After the Dentistry Today article in January 2008, Page 118, came out, I now get dentists calling me and saying "my marketing is failing. I am not getting new patients. What do I do?"

Take "Mary" as I will call her. Mary practices in an area that certainly has some affluent people. When she started out she was the "only dentist" in the area and now there are "twenty dentists."

This is an phenomenon that interests me. Dental schools have closed. The number of dentists has fallen in the US. More boomers are paying big money to get their teeth looking better. Never has there been a generation in the Western world like this one, where people are older and not wearing dentures. They are spending unprecedented amounts on their teeth, especially for cosmetic dentistry.

Yet, Mary has a point. The point is that in every affluent area, a lot of dentists have moved in and started practices. All of them want to practice in the same area, to tap the same pool of affluent patients.

So here we are in the US with large swathes of the population underserved by dentists, and with the best dentist-marketeers all focused on the same population group of affluent Boomers.

Yet, there is a lot of money to be made, returning to Mary. Mary can out-market her competitors and do so rather easily.

Here is a good post from dentalblogs that says it quite well:

According to Roger P. Levin of The Levin Group, "Dental schools do an excellent job of teaching the clinical skills necessary to practice dentistry, but those skills alone will not guarantee a successful practice." You know how to practice dentistry, but do you know how to make your business grow?

So if you market well, you can clean up. Here is what my advice is to Mary:

Stop wasting 80% of your marketing budget

Stop practicing "drive-by marketing" as I call it — switch your focus from the one step to the two step.

The two step approach can do three times better than the one step. A one step is an ad that says "call my office for an appointment." A two step ad is one that promotes a CD, or free report, or educational video. The two step lets you get all the patients that a one step would. But it also adds even more — prospective patients who are interested in your cosmetic and restorative dentistry but not quite ready.

A lot of prospective patients will call and ask for the free report or CD. And many will set up as good appointments. Many more will set up later as they feel more comfortable with you after receiving some additional relationship-building marketing material from you.

Set up and promote a dental practice blog

You are competing with your colleagues for attention on the Internet because affluent people search out dentists on the Internet.

A static website is not enough anymore. You need a blog.

A blog gives the Internet community important news and information on a regular basis. Every day preferably. And it should ping 40 different search engines and content aggregators and directories. And it should be promoted on various social media sites.

A static website is fine for a brochure. But a blog is essential to maximize Internet marketing opportunities.

Build an in-house patient prospect mailing list

Work your list of prospective patients by sending regular and personal communication to them. By regular and personal, I mean from the heart. I mean conversational. I mean the opposite of slick and corporate. Use first person. Use short sentences. Write like you speak. They will bond with you and then they will call you when they are ready for your dentistry.

Eventually you won't advertise at all. You'll have a powerful in-house list and won't need to go outside the list

You know who does this right? Dr. John Gammichia's Daily Grind blog for AGD.

As I finished writing her a refund check, I had this awesome feeling like “it’s over, and it only took $500 to make it go away.”

I NEED to tell you this story.

Ms. S came to me about two years ago. My periodontist referred her to my practice with a caveat. The caveat was that she was “a little different.” I told him, “No problem, I am used to different. My whole family is a little different.” (Mistake #1)

When she came in for a new patient exam she didn’t seem that bad to me. She was very nice and pretty funny. Her mouth was pretty healthy, but she was missing #14 and she was already set up to have the implant done by my periodontist (whose name is now “mud” around my office).

See? You gotta love this guy. And you'll feel like you know him. He's entertaining and he's helpful. Do the same with your marketing.

And please, if you haven't already, get on my list and receive my $59.95 book, the all-time bestseller on case acceptance and dental marketing, free. I will never share your info with anyone. You can opt out anytime. And I'll be announcing the start of my blogging service that will create and run search engine optimized blog for you with all original material.