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Cosmetic Dentistry Marketing In A Tough Economy

November 22, 2008 by Erik Cunningham

Cosmetic Dentistry Marketing Of all general and specialty dental practices, cosmetic dentists may be the hardest hit by downturns in the economy.

Many treatments and procedures offered by cosmetic dentists are elective and are not covered by insurance. And because these treatments don’t address issues involving pain or potentially worsening conditions, they’re tougher to sell to prospective patients who are tightening their financial belts.

But don’t let these things scare you. Although difficult, marketing your cosmetic dentistry practice in a tough economy is essential to the continuing success of your business. In order to succeed, you need to understand and adapt to changes in your market.

Tough economic conditions reduce the demand for many of the elective dental treatments and procedures that cosmetic dentists offer. Lower demand means greater competition. And greater competition requires greater effort and creativity to win out over competitors when marketing your cosmetic dental practice to your community.

Increase Your Efforts

Increasing your marketing efforts doesn’t necessarily mean increasing your budget. The type of effort that pays off in a slow economy is mental effort. Here are a few ideas for adapting your marketing strategy in a shrinking marketplace.

You may be able to save money and attract more dental patients to your practice by increasing the efficiency of your existing dental marketing campaign. One strategy for accomplishing this is to narrow the scope of your direct mail marketing or local advertising campaign to include only geographic areas with the highest income level households.

Another idea is to take advantage of the extra time you may have in your day to work on long term marketing strategies like researching dental website design companies, blogging, adding your dental practice to free online dental directories or participating in online dental discussion groups and message boards to promote your practice.

Don’t forget to take advantage of your existing assets. If your office traffic is slow, ask your receptionist to start calling past cosmetic dental patients to offer follow-up treatments or additional procedures at discounted rates.

Increase Your Creativity

When financial times are tough, marketing messages that speak to the hearts and minds of consumers can change drastically. It’s time to put on your thinking cap and come up with new promotions and ad ideas that appeal to a market of prospective patients with shallower pockets.

If you have the option of offering financing for your cosmetic dental procedures, now is the time to let potential dental patients know. If you offer treatments that are covered by insurance, make them more prominent in your advertising efforts for the next few months.

Cosmetic dentistry marketing in a tough economy is difficult, but far from impossible. If you put forth the effort to adapt to the changing marketplace you can make your cosmetic dentistry practice succeed where others fail.

Intelligent Marketing Spend Brings in More Patients for Less

— Campaign Management — Tags: cosmetic dentist advertising, cosmetic dentistry marketing, dental practice marketing ideas

6 Comments »

To effectively market cosmetic dental procedures on a Web site: Provide plenty of clear, concise, well-written information about the procedures you offer. Make it easy for patients to find the exact information they want. Provide glowing testimonials from satisfied patients. Link to other sites and/or articles that provide objective, unbiased information about cosmetic dental procedures.

Comment by Dental Listings — November 27, 2008 @ 5:53 am
I wrote a very similar post on my blog a couple of days ago. I made the point that dentistry and especially high dollar cosmetic dentistry, etc is considered discretionary and is not immune to the recession. Great blog (love the logo), I would love to write a guest post if you are interested.

Comment by Hayden Dell — November 28, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
I would love my teeth whitened but that is just not feasible right now. I do wish insurance would at least pay for that.

Comment by dentist — December 3, 2008 @ 12:02 pm
I’d also be curious to know what sort of trends denture and elderly dental procedures are seeing at this point in the economy. With some dental chains specializing in denture procedures, it seems like the industry is doing pretty well. But similarly to cosmetic dentistry, the procedures can be pretty pricey.

Comment by Jan — December 3, 2008 @ 2:50 pm
@Hayden - We’d welcome a guest post from you. Shoot us an email and we’ll set it up!

Comment by Erik Cunningham — December 3, 2008 @ 4:42 pm
hmm here in the uk cosmetic dentists have a very hard time. the british people aren’t so much into oral health anyway and in london lots of the people that woud have considered cosmetic dentistry lost their jobs (30-50 years old).
i alread saw some practice offers from cosmetic dentists at harley street who can’t afford to keep the practice open.

Comment by jens — March 29, 2009 @ 9:35 am