6 Signs It May Be Time to Hire a Marketing Team

From providing excellent patient care and garnering five-star reviews to producing a professional video for streaming platforms, the importance of marketing at any level is a given for a dental practice to succeed.

How to manage – or when to delegate – those marketing duties is a decision every dentist must make. Let’s look at six signs that may indicate it’s time to streamline your marketing efforts with a dedicated team or consultant.

1. The Practice is Growing

This is always a good problem to have. However, if the dentist or office manager is already juggling too much, marketing tends to be the task that gets dropped when production increases. Or when the practice expands and new partners join the team, it can be too many opinions and perspectives without the expert input.

Marketing isn’t just about attracting new business, it’s also important to maintain the status quo. A consultant can monitor what’s working well for future down times or cover reputation management on social media.

2. The Practice Isn’t Growing

If business isn’t doing well or growth is sluggish, a sincere review and evaluation is called for. Are patients leaving or is case acceptance down? Are leads visiting your website only to move on quickly? Are you efficiently tracking new leads and patients to determine what’s working?

Some problems are more easily remedied, like improving the patient experience and following up with diligence. But if advertising or retargeting campaigns aren’t producing any profitable leads, a professional marketing team may be in order.

3. There’s Too Much Competition

In a saturated market, it can seem like an uphill struggle to compete. Marketing strategies will vary depending on the geographic location, size, and makeup of a community, so an expert is better able to research the market and plan accordingly.

A marketing team or consultant can help determine your unique value proposition (UVP) and craft a plan to make your practice stand out from the crowd.

4. The Marketing is Drawing the Wrong Patients

It’s important to diversify marketing modalities, but a scattershot approach may not be attracting the ideal patients to grow the practice, as well as wasting valuable resources. By matching your target patient through geofencing, retargeting, direct mail, or all of the above, you’ll see a much better return on your investment.

Marketing experts have the tools to connect you to the demographic that’s looking for what you have to offer.

5. Keeping Up with Marketing Technology is Too Much Work

Many dentists choose this career so they can be their own boss, and as an entrepreneur it may feel necessary to handle everything themselves. However, similar to the advances in dental technology, marketing tools and platforms are updating at a breakneck speed.

Digital marketing now offers so many more options than SEO and PPC (search engine optimization and pay-per-click), including:

• Geofencing
• OTT or over-the-top television
• Email IP Display Ads
• Contextual Advertising
• Pre-roll Video

Dental practice websites also need to keep up with the times, so if your user experience is lacking or the marketing tools aren’t yielding results, it may be time to consult an expert.

6. Time & Money

Ultimately, a dentist must evaluate how much time and money they’re investing in their marketing efforts and weigh it against the potential loss in patient care and production. By including a centralized marketing team in the recommended budget of five to ten percent, you’re paying them to keep up on the latest tools and technology, implement them based on your personal objectives, and provide measurable results.

Ideally, a professional marketing group or consultant will provide the tools and freedom for your own team to do what they do best – help more patients.

Here at RAMP – The Dentist’s Marketing Company, we have enthusiastically served one industry for more than two decades, helping dentists around the country grow their practice. If the signs are telling you it’s time to consider expert help, we urge you to contact us for a no-obligation consultation.