practice management
Encourage
Patients to Market
Your Practice
by Roger P. Levin, DDS
Every year, advertisers large and small
spend billions of dollars to market their
products and services. Yet no amount of
money can buy advertising as powerful
as the recommendation of someone you
trust.
Usually referred to as “word-of-mouth
advertising,” this form of promotion has
two inherent characteristics that other
forms of marketing can rarely match.
1
2
20 NORTH TEXAS DENTISTRY | www.northtexasdentistry.com
Credibility. When potential customers know little or
nothing about what a business has to offer, they look for
solid evidence of quality, not the hype or empty words so
often seen in ads. When your best friend recommends a
restaurant or Uncle John tells you where to find an honest
car mechanic, it’s automatically credible.
Timeliness. A TV commercial for a kid-friendly resort
may be long-forgotten by the time a bachelor gets married,
has children and begins wondering where to take them on
vacation. A word-of-mouth recommendation, on the other
hand, is often a response to an expressed need, such as
“I broke a tooth. Do you know a good dentist?”