| By :
Sarah Simmons
October is National Dental Hygiene Month and it's also the perfect time to create new dental advertising materials to reach out to your dental patients. Sponsored by the American Dental Hygienists' Association (ADHA), the theme of 2010's National Dental Hygiene Month is "Healthy Habits are Easier than You Think." Read on to learn more about what dental advertising materials can do for your practice, and how they can be easily paired with the message of National Dental Hygiene Month. To build a profitable and thriving dental or medical practice it's important to include a patient-centered marketing approach. Even the healthiest practice can tend to lose patients over time due to natural attrition, referrals to a competitor, cost competition, dissatisfaction, or perceived indifference. It's worth noting that perceived indifference (even if it's just perceived and not actual indifference) sends customers away nearly five times more often than dissatisfaction, and seven times more often than for competitive reasons. A patient newsletter shows your patients that you care, and can reduce patient attrition (which makes sense since marketing is really about relationship building, and all relationships need nurturing). Relationship marketing makes up the largest percentage of advertising budgets in all business sectors and sizes. Businesses spend more money on building customer relationships and improving customer satisfaction then on trying to win new ones because it costs more to acquire new clients than maintain the ones you already have, and there are generally much better opportunities to be had with clients who have already made a commitment. A consistent relationship marketing campaign designed to communicate and educate patients, especially when paired with new dental advertising materials supporting the message of National Dental Hygiene Month, can reap measurable rewards. More than 80% of people are fearful of going to the dentist, so it's understandable that it takes time and quality dental patient education to encourage existing and perspective patients to make even a positive change. Even if your dental advertising materials are used simply to improve dentist/patient communications, you can experience outstanding benefits. Effective dentist/patient communication is essential to keeping patients, and a multi-channel patient retention campaign is extremely effective because it's not selling, it's a means of sharing ideas and knowledge and providing much needed and appreciated guidance. Sending quality dental patient education via email and mail can also assist dentists reduce no shows and cancellations, thereby improving the overall health of the practice and patient community. By using patient newsletters to reduce patient attrition by just 2%, an average-sized practice can improve its gross income by $500 - $7,000 over ten years. Take advantage of the ADHA's promotional efforts about the importance of regular hygiene visits in October, and create new dental advertising materials or patient newsletters to reach out to the current patients in your practice now!
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