Five Strategies to Thrive in a Soft Economy

Five Strategies to Thrive in a Soft Economy

In my last blog post, I discussed the importance of creating a culture of growth in your practice. This culture of growth becomes the foundation to support a growing practice. With a culture established, now it’s time to grow! While the economy has presented some challenges recently, here are five specific strategies to not just survive, but thrive in a soft economy:

Make Whitening a Core Element of Your Practice:  Whitening is the gateway to doing more ideal dentistry. Patient will take more interest in their oral health after whitening. Today we have awesome technology to provide a whitening option for virtually every budget.

Develop a Comprehensive Marketing Plan:  New patients are the lifeblood of every dental practice. Take the time to develop a comprehensive marketing plan to include the following three elements:

Internal Marketing:  Activities to generate more patient referrals

External Marketing:  Let people in your community know you exist and give them compelling reasons to choose your office for their care

Digital Marketing:  Strong website, search engine optimization, and a social media strategy

Use Patient Photography for Patient Education:  We all know that a picture is worth 1,000 words. Develop a simple system to use digital photos to show patients the condition of their teeth and also use photos to show patients what might happen if they don’t accept treatment. Dr. Frank Spear is an expert on clinical photography and how to use photography for patient education. Here is a link to a 14-minute video by Dr. Spear about how to use photography:

www.speareducation.com         

See the library of video blogs on the home page, scroll all the way down to the second to last video blog titled, ‘Spear on Photography’.

Get Serious About Diagnosing and Treating Perio Disease:  Today, the general public is beginning to understand the link between oral and systemic health. Our practice uses a simple, inexpensive DNA-PCR test to identify the presence of the 11 pathogenic bacteria that causes perio disease. The Result Report from this test is an incredible patient education tool. Below is a link for the company that provides the DNA-PCR test and a link of a sample Result Report:

Company providing DNA-PCR test http://bit.ly/q7nC0c

Sample Results Report  http://bit.ly/qQk5Vo

Design an Effective New Patient Experience:  Take some time to develop a new patient experience that will guide your patients to accept ideal care. Get to know your new patient. Discover what is important to them. Provide your new patient with a vision of ideal oral health for them and let them know they can enjoy a lifetime of great oral health.

These five strategies have proven very successful to grow a practice in a soft economy. In future blog posts, I will go into more detail about each of the strategies listed above. Here’s to your success. Keep smiling!