I just opened up a dental office, any advice on how to get clients or how to promote my office?
Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at
1:54 pm
Vane Carr asked:
I just opened up my dental office in the Bay Area and my cousin just opened one up in L.A. We’re both starting from scratch and we’re already in business. I would like some advice on how to increase our number of clients, how to promote our offices, and where to promote our offices. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for all the answers so far. Any tips for promoting our offices online?
Tagged with: Cousin • Dental Advice • Dental Office
Filed under: Small Business
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A local paper that is free at the grocery store.
I would think an add in the yellow pages would bring more business than a small paper, or handing out fliers somewhere. It might cost a little more, but I think it would pay for itself after the calls start coming in. Good luck with the new business.
the yellow pages, the white pages, billboards, local papers, flyers placed on windshields of cars..store fronts..word-of-mouth, offer your customers a small discount if they will bring in new people (ones that pay their bills , of course!)Best of Luck to you!!!
Hopefully after i answer this question you will want to hire me as your business advisor… If your a dentist you should make very good money. Ok there are a few basics,(first off i must say this question is right up my alley) First of all what are your prices, you want them to be competative.
Getting clients is not the first thing you want to do, the first thing is have a *seat * ready so to speak. You have to feel confident that your prices, service and office are up to good standards.
Once you have that settled, you want to think the best way to acquire customers. Being that you are a new business, your going to have it a little rough. The established dental practices have credibility and established clients.
The place to start is do a darn good job on people’s teeth, be very professional and very polite. Word of mouth is the cheapest and best way, people dont want to talk about their trip to the dentist they are glad it is over. So you want to make a great impression on your clients, like*oh my dentist he/she made me feel very comfortable and he kept me in the loop of things.
ect ect ect. Running a business is a lot of politics, kissing the babies and shaking old people’s hands. Anyway that is the best way to run a business, you want people to trust you. dont do fliers sheesh that says shoe string dentist(we want people to think we are successful and accomplished in life)
Use the newspaper run a big ad, no smaller than 6 inches by 6 inches or however they measure them. Big enough so no one misses it, not so big it breaks your pocket book. Get yourself into the yellow pages, run a picture ad keeping in mind trust and making people feel at ease.
Run a radio ad saying how educated and experienced you are, offer a special discount for people that mention they heard your radio ad.
Do a great job, keep your clients happy and watch the new clients roll in. Good luck
Using door hangers is an excellent way to get new business for service clients. Make sure your offer is good enough to get people to give you a try. Like it was mentioned before, word of mouth will really help your business. One thing I always suggest is to make your business unique and different from the competition.
Since lots of people are afraid or hate going to the dentist, try to take advantage of that angle.
If all else fails, give some kind of incentive to your customers for word of mouth advertising. It could be cash, gift card or something else. Too many small business owners make decisions based on the value of the customer that day instead of the lifetime value of the customer.
Give talks and or free information to help people with their dental care. This will add to your credibility. You can look for local radio shows to share this info or even local tv especially cable.
You can make a video and post it on youtube with some dental tips also. Get a website and have some tips / articles on there also. Soft selling is much more effective to people than forcing your service on them. It is hard work, but the benfits can be huge. Here are a couple websites that are easy to create and have a ton of features:
Good luck and this will keep you busy for a while. Later on hold special events for kids. This adds to your credibilty and can even be picked up by the media.