For a relatively young dental practice, there are several components that should go into its initial dental practice marketing efforts - coming up with a clear and clever name for the practice, creating a unique and eye-catching logo, designing a spate of promotional materials such as dental postcards and patient newsletters and crafting carefully thought-out dental practice marketing campaigns. However, one marketing practice that is sometimes ignored but can actually pack an incredibly powerful punch is the use of a tagline. The tagline can be ubiquitous, as it can appear in a multitude of different locations and promotional materials.

More importantly, a tagline can go a long way toward promoting memory recall and a positive brand association with your dental practice. Some of the world's largest companies have leveraged clever taglines to their benefit to the point where the casual consumer is unable to separate the company from its tagline. Creating that sort of association with your dental practice through the use of a creative tagline can be a positive factor in acquiring new patients.

While taglines should demonstrate your practice's creativity and attitude, there are some basic guidelines and typical elements that should be adhered to when coming up with one. According to Ad Cetera, a tagline should be terse and concise. The point of the tagline is not to confuse consumers with unnecessary words, but to get quickly to the point of your dental practice in a simple and direct fashion. Additionally, the tagline should accomplish the goal while promoting the dental practice's desired tone. For example, a practice that prides itself on fostering a welcoming and comfortable environment should create a tagline that conveys this positive emotion. That way, a potential new patient coming across the tagline for the first time will instantly get a good idea of what your practice is all about.

This concept of using your tagline to promote your dental practice's goals and services is what The Marketing Spot describes as cutting through marketing clutter and communicating your brand promise. For instance, if your brand promise is to provide the best technological advances, a tagline that emphasizes the patient benefit of this would be fitting. However, if your practice is more family-friendly, a tagline like "Bringing Smiles to your Family" would be more efficacious and appropriate.

Some marketing experts have also lauded the numerous advantages of having a tagline that is humorous. After all, being able to make a potential new patient laugh with your marketing efforts - in a good way - is half the battle in promoting customer engagement. However, humor for humor's sake can come off as a desperate and flailing attempt. It is important not to force humor where it is not appropriate. Making a patient laugh is definitely a laudable goal but only if it comes naturally and organically.

Through it all, however, the most essential component of a tagline is that it is understandable for your service and your target audience. Think of all the most famous taglines among consumer brands and consider that they took millions of ad dollars and years to establish. This isn't realistic for the small business owner. What we want to do is prompt a positive brand association in the minds of your target audience.

The most important thing for your direct marketing campaigns is to stay consistent, be clear about your service, and that will serve as one of the most important marketing foundations for your practice.