In addition to providing high-quality oral health care services, solo practitioners need to understand the business of marketing their dentistry practices. Are you certain you can comfortably fulfill both of these demanding and important business management functions?

Establishing and growing a dental practice is as exciting as it is challenging. The real work is in finding the best patients in the practice area and keeping them from calling anyone else.

Business training and administration courses are not commonplace at most dentistry schools. As a Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS), or Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD), and when it comes to DMD Marketing or DDS marketing or DDS advertising, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all plan. You will need to develop a flexible and agile marketing strategy, and as you do, you must keep your patients and your local community top-of-mind. Do this by having a full understanding of what their needs are.

Like any business, running an independent dental practice can be difficult. There’s a fine line separating failure from success. It often feels like a labor of love. To compete for patients in the highly competitive and ever-shifting dental landscape, you need to think like an entrepreneur, and possess executive leadership qualities to develop an efficient business model that will allow you to grow your practice.

Articulating what makes your practice unique will go a long way to attracting new patients but you’re facing an uphill climb: adult consumers do acknowledge and value oral health, but only 37% of them visit a dentist annually.

As a solo practitioner, you need to ask yourself if you, in fact, have the time to develop, execute, monitor, analyze, and revise a well-rounded marketing strategy in addition to treating your patients. Have you established your unique value proposition? Are you communicating it in a way that resonates with the prospective patients that live around your practice, those that are most likely to respond to your offering?

You need to think carefully about internal and external marketing, as well as customer service. It is these three areas of communication that will comprise your practice’s marketing strategy. It may be worthwhile to outsource your digital and traditional marketing needs to an agency that is experienced and has a track record of success representing dental practices.

Need professional assistance marketing your dental practice? For more than 24+ years, Patient NEWS has specialized in representing, promoting, and marketing dental offices across the U.S. and Canada. Find out why thousands of dentists rely on our services. Call us now at 1-888-377-2404 or request a callback.