Understanding Who You Are Selling

Buyer Persona of Dental Services

Creating and maintaining winning differentiation for your dental practice requires many inputs, and developing a marketing strategy that appeals and resonates with your prospective patients is critical. But … who should you consider as your main target when creating your campaigns?

1. The female head-of-household.

Women drive over 90% of all healthcare buying decisions through a combination of their buying power and influence. Women have always made the majority of household spending decisions, but they will have even more purchasing power as they contribute more money to their households from a variety of sources. Winning over women is the result of differentiators.

According to Time, women are rapidly increasing their spending power to impel changes in the way companies operate:

• Women hold almost half of the jobs in the US and own nearly a third of companies. More women in the workforce mean changes in the female head-of-household buying patterns, along with those who live in her household.

• 64% of mothers with children under the age of 6 work outside of the home.

• Over the next decade, women will control two-thirds of consumer wealth in the United States and be the beneficiaries of the largest transference of wealth in our country’s history.

• Just to show you the power they have – women buy more than half of the new cars in the US AND influence up to 80% of all car purchases. They also request 65% of the service work done at dealerships.

• 66% of women feel misunderstood by health care marketers.
  

What does this mean to a dental practitioner?

Opportunity. If your practice is the one that understands what women value while developing your strong Unique Value Proposition (UVP), you can ensure it will resonate with this powerhouse buying and influencing group.



Above all others, these women are the people you want and need to be attracted to your services. Think about that when you’re creating your UVP. Women are increasingly engaged with the brands they choose. Will your brand position, story, and focus capture and keep their attention? Will it engage them and ensure they become brand champions?

As one of the most influential buying groups, women like to choose brands based on personal referrals. That means if you’re going to successfully capture your market, you must factor in meeting the needs of the female profile in your market neighborhood. Women need and want quality information to make good decisions for themselves and their families – particularly before committing to a high-value service like dentistry.

What your target audience is looking for is convenience, affordability, good-quality dental work, and a dentist who cares and who has experience and a good chairside manner.

The good news is your dental practice offers all of these things. The not-so-good news is your competition is saying they do these things as well.

We can help you differentiate your practice, and help you stand out as “THE” expert in your field for your community.

The well-regarded business article, Are You Sure You Have A Strategy? (Hambrick and Frederickson, 2001), confirms that there is good news. In it, the authors conclude that you don’t have “to be at the extreme on one differentiating dimension; rather, sometimes having the best combination of differentiators confers a tremendous marketplace advantage.”



It’s more than just about women as a gender. You must gather all of the information and knowledge you can to understand your primary target market demographics, buying behaviors, preferences, and any possible barriers in order to determine how you will meet the specific dental needs in your marketplace … and how you will craft your value proposition and marketing strategies.

That includes:

1. Your Neighborhood.

Unless you have yet to select your practice site, your primary audience is the one that resides around your practice. You must understand the demographic landscape and the specific type of female decision makers that live around you. Your area demographic will guide the decisions you make when developing the services you will offer and how you will market them.

• Are you dealing with affluent upscale adults, cozy seniors, midtown singles, or family landscapes?

• Does the majority of your audience have children or are they empty-nesters?

• Are your prospects double-income families? Do they mostly walk or drive?

• Are you prospects working full-time, or are their schedules flexible

• Are there physical barriers or competitors that would prevent certain segments from choosing your practice?

A myriad of questions like these must be answered to determine how you operate your dental practice … and where to target your dental marketing.

There will be segments surrounding your practice that include prospects that you would deem ideal and some that you won’t want to cater to. As a business owner, you must identify your ideal targets and understand precisely what they want from a dental service provider. Create your ideal patient profile based on your CORE patient personas and demographics in order to make the right decisions about the products and services you offer.

Regardless of your area demographic, more than 90% of healthcare decisions are made by women. By understanding your practice neighborhood and the geographic, psychographic, and demographic data, you can create a service offering and subsequently, the marketing message that resonates with your target demographic and their preferences. This is your winning combination. The team at Patient NEWS can help you with each step of this process. We encourage you to book a FREE discovery session.

Joanne Bishop