As with any business, marketing is the key between success and failure. If no one knows about your business or can't find you, you will not make any sales and your business will cease to exist. Doctors and Dentists are not different. They run a business called a practice, and they need clients (patients) just like any other business. If they lack patients, their practice will cease to exist. The way to attract new patients to the dental practice is through dental marketing.

Dental marketing is quickly becoming one of the most requested and important topics of discussion in the dental field. It is one area that is important for all dentists, but in order to stand out and become successful in your dental advertising campaigns, your marketing campaign needs to be different. Your dental marketing campaign must be well designed to communicate your objectives as a specialist dental practice in the area and must include all the ways that your practice can help prospective patients. Do you have new, high-tech equipment? Do you have foreign language speakers on staff? Do you offer something unique like aromatherapy or soothing music, or no pain procedures? If so, aggressively market these unique characteristics of your practice in your marketing.

Dental marketing is a very broad term. The basic rule of all dental marketing is to start with the patients you have and ask them to refer other patients just like themselves. You could even offer a coupon for discount services for your existing patients if they refer new patients.

Dental marketing is more effective when it is created as a multifaceted campaign and not just one ad. For example, a series and/or combinations of advertisements, direct mail pieces, networking activities or referral-based marketing tactics are more effective than simply placing an ad in the newspaper or making one announcement on the radio. Newspaper advertising can be extremely effective because dental practices more easily can afford frequent and well-placed ads. And you can run them on successive days to further increase your exposure.

To have a successful dental practice, marketing and financial goals are just as important as medical advancements and dental continuing education. Marketing simply tells others about who you are, what you do, how you can benefit people, and why they should get it from you. It can be the single most important factor in determining whether or not you will be successful in your practice. By keeping your name in front of prospective patients, when the time comes for them to choose a dentist, or to refer someone else to a dentist, they will more than likely remember you and recommend your practice. This will be, in part, due to your successful dental marketing campaign.