Confused & frustrated by the whole “marketing thing”?

With all of the different marketing/advertising options available, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.

Simply put, marketing can be broken down into two approaches: Push & Pull

Push marketing is by far the most common. It includes strategies like magazine ads, billboards, TV commercials, direct mail and radio ads. In other words, creating demand for your services by presenting them to people who aren’t currently seeking them.

The challenge with push marketing is that it generally has a low response rate and is typically expensive – both literally and from a return on investment (ROI) perspective. You have to put your message in front of a lot of people in order to identify the few who are interested.

For many businesses, their only option is push marketing because there isn’t sufficient demand for what they’re offering and therefore aren’t enough people seeking it out.

This isn’t the case for dentists. Because the demand is already there, people actively seek out dental services. For most people that means conducting an internet search.

To illustrate; last month there were 27,100 searches in Dallas for the phrase “dentist Dallas”. There were several thousand more for all the variations and procedure specific searches that occur each month such as “cosmetic dentist”, “dental office” “dental implants”, or “orthodontics”.

This is where pull marketing comes in. Pull marketing is the process of positioning yourself so that when someone is actively searching for dental services in your area, they find you.

Because the consumer is actively looking for your services vs. being interrupted by your marketing message, they are much more receptive and more likely to respond positively.

Some examples of pull marketing include:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – probably the purest form of inbound marketing. A consumer is in need of dental services, they do a Google search, your website shows up high in the Google rankings, they click on it and assuming they like what they see, they call to schedule an appointment.
• Blogging – same concept, they’re searching for information and they come across one of your blog posts that provides the information they were seeking. You have now given them something of value and started to build trust.
• Online Press Releases – another way of being found by a web searcher and introducing them to your practice.
• Online Video – if a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s a video worth? Having video on your website is an excellent way to educate patients and provide prospective patients with an overview of your practice. You can also distribute your video across video sharing websites.
• Google Maps / Places – Properly optimizing your Google Places listing has become more important than ever. Google is now blending your Places listing with your main website in their results pages. Be sure and claim your listing if you haven’t already – it’s free.

Still confused? Just give us a call, we’re happy to answer all of your questions. Our specialty is making the process of attracting new patients painless. 800-506-9817