Dentistry Today — Using demographics as part of your marketing plan can help your dental practice cut costs by reaching your ideal customer.
To prepare for the grand opening of a pediatric dental practice, for example, it’s likely you’d hang televisions, paint the walls bright colors, and launch an interactive new website. While these steps are helpful, they aren’t all you need to do to have a thriving practice.
Marketing plays a key role in building your customer base and educating the community about the benefits of pediatric dentistry – or any dental practice, for that matter.
Find Your Target Demographic
One of the first components of any small business plan is to develop your target demographic. Demographic data looks at the characteristics of a population, including markers like age, gender, location, education level, and occupation. It can help give you a broad understanding of your customer base.
The target demographic can impact your dental practice decor, procedures, and hours of operation.
Look around your pediatric dental practice and take note of the fish tanks, video game consoles, and the big bin of prizes taking up prime real estate.
Whether you put pen to paper and defined your ideal customer, it’s clear you had one in mind as you prepared to open your doors. Reaching the decision-makers is key, and speaking directly to a defined audience — parents — will help separate you from your general dentistry competitors.
Why Are Demographics Important?
Kids grow up, and adding new clients on a regular basis is necessary to sustain your practice for the long haul. Targeting your demographic can help reduce what you spend on generating leads to help grow your business. It can also help build customer loyalty and help you learn more about the needs of your customers.
Using pediatric dental practices as an example again – they are in a unique position. An important component of your job is to educate the community on the benefits of seeing a specialized provider. As you know, tooth decay is one of the most common chronic health issues in children.
Regular dental visits can increase school attendance, improve grades, and prevent future complications. Treating a specialized clientele allows you to hone your focus and improves your ability to provide quality care. Using demographics in your marketing efforts can help introduce children to dental care and allow you to provide parental support.
My company, Our Town America, uses demographics to reach a unique market. We target new movers by sending them a welcome package filled with proven offers before they form loyalties with competitors. New mover marketing has proven to be a great tool for dental practices. One of the first things every new resident does is secure healthcare providers.
Here are three ways to incorporate demographics into your pediatric dental practice – or any dental practice’s – marketing plan.
- Direct Mail Postcards. Even in the age of video calls, blue light glasses, and Twitter, direct mail continues to provide a tangible message that converts. The Data & Marketing Association reports direct mail receives a whopping 9% response rate. Every Door Direct Mail from the United States Postal Service allows you to blanket a neighborhood with your message. It also allows you to target specific zip codes, incomes, and household sizes. Your postcard can include a proven offer to help drive traffic or provide a QR code to prompt people to learn more about your practice online.
- Community Marketing. Weekends with young children include trips to the farmers market, tee-ball games, and other outdoor community events, preferably where a playground is involved. Pediatric dentists can go straight to the source and put a logo on it. Reach your target demographic by sponsoring a youth sports team, a local 5k charity run, or setting up a booth at the farmers market. Community marketing can amplify your message, allow you to engage with customers, and help create brand recognition.
- Content Marketing and SEO. Producing valuable content focusing on your target market’s interests and concerns is another way to reach your demographic. Learn what your audience searches for online and use those keywords to optimize your content and drive traffic to your website. Blogs and infographics will also serve as a tool to help educate your ideal customers on the value of pediatric dentistry.
Targeting your ideal customer using demographic information takes some work up front but will pay off in the long run by helping keep your schedule fully booked.
Brittany is the head of Our Town America’s corporate marketing department. She specializes in digital and print media, social media, and public relations.
