaning instead of the dentist across the street? 2. Why do you care about what you do? Storytelling and branding go hand in hand. This is your opportunity to tell your story and create your office around what you care about. Never try to be something you aren t. If you see another dental office that is really fancy and modern, but you like a warm, comforting and home-like feel, don t try to be like them just because you think it will attract more people. People like authenticity and honesty, they can tell when others are uncomfortable and fake, so be yourself! Examples that I have seen of this are offices that embrace the personality of the dentist -like the office colors are the same as their favorite college football team (and ALL the patients know what a fan he is!), a reception area that is decorated like a living room to make people feel SUPER comfortable, or the orthodontist that fills the walls with pennants from all the local schools. 3. Does your logo, colors and marketing reflect your answer in #2? Ok now here is where you have to make sure everything aligns. Your office has a great personality, staff and purpose - does your website communicate that? What about your logo, signage and decor?
Have a Consistent Look 2Once you have defined your practice by deciding who you are, who is your ideal patient, how you are different, it is time to incorporate that knowledge into your visual identity. Your visual identity would include your logo, your marketing materials, your fonts (typeface used in ads or marketing materials), your website, the colors of your office and your uniforms, the sign on your building or street and even the style of photos taken of the Doctor and staff. They need to be consistent! They all need to represent your underlying mission statement. Are you high-tech and modern? Are you a pediatric dentist with kid s areas? Look carefully at each new design that you do and make sure it coordinates with the other things you have designed. Get a good designer and keep with that person, if possible. You will be living with your look for years so you had better like it. Another thing to consider is your location. If you re a mile from the beach and have shells and a fish-tank in the office, you may want to incorporate fish and shells in your logo or your theme. If you are in an historic area of your city or town, you may want to use older architecture in your look. The moral of the story is to keep consistent and establish a look that identifies you in all forms of visual marketing.
Don t Dilute It! 3We have pointed out before that it is important to have your brand represent your mission statement and who you are. Sometimes, in the marketing world, your competitor will come out with something like a new look to their office or a new product or an amazing special and you say to your staff, We should be doing that! I can t think of a faster way to dilute your brand. Don t get me wrong, you should be thinking about new things all of the time that represent you and your brand, but do not copy someone else. Let s take an example of a Pediatric Dentist who has these types of activities going on in his office: Halloween Candy Buy Back, toothbrush give-aways to the local school, mural painting, new kid s activity room, contest for the best Healthy Teeth poster. Now, all of a sudden the General Dentist across the street has a giant sign out front advertising Zoom whitening for $99. If the Pediatric Dentist also puts a sign up for Zoom Whitening, what is the public going to think? Is he still a kid s dentist? Do they treat adults? I wonder if they treat you only if you have kids. That is so stupid, who would get their kid s teeth whitened? See what has happened? The Pediatric Dentist s solid positioning is diluted and people aren t quite sure what he does anymore. Keep strengthening your brand with every calculated move you make. Plan and strategize and even survey to find out what people think about your office. Are they unclear in any way about what you do? Doing this work will pay off with expansion.
Company Culture 4Your practice is built with people. Your employees, good or bad will have a great deal in determining your success and how you are viewed. Therefore you need to create a company culture that is in keeping with your brand. What exactly does this mean? If your practice is supposed to be friendly and upbeat with happy people, then your employees had better be happy and friendly and upbeat. That sounds pretty simple, but the fact of the matter is that employees are not robots, they are individual people. If you want them to be happy and friendly and upbeat, you need to create an atmosphere that is conducive to that. There is no on and off switch to being friendly. The culture of your practice could include the way the staff dresses, the training programs, the way birthdays are handled, bonus games, even the way you communicate to them and make them a part of your office family. It can also mean group activities such as volunteer days or parties or taking them to educational seminars. All of this creates a culture. It goes hand in hand with your brand. The way your employees handle the patients should be an extension of you and the goals of the company. These need to be clear to the employees and that will translate to being clear to your public.