Dental Referral & Social Marketing – Mixing Business With Pleasure

You remember the phrase, “Never mix business with pleasure” … However, with good old word-of-mouth producing today’s most effective dental marketing results, we may need to rethink that phrase.

Do you find socializing, nurturing relationships and being personable a pleasure? If so, consider mixing a bit of “pleasure” with your business.

Referral marketing – requires quality relationships in order to thrive.  Quality relationships involve trust, loyalty, authenticity and some type of mutual sharing.  They aren’t one way or one dimensional.  It is possible to establish and maintain a “professional” business relationship with someone, whether it is a patient or a colleague, and still share a bit of personality with them.

For example, share that you are feeling melancholy because you are taking your daughter off to college this weekend.  Tell them about the volunteer effort you just returned from, or how excited you are because you and your wife are expecting your third son.

Keep in touch with patients, and not just twice a year when you see them for check-ups.  Initiate additional contacts on a regular basis via email news, Twitter tips, hardcopy newsletters, etc.

Social Marketing – setting up a Facebook page and posting nothing but dental facts is like candy-coating medicine that tastes bad. Not very fun.  The word “social” exists in social marketing to express the fact this medium should be treated like no other marketing medium in the past.

Whether Facebook or a newsletter, patients enjoy learning about people—and they socialize, interact and build relationships with people, not things.

Patients won’t refer their friends to you because of your Cerec© technology.  Rather they’ll refer to you because of your relationship, the way you make them feel and the trust they have in you.

So go ahead, be personable.  Mix a little fun in with your marketing and your interaction with your patients.  Keep in touch on a regular basis, be authentic, have a genuine interest in your patients as individuals, and watch your word-of-mouth referrals grow.