Cost of Advertising vs Value of Publicity

by Christopher Hall / PRDent Ltd

Some dental clinics do amazingly well with little more than a listing in the local telephone directory, whilst other dental clinics need a wide and varied mix of marketing to achieve the desired results. It very much depends on a number of factors!

As a business owner I once shared the illusion that marketing companies had large advertising budgets to bring in new business. Several years ago I realised that this was a two dimensional approach after seeing what marketing can do for a business.

Many companies unfortunately have the same illusion and I regularly see new companies using brute force by throwing large amounts money at advertising campaigns with marginal success. Sadly, a lot of these companies go to the wall without really knowing where it all went wrong. Advertising has it’s place but it should be part of the marketing mix.

For you to really believe how marketing can work for your dental clinic you need to understand the difference, work at it and start getting positive results.

Advertising is generally referred to as “paid inclusion” which means that you pay the publication to print your message which is aimed at your target market. So far so good but few realise that readers will subliminally under value your advertisement. Why? Well those who pay rarely point out the negatives about their service.
This is where the other elements of marketing come into the equation or more accurately, Publicity! If something goes to print which has been impartially written by another person such as a journalist and it is positive then readers are more likely to become patients. The downside is that negative comments are hard to control but good PR account executives like me can keep on driving home positive messages to the media.

If you want your dental clinic to stand out amongst the crowd then consider other forms of ammunition and do not solely rely on advertising and leaflet drops to get random traffic through your dental practice.

I will be glad to receive your comments and experiences with advertising