Physician and Dental Office Marketing Basics

With competition growing, more and more physicians and dentists are finding they need to market their services in order to keep their practice up and running. The thought of launching a marketing plan can be overwhelming, but it doesn't need to be. If you set up your practice with some basic marketing materials, you can begin marketing in no time.

The more competitive the healthcare environment, the more a physician or dental practice needs to market its services to expand and even retain business. Generally, you know you need to begin marketing if your patient base is steadily decreasing. You also need to begin marketing if your patient base is not eroding, but you've decided that you need to increase that base. If you want to do more analysis, look at the competitive environment around you. If provider offices and providers are increasing in your area, and/or if managed care insurance is becoming more prevalent in your area, then it's more likely that marketing will help your business survive well into the future.

If you decide that marketing will have a positive impact on your business, you need to decide what marketing materials to use. So where do you begin? By defining your message. Your message could be that you provide high quality care, that you have the lowest complication rate in your area, or that you're always available. It needs to be the element that makes you or your practice unique, and better, than your competitors. If you need ideas, look at other provider marketing materials to see what messages they use.

After you have a well-defined message, you need to produce marketing materials. The following are the five basic marketing materials a physician or dental practice needs when it first begins marketing.

1. Brochures

Word of mouth marketing is an extremely effective marketing ploy in the health care business. A brochure facilitates this process not only by giving patients enough information to make it easy to choose to return for additional care, but also by giving them something physical they can give to neighbors, family, and friends when making personal recommendations about health care.

Brochures are folded pamphlets or leaflets containing targeted messages and/or information. At a minimum, you should shoot for creating one brochure that tells patients what kind of care you provide, which doctors or dentists are in your practice, how to contact your office, and what are your office hours and location(s). The brochure should be easy to find and easy to take, which means placing an abundance of brochures in the waiting room, by the check-out desk, and possibly even in the patient care rooms.

Once you have a carefully written and designed brochure, you can print it off on your own printer, or have it printed professionally. Obviously a professionally-printed brochure is going to look nicer, but since it can cost more to go that route, you need factor it into your marketing budget before you decide which is best for your practice.

2. Flyers

As basic marketing material, a flyer should serve the purpose of announcing what services your office provides. Don't assume everyone automatically knows all the services you provide, especially the more obscure services. If you don't tell them, they may go elsewhere for the service simply because they weren't aware they could get it from you. That's where the flyer comes in. A bulleted list of your services can be brief, yet amazingly effective.

Flyers are easy to make, and easy to post. They are simply one page "posters" that you post on various walls and doors in your waiting room and patient care rooms. They can be as big as a traditional poster (18" x 24") or as small as standard letter-size paper (8 ½" x 11"). You can also hire a professional printer to print them, or print them using your own laser printer. As with any marketing material, it's best if the fliers have at least some color to catch a patient's eye.

3. Print Advertisements

At a minimum, strive to place a simple advertisement in the local paper and in the local Yellow Pages. The advertisement in the local paper will serve as a reminder to current patients of your services, and alerts prospective patients to your availability. The ad should at least include your marketing message and your phone number, but may be even more effective with your office address, website address, physician/dentist names, and a listing of at least some of the insurance companies with which your providers participate. The ad in the Yellow Pages will help your office stick out among the multitude of competitors when a prospective patient is searching for a place to get medical or dental care.

Timing is everything when it comes to advertising, so make sure you do a little research before placing your ads. There are strict deadlines for Yellow Pages advertising that you must adhere to. As for local newspaper advertising, usually you can place your ads at any time. But before you move too quickly, think about when it might be best to place your ads. Open enrollment for insurance companies is typically in the fall, so at a bare minimum, you'll want to place ads during that time frame. But there are other factors that can warrant an "off-season" ad, such as the announcement of a new insurance contract, a new office location, or the inclusion of new providers to the practice.

4. Patient letters

You may already write letters to your patients, but did you ever consider them to be marketing materials? If you go the extra mile with your letters, for example sending letters to welcome new patients to your practice, to celebrate a patient's birthday, to congratulate patients for getting their braces taken off, or to welcome a new baby to the family, then you create considerable goodwill between your providers and your patients. It is that goodwill that results in word of mouth referrals by your patients to prospective patients.

The best part about patient letters is that they can be one of the least expensive form or marketing. They easily print off your own printer. While they will look more professional if you print them on letterhead, it's not essential at first.

5. Business cards

Another simple form of marketing is the use of business cards. As with brochures, they provide patients with a physical reminder of your office and give them something they can hand to prospective patients when making personal referrals. At a minimum the cards should include your office hours, location(s), and phone number(s). It should be easy for a patient to get a card. For example receptionists can write follow-up appointment dates on them and/or you can place them by the check-out desk.

Business card printing is best left to the professionals. While there are papers you can buy to print cards off on your own printer, it is often obvious that the card was printed in-house. Fortunately, business cards are easy to order online and at office supply stores, and relatively inexpensive.

These five basic marketing materials should not take too long to prepare and launch. They can get your marketing plan up and running quickly, and help keep your medical or dental practice competitive.