Ground marketing was around before the digital age, and it's still just as effective for your dental practice as it was in the past. It's important for your business to meet people face-to-face, hear their stories, and gain their trust.
This article originally appeared in the Principles of Practice Management e-newsletter. Subscribe to the twice monthly ENL here.
Whether you’re a new dentist or you’ve been practicing for a while, you may constantly think about smart ways to get clients in the door. You have a solid website, you’re researching ways to market online, or maybe you’re doing pay-per-click ads.
Digital marketing, like social media and internet advertising, is a no-brainer for most businesses. But have you considered face-to-face marketing, or ground marketing? Ground marketing is a way to build relationships in your community. This kind of marketing is a must if you’re a local business and you want to increase your customer base. Here’s why:
Ground marketing attracts customers when they aren’t online
Let’s face it: people are not online 24/7. They have to work, shop, go to school, and take part in other activities. Why not be where they are? You and your team could participate in events or even host some vents yourself. You could speak to kids and parents at schools or take part in an employee health fair. This is a great time to set up a table and offer people a free toothbrush kit, or to get to know more about them. It’s an easy way to build rapport with the community and become more visible.
Person-to-person contact creates trust
People do business with people they know, like, and trust. Getting out into the community speeds up that process. They get to see you and your employees as friendly, honest people, and not as just an online, digital ad.
When customers see you participating and connecting with them, they will think of you as the authority dentist, the go-to person when they need dental services. Essentially it shows people you’re real and that they can trust you with their oral health.
You get better contact information
Because you’re talking face-to-face with people, they’re much more likely to give you private information such as their phone number, their insurance information, ongoing dental issues, and more. Try asking for that info online and you could be met with silence.
It’s all about trust. People are much more likely to be open with you if you’re having face-to-face dialogue. Once you build that rapport, you’ll create loyalty with customers. They may not need services right away, but when they do your name is on their radar.
Conclusion
Ground marketing is a highly effective way for dentists to get more clients and increase their profits. It doesn’t mean you need to replace your digital marketing efforts with ground marketing: it means you should do both. All brick and mortar businesses should have both online and local presences in their communities.
For the most current practice management headlines, click here.
For the most current dental headlines, click here.
Michael Arias is the founder of The Dental Marketer. He is here to give you tips, strategies, campaigns, marketing tools, trends, life-saving information, and more on how to market and build your practice successfully so that you do not have to worry about it anymore.
