You will often find that many people confuse marketing with advertising or vice versa. While both components are important they are very different. Knowing the difference and doing your market research can put your company on the path to substantial growth. Advertising is getting the word out about your business. It involves several strategies including placing banner ads, posting classifieds, etc. It is a very different part of promotion. Marketing is a broader range of activities for a product or service. Activities involved in marketing a product include: Research, Advertising, Sales, Public relations, Customer service and satisfaction. As you can see, advertising and marketing is not the same thing. Advertising is just one aspect of your overall marketing plan. The two should go hand-in-hand to help you better meet the needs of your customers. Your front office, patient referrals, newspaper adds, internet marketing and search engine optimization, online phone book and directories, newsletters, e-newsletters, networking, maximizing your exposure, internal marketing, patient acquisition and patient retention are some of the areas that we customize to your dental practice. As part of our marketing plan, we also focus on the following; Target marketing to attract patients looking for a dentist not a bargain Increasing treatment acceptance in bad economy Presenting and discussing treatment plan, insurance benefits and payment options. Evaluate and manage insurance contracting Focus on increasing the referral base patients Focus on reducing cancelations and no shows Increasing the collection by implementing collection protocols. It has become clear that marketing is much more than just advertising. Even though dentistry is a service business, created to provide dental health to patient, it is still a business and the bottom line of each business is how much money is it making. Our goal at dental practice managements is not only help the practice provide an excellent service and care to patients, but also create a successful and money making BUSINESS of dentistry
