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 web 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.

Related Articles

Intelligent Marketing Spend Brings in More Patients for Less

Places that immediately come to mind are daycare facilities, schools, youth sporting events and community centers.

Market Through Local Schools

We’ve already covered Dental Practice Marketing Through Local Schools in a previous post. Career and health day presentations are both outstanding ways to reach local school children and send information about your pediatric dentistry practice home to their moms and dads. The PTA can also be a good resource for marketing to local parents.

Advertise In Community Newsletters

Beyond local schools, locations like YMCAs, daycare and community centers often circulate some form of mailer or newsletter to keep parents informed about upcoming events and activities for kids. What better place to advertise than in a publication mailed directly to the home of local families with young children?

Sponsor a Local Youth Sports Team

Another great pediatric dental marketing and advertising idea is to sponsor a local youth sports team. You’ll immediately receive the trust, attention and gratitude of the team’s parents. And if the name of your dental practice is on the team’s uniforms or on a banner at their games, bored parents in the bleachers are bound to notice!

As you can see, local community organizations, facilities and events offer great opportunities for advertising and marketing your pediatric dental practice. If you’ve experienced success with other pediatric dental marketing ideas, please comment and share them with the rest of the class.

To take your pediatric dental practice marketing efforts to the next level, consider a pediatric dentist web template from Dentist Marketers.