Your brand is an
important asset. When you buy a new dental chair, the day after this hard
asset is installed into your office it begins to depreciate. When you invest in
a professional approach to branding and nurture the brand with good marketing,
you have an asset that will appreciate and play a very significant part in the
overall success of your practice during its lifetime. Getting your practice started. With many doctors that I meet, there
are infinite ideas for how they want to launch their new practice. While it’s
great to have ideas, investing time and money on ideas that establish your
brand to make a good first impression and immediate emotional response to
connect with potential new customers is the first order of business. After all,
when starting a new practice your business goals are very simple: Attract the
right kind of new patients. To do this you need to understand what type of
practice you want to be and the type of clients that you want to have in your
practice. Think of your brand, and the marketing that follows, as a bridge that
connects your practice to this clientele. The clearer your vision, the stronger
your brand will be.
Your brand needs to flow throughout the
practice. The colours on the walls and style of uniforms must reflect that personality.
The look needs to be consistent from the sign out front to the furniture in the
waiting room and treatment rooms. Growing
your practice. With a strong brand in place, you have a head start with
your marketing. Your marketing will be more effective if people can immediately
associate your brand with something. If we placed the Apple logo on a coffee
cup, people would automatically expect great quality and be prepared to pay a
little bit more for it. Leverage the equity that you have established with your
brand to move your practice forward. Be bold. Along with direct marketing, look
for opportunities to team your brand with other like-minded brands in the
community.
Branding is also a great motivator for your
staff. When a team is on board with a common goal, they will represent and reinforce
the values of your brand from the greeting on the phone to their interaction
with patients in the office.
Office staff may change, hygienists may come and go, and you
may want to bring on associates, but the look and feel of the practice will
stay the same and that goes a long way to ensuring the loyalty of your
clientele.
Also, customer loyalty comes from consistently
delivering on the promise of your brand as well as keeping current. Styles
change, but with an established brand you don’t have to reinvent yourself all
the time. Starbucks recently freshened up their logo, but it was just a tweak.
The logo is still instantly recognizable. Over time you can choose to update
your logo or refresh the office interior while still keeping your brand association
intact. Realizing your optimal practice
sale price. When the time comes to sell Cobblestone Family Dentistry,
having that brand is like staging a home for sale. It makes it easier for a
potential buyers to see themselves owning the practice because they see the
practice’s personality, not yours. It’s not only an easier transition for the
new dentist, but for the patients and staff as well. It will still be the familiar
Cobblestone Family Dentistry.
Brand recognition doesn’t happen overnight
though. It’s best to be planning the sale of your practice in advance. An investment
of $10,000.00 for a complete professional branding package, as well as some
good marketing to build this brand in your office and out in the community, at
least three years before listing the practice will deliver a strong return. I’ve
discussed this thinking with some of Canada’s leading practice brokers and they
agree that well branded practices are better positioned to sell more easily and for more money than a poorly branded or
unbranded practice. Your brand is your lifeblood. Your practice is a business
with a life and your brand is the blood that pumps through it, keeping it
strong. In order to keep that business healthy, you have to manage your
marketing well -- and that starts with your brand.
Bottom Line: The article outlines the importance of
marketing and your brand name to the health of your practice.
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