Need new patients for your dental practice? Have you considered running a classified ad in your local newspaper? Classified ads can be a great, inexpensive way to advertise your dental office. But if they're not done correctly, you will certainly not see any results.
In order to market your dental practice effectively with classified ads, you simply need to follow three easy rules. Follow these rules and you'll see your response rates, and your patient counts, increase.
Three Easy Rules for Writing Dental Practice Classified Ads
- Think like your prospective patient. You must remember that your patient is thinking "What's in this for me?" He doesn't care how beautiful your office is or how long you've been practicing dentistry, unless you can explain to him how these issues will affect him and his dental care.
- Write your ad to one patient, not to a hundred prospects. Pretend you are sitting beside your new dental patient having a one-on-one conversation. Don't address your entire market at once. There is only one person at a time reading your dental classified ad.
- Write a benefits list for your dental services. It's important to note that benefits are not features. Your prospective patient is interested in the benefits you provide, but most dentists advertise using the features of their dental services.
Here is an example.
FEATURE: Our dental office is open on Saturdays.
BENEFIT: No more having to take time off of work, or trying to squeeze a dental appointment into your already hectic work week. Our dental office is open on Saturdays so your dental appointment will be relaxing and convenient.
FEATURE: Fast teeth whitening service
BENEFIT: Go to your class reunion looking ten years younger! Our teeth whitening service will leave you with a dazzling smile that your old college roommate will envy. And it's so quick, you have it done during your regular lunch break.
See the difference? A feature is what your dental service or product does. The benefit is the good feeling your dental patients get from the feature. Now write a list of all the features you can think of for your own dental office, then delve deeper and come up with a benefit for each feature.
Next, review your list of benefits and decide which one you want to use for this particular ad. Writing a successful classified ad for your dental practice is just like writing a sentence; you only focus on one thought, or benefit, at a time.
When you write the headline for your classified ad, incorporate this benefit. The headline is the most important element of your ad. If you don't grab your prospect's attention right away as she is scanning all the classifieds, she might not come back to read your ad later.
When you start putting together the body of your dental classified ad, don't focus on the grammar or the word count. Just get your thoughts down and worry about editing later. You might want to use your features, from the list you created earlier, to support the benefit you're focusing on. If your ad only focuses on benefits, it might appear too-good-to-be-true.
Once the ad is written, it's always a good idea to let it sit for a few days before doing your final editing. When editing your dental classified ad, read it out loud, make any necessary changes, then come back and read it out loud again.
Writing classified ads for you dental practice is an easy process once you know and follow the simple rules. Classified ads are a great way to find new patients and grow your dental business.
Do you often feel frazzled and overwhelmed when you walk into your dental office, even though it's the first thing in the morning? Do you dream of being able to work a "normal" schedule, with more time to do the things you love to do? Is your dental business draining every ounce of energy from you so that you have nothing left by the end of the day?
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