Practice Marketing Coordinator, Becky Lawrence, shares her experience of heading over to Solihull to hear Les Jones impart his wise words of marketing wisdom!
I think the heading to this blog says it all. I, like Stephanie Moore, came away from Les Jones’ ‘How to Market Your Dental Practice’ workshop with a new perspective on what marketing is. Stephanie, a Practice Manager from East Park Dental, confesses she is not an expert on marketing, far from it in fact, describing herself as a complete novice. I, on the other hand, am someone who specialises in marketing on a day-to-day basis, supporting dental practices around the country to develop their marketing efforts, whether that is through the creation of some additional practice literature, or through a complete re-branding exercise. And yet I managed to walk away with a far more developed idea of what marketing really is.
This is where I believe Les stands apart from other presenters on similar topics. Les can teach you something new about marketing whether it’s the first time you’ve heard of the word ‘marketing’ or whether that word appears in your job title!
The foundation of marketing, Les explained, is vision and it is essential that all of your marketing activities are aligned with it. Your practice must live your vision day in, day out. Your vision must influence every decision you make, it is your constant driver.
Les stressed the importance of getting to know your customers and understanding what motivates them! They’re not interested in the equipment you’re using; they’re interested in the end result, so communicate the benefits of their treatment! The whole point of marketing is to speak to people in their language (not ‘Dentish’ as Les affectionately refers to it!). This is something which may seem common sense, but when dentists speak technically every day, it’s easy to forget people don’t know what words such as ‘periodontal’ mean!
Find out who your existing and potential customers are, what area do they live in, what do they read, what radio station do they listen to? Are they on Facebook, are they on Twitter? Creating data-capture methods to find out these little things can help you make more informed decisions on how you market your dental practice.
Shine a spotlight on every step of your customer’s journey: Website>Telephone>Signage>Parking>Entrance>Reception>Staff>Welcome>Waiting Room>Toilets>Treatment Room>Payment>Follow Up
Familiarity makes us blind to things that other people see. Go out of your practice and take every step your patient would. See things as prospective patients see it and you’ll find areas for improvement that will enhance their journey.
Perhaps the most useful information I took away from the day was how practices can more effectively measure the success of their marketing strategy. Understanding how you can collect, monitor and analyse your data will help you to make better, more informed decisions in the future. It’s just knowing how to do it that’s the hard part. But I won’t reveal how to do that…you’ll need to attend Les’ workshop to find out!
So if you’d like to join myself and Stephanie, along with the other attendees of Les’ recent workshops in revitalising your perspective of marketing, you can see him in action in Cardiff on 25th September and Southampton on 30th September.
If you’d like more information about the events or would like to book your places, you can visit the event page by clicking here or by calling our Events Team on 01691 684135.