How Low Can Your Dental Practice Afford to Go?

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Patient Attraction Episode 1065

Most skydivers will tell you that free-falling is an awesome feeling. But skydivers have parachutes to help them land safely. The problem with falling without a chute is that you always hit that sudden stop at the end. For dentists, the sudden stop happens when they’ve cut prices to the bone to attract new prospects but still can’t get the new patients they need. If you want to avoid the “thud and crunch” that comes with slashing your prices, stay tuned. I’ll be back to tell you how to avoid falling at all.

– I’m Colin Receveur.

– Thanks for watching the Patient Attraction Podcast.

– I know thousands of dentists, and maybe 6 of them are also marketing experts.

– The rest just play one on TV, as the saying goes.

– Look – I’m a small business owner who’s also a digital marketing expert.

– But even though I practically grew up in my dad’s dental practice, I’d never try to perform dentistry.

– I’m not trained in that discipline, and I’d make a mess of it.

– But almost all the dentists I know act as if they’re marketing experts.

– They’re hands-on with their marketing even though they’re not trained for it.

– That holds true for the ones who outsource their marketing to another company.

– Most of those dentists are still second-guessing the marketing firm’s recommendations, ads, and so on.

– There’s nothing wrong with using a marketing company, but there’s nothing particularly right about it, either.

– There are very few dedicated dental marketing firms out there.

– The vast majority of marketers apply general marketing techniques to address the unique wants, fears, desires, and needs of dental patients.

– That doesn’t work too well.

– It just leaves dentists competing for the same pool of dental prospects in a way that doesn’t favor one over the other.

– In fact, most dentists and marketing firms still advertise the same way dentists did 20 years ago: on the basis of price, specials, and discounts.

– You can get some new patients that way, but they won’t be high-value patients.

– You get price shoppers and insurance-driven patients who don’t have a shred of loyalty to your practice.

– So you wind up having to come up with new offers every month or every quarter.

– And when a competitor cuts his or her prices, you have to cut yours to compete.

– It’s worse if you’re in a busy market with many dental practices.

– There’s a race to the bottom that damages dentists’ bottom lines.

– And there comes a point where you just can’t afford to cut your margins any more and still stay in business.

– That’s the “thud and crunch” that comes with a sudden stop at the end.

– Advertising on price is a race to the bottom that few dentists will win.

– If you want to avoid that sudden stop at the end, you need to stop falling in the first place.

– Dr. James Kiehl in southern New Hampshire knows all about advertising on price.

– He said,  “Some of the advertising I’ve done in the past was more offer-driven, free exam, X-ray kinds of things.

– “When you bring patients in that way, you’re chasing them with the next offer or they’re chasing you for the next offer, all the way down the line.

– “Since we’ve implemented our SmartBox Patient Attraction System, we’re definitely getting the quality patients that I want to see come into my practice.” 

– Stop trying to get more low-value patients, and focus on getting better patients.

– That approach is easier on you, and it’s great for your bottom line.

– SmartBox works with more than 550 dentists on 3 continents to help them get more patients, more profits, and more freedom.

– Many of our SmartBox dentists are enjoying marketing ROIs between 1700 and 4600 percent!

– H[...]