There’s Profit in Dental Giveaways!

Editorial
by Jim Du Molin
Does your dental office sponsor any contests or offer any promotions? Let people know!

As a dentist, you’ve got a valuable reward you can offer to the public: free dental work!

Free dental work is an incredibly attractive prize. What’s more, it’s worth a lot more to the person who receives it than it costs your practice to donate your time and materials!

True marketing geniuses turn every act of generosity into an opportunity for publicity. There’s nothing wrong with that! In fact, if you let your good acts go by unnoticed, you’re losing opportunities to promote yourself and your practice.

There’s an orthodontist in New Jersey who’s holding an essay contest for kids ages 10-17. The prize? Free braces.

The story made it into his local paper. Great – now his neighbors know him as the generous orthodontist!

The local paper is monitored by Google news for content. Even better – now he’s listed in Google, and the article contains keywords like the name of his town, several neighboring towns, “orthodontist,” and “braces.”

Soon the orthodontist will be selecting a winner. If he’s smart, he’ll send out a press release to the local media. Not only will he be announcing who gets the free braces, but he’ll also be able to publish their essay about why they deserve free braces.

The essay will undoubtedly be touching and adorable. The winner will be some cute kid with bad teeth that the orthodontist will then fix. He could even issue press releases following the progress of the winner over the course of his or her treatment.

Are you getting the idea? It’s incredibly generous of him to offer up free braces – but it’s also incredibly clever. From a marketing perspective, he’s spending a relatively small amount of money to get publicity that’s priceless.

Don’t be shy about promoting your own generosity. It’s just good business sense!

P.S. Not to toot our own horn too much, but our IDA Patient Newsletters program is a great tool, letting you instantly send professional emails to your entire patient mailing list!