“Let me make one thing perfectly clear…” How often is that said and the outcome couldn’t be further from the truth.
Clear and compelling communication is essential in today’s “noisy” marketing arena. Your dental marketing will benefit from a principle nestled within that often repeated, opening phrase.
Truthfully, when someone says “Let me make one thing perfectly clear…,” settle in to be “fire-hosed” with information. Why?
It’s not easy (or common) to narrow your marketing message down to one clear idea.
A current dental practice client has also secured the services of a branding agency. I initially wondered about the value of such for dental practice.
But…after a phone consultation prior to beginning my copywriting and content work with them, I soon saw the value of their branding strategy.
If there’s any value in today’s love-affair with “branding” it’s this – clarity!
Branding is in essence about “…making one thing perfectly clear…” And there in lies a principle that can significantly impact the effectiveness of your dental marketing content.
How to Narrow Your Dental Marketing Strategy to One, Perfectly Clear Idea (and Build Your Influence Around It)
Search for common themes
The client I earlier mentioned has found a common theme and they’re flavoring everything with it. Bottom-line: Get clear about who you are, what you deliver, and why your patients or clients are compelled to do business with you…repeatedly.
Being all-things-to-all-people is noble. But in business it can diminish your message and create sameness.
- Listen to what your patients and clients are telling you. Channel-surf their social media comments on your Facebook page or other social channels you’re present on. Dial into their review and survey comments.
- List emerging themes like “comfortable…,” “gentle…,” “on-time…,” “trustworthy…,” “delivered what was promised…,” etc.
- Highlight those thematic words and create “buyer personas” to create your content around. What you mirror back to them via your blog posts, newsletter articles, email promotions, etc will often return to you in loyalty and referrals.
Weave emotional threads into your marketing promotions
You capture and maintain interest with emotion more than you do with what’s rational or technical. It’s why today’s social marketing language is referred to as “engagement.”
Create dental marketing promotions that tap into your audience’s emotions. It’s easy to pepper your content with technical jargon or industry speak because you think that creates professional appeal. What it does is create a communication gap.
On the other hand, emotion attracts people and compels a response.
People get that you’re a doctor or specialist. That’s a given.
Remember the Three Fundamental Rules of Selling:
1. People do not like to be sold.
2. People buy things for emotional, not rational reasons.
3. Once sold, people need to justify their emotional decisions with logic. (Source: AWAI, American Writers & Artists Inc.)
What your patients/clients want to know is do you have a solution for their problem. Monetary investment typically follows emotional investment.
Communicate transferable value
Solutions to problems provide two important things. One, it proves you’re listening. And two, it transfers value.
- Deliver value via every dental marketing channel you use. Transform your dental website into a platform for value-driven content. Do more than explain your dental services, create content that reveals Problem-Solution scenarios your reader, listener, viewer can relate to.
- Deploy value-centric surveys and data gathering strategies to determine what your audience wants from you and your services/products. This is the ultimate path to branding – listening, learning, and leveraging your discoveries for the benefit of your patients or clients.
If one thing is perfectly clear it’s that branding your dental marketing has more to do with your audience than it does your creative logo, framed mission statement, or “cute” tagline.
