Dental marketing is all about efficiency. It’s always best to keep doing the things that work and provide the most bang for the buck.
I’m one of the biggest proponents of radio advertising in the dental marketing industry because I’ve worked with so many practices who have seen great success from it. My company, Ridgway Consulting, is best known for our dental practice radio campaigns.
That being said, it’s not right for every practice.
Radio is a broadcast medium, like TV. This is significant because the radio signal often reaches a larger geographic area than what you might normally consider your practice’s base. Depending on the population in your area, you may mostly see patients that are within five, ten or twenty miles of your practice.
By contrast, some radio stations have the signal strength to reach listeners that are hours away.
The challenge with enormous “reach” of a broadcast like that is cost. When you advertise, you get what you pay for; in radio terms, that means radio stations charge you based upon the amount of listeners. So the problem is this: how can you be efficient when you are spending a portion of your marketing dollars to reach people who won’t travel as far as your office for dentistry?
The answer is simple – you need to have something that distinguishes you from the competition.
Radio only makes sense if you can offer something the other local practices are not offering. You need to give people a reason to pass by all the offices that are closer to their work and home, and make you their dentist of choice. That unique service, whether it be Invisalign, implants, sedation dentistry, or whatever, also needs to be a relatively profitable service.
It’s difficult to make an acceptable ROI when you advertise a low-dollar service like cleanings or whitening. Instead, use radio to advertise something like sedation. One big case, from someone who’s been away from dentistry for years, can pay for months of radio time.
Ed Ridgway has executed marketing campaigns for hundreds of businesses in the U.S. and Canada. He is nationally recognized for his ongoing campaigns with many of the top dental practices across the country.
Setting Dental Fees for Maximum Case Acceptance
$10,000 a Month Chart Audit
DIY Office Brochure
Practice Answering Machine
Maximize Case Acceptance
Maximize Your Marketing: Target High-Value Patients
Turn Your Front Desk into a Marketing Machine
Structuring a Dental Associate Program
Designing the $1,000,000 Dental Practice Sign
Internal Marketing & Communications
Doctor-to-Doctor Marketing
