Attracting Patients
to the Dental Clinic

Clinic managers often wonder how to respond to colleagues' dumping and decreased demand, and what can be done to support doctors' workload and increase patient loyalty. The first thing they encounter in their search for answers is articles about marketing in dentistry.

In my opinion, 95% of them is fluff about segmentation, customer focus, and blah-blah-blah, this information will not help you at all.

What does he weigh when choosing who to turn to for help?

What factors motivate him, and what factors stop him?

First, I'd like to start by discarding words that mislead you. Let's replace the complex word "marketing" with the understandable "reputation". There is a lot written now about marketing in dentistry, discussing the effectiveness of advertising channels, but you know that something else has been attracting patients to the clinic all these years, and it's not marketing, it's reputation.

It is reputation that brings loyal patients who do not ask for discounts. It is reputation that starts word of mouth, it is reputation that allows increasing the cost of treatment. It is reputation that creates a queue of patients. If you ask yourself, what can we do to improve our reputation and visibility, it turns out that you don't need to look for a marketer, you already know what to do.

The main difference between these words is that if you think you need to work on marketing, you will start looking for a marketer. But if you decide to work on reputation, it becomes clear that only the doctor himself can create his reputation. Because no marketer will make a good "before and after" case. Will not perform a total rehabilitation beautifully and photograph it. Will not talk comprehensively with a patient about his problem on video. Will not write a good professional article for a journal. And this is the main difference between those who shift responsibility to others and those who take their fate into their own hands.

To make it more obvious, let's draw a parallel. Imagine that you need to resolve a dispute about expensive real estate in court, and you are looking for a good lawyer. The cost of a mistake is high, you can't go back and change the decision, the cost of his work is high. What will you rely on when choosing an attorney? On advertising, or on the number of similar cases won?

I think dentistry and law are very similar in many ways. They have a high cost of error, the time of a high-class professional is expensive, and the consequences of an unprofessional's work are irreversible. And therefore, that very reputation spread by word of mouth is of great importance. That's why people carefully read reviews and trust the recommendations of those who have already undergone treatment.

When a clinic owner calls me and asks about creating a website, I raise two topics, the first – live photo shoot in the clinic and the second, implementation of a photo protocol. I give a presentation in which I show the best ideas that I have seen on dental clinic websites and implemented in my website projects. And I always show the stupid things that clinics copy from each other. And I always stop in detail on the topic of publishing clinical cases "before and after" and a convenient and understandable price list. If you look at Yandex Metrica to see how visitor attention is distributed on the website, what they study carefully, you will see that it is the prices and "before and after" that are studied by patients most carefully.

We can beautifully and conveniently integrate clinical cases, completed and described in detail by the clinic's doctors.

I want to say a simple thought. To gain the trust of a doubting person, you need to put yourself in their place. When making a difficult choice, the patient is anxious, they understand they have little information, they have no point of reference, they are being attacked by advertising, questionnaires, calls from clinics. Comparing different prices, they begin to doubt, it's hard for them to make a decision and eventually they postpone treatment.

The patient will choose in your favor if you comprehensively, honestly, and reasonably answer their difficult questions.

Show examples of how you solved similar problems, this will close the question about the quality of treatment. Create a clear all-inclusive price list with the possibility of installment and staged payment – this will close their question about whether they can afford it. Relieve the patient's anxiety by recording a supportive video showing your understanding and sympathy, aimed at psychological help for the anxious person. A video without medical terms and descriptions, aimed only at moral help and support – this will give them strength to decide, they will know they won't be left alone with a complication, they will be taken care of.