How to Market Neuromuscular Dentistry - Page 4
Television
Television advertising is expensive, but not necessarily prohibitive. Spot buys on targeted shows such as Oprah, Dr. Phil, or the evening news allow you to reach a targeted audience without investing in heavy repetition. Cable TV is less expensive and more neighborhood specific than broadcast TV, so repetition counteracts the channel surfing common with cable.
Production of your television message is critically important. It is generally advisable to avoid commercials shot by the local cable or TV station, and if you've seen them, you'll know why. Yes, their production costs are generally inexpensive (or often free), but do you really want to look like the local used car dealership or family restaurant?
LVI has raised the bar with a professional, national quality aesthetic television ad. Think about what your patients are now conditioned to seeing. If you invest in TV, make sure the image you project is what you want your patients to see.
Yellow Pages
Since neuromuscular pain is more chronic (or unrecognized) than emergency pain, patients are less likely to seek your services from the yellow pages. It won't hurt to list pain relief training in your ad, but don't make it the primary focus. As for presence in the yellow pages...Patients will often look a doctor up in the local directory after seeing an ad, so it is important to make sure they can find you with relative ease. Two page spreads are unnecessary, but don't make your ad so small that it's wasted.
Community Seminars
Similar to the ever popular Lasik eye surgery seminars, the concept of NMD can be introduced to the general public in an entertaining and informative format. Host a seminar on NMD and promote it through print and radio. Community seminars will help you pre-qualify prospective patients as only the interested patients will sign up. Tell stories of actual patients using PowerPoint to show before and after pictures. Have patients there who benefited from NMD. Make it easy for patients to schedule consultation appointments that night.
Public Relations
Public relations is an excellent way to showcase the benefits of NMD. Most daily newspapers have a regular health news section. Local television networks often have a dedicated health trends reporter on the evening news. Contact the managing editor of the paper or the news editor of the television station to generate interest in a story.
The key to getting press is presenting an angle to the story that will hold the reader/viewer's interest. For example, you might begin by saying, "Did you know that X percent of all chronic migraine patients may actually be able to resolve their pain through a new kind of dentistry?"
Then, in layman's terms, you briefly explain your technology and skills and invite the reporter to come in and learn more. When approaching a reporter, you should determine what specific angle they want to feature, such as technology (showcasing a jaw tracking device), human interest (following a patient's case from start to finish), medical (solving a chronic medical problem), etc.
While you can't control exactly what will be reported, the article or news feature will help position you as the expert in the field.
Website
Many pain patients find their doctor through the internet. Often frustrated with a lack of progress through traditional medical avenues, these patients begin to research their symptoms on the internet, looking for answers. LVI has created a national public relations campaign that leads people to www.leadingdentist.com. The site explains the discipline, discusses symptoms and treatment options, and lists dentists who have been trained in neuromuscular dentistry. Dentists listed on the site must be full mouth graduates of LVI. If you participate in this campaign, make sure you have your own website. Patients will often link right to the site of the doctor in their area for direct information.
If you are not a member of that campaign, you can help prospects find you by planting phrases
in the HTML source code of your site that can be located by the major search engines. Meta-tags such as jaw pain, migraines, neck pain and bite problems provide criteria for search engines and can help lead patients to your site. Once on your site, a section dedicated to NMD will help potential patients decide if they should schedule a visit.
Your discussion of NMD should be couched in patient-friendly sound bites that don't intimidate or confuse the patient. Case histories and before-and-after photos should illustrate the value added benefit of the improved aesthetics that come as a result of neuromuscular treatment.
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