You might have noticed that over the past couple of years more dental practices are popping up than ever before.
More dentists are entering the marketplace and the competition is heating up.
Instead of letting that intimidate you, let it motivate you to run laps around the competition!
Smart dental practices know how to stand out, attract their ideal patients, and command a virtual monopoly within their marketplace.
How?
By being a dental practice that innovates, not imitates.
If you’re ready to break away from the crowd and become the practice of choice in your community, you’ll need to keep these four methods in mind.
1. Identify A Void
The good news here is that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to take a look at your target market, identify a gap in their needs, and be the one to fill it.
For example, once upon a time a savvy entrepreneur realised that people tended to go to the theatre or the circus, but not both. But what would happen if you could combine the best of both worlds and create a show that EVERYONE would go to? You’d double your profits!
That’s how Cirque Du Soleil was invented! It made circus theatrical, told a story, and elevated the entire experience. No animals or star performers, but an ensemble who combined the best of theatre and circus, and therefore drew both audiences in.
Have a think about what most dental practices miss and what opportunities are ripe for the picking. You could make your practice the next Cirque Du Soleil…
2. Don’t Compete On Price
I’ve spoken about this many times before but do not compete on price. When dental practices compete on who has the lowest prices it quickly becomes a race to the bottom – and one that you don’t want to win. Ever.
Not only will you always be selling yourself short, but a low price is often subconsciously associated with poor quality. People will tend to value your work less, think anyone can do it, that it hasn’t made a difference in their life.c
If you don’t want to compete on price, you’re going to have to be the best. And create a brand that reflects it.
3. Create A Customer-Focused Practice
You want to work with people whose company you enjoy, right? You want patients that pay, stay, and refer their friends and family.
That kind of loyalty comes to those who know how to curate a fantastic patient experience.
When it comes down to it, people want to go where they feel appreciated, valued, and comfortable. You need to be able to design a patient journey that shows them your genuine care and attention to detail.
From your marketing to your website to your systems within the practice, always keep in mind how it will affect the patient and how it can be done to make their experience more pleasant.
4 Establish Real Relationships
At the end of the day, people can copy what you do but not who you are.
Other practices might try to mimic your branding, offer the same services as you, or even attempt to poach your patients. But they’ll never be you.
One of the most important things you can do to build a dental practice that people flock to, is to build genuine relationships and goodwill amongst your patient base.
That’s how you become the practice of choice, how you keep people coming back, and how you attract new patients like a magnet.
So, now you’ve got four tried-and-tested ways to make your competition obsolete – congratulations!
