But is any idea really new?



The website craze is probably considered the newest "idea" to hit dentistry, but when you really look at what a website does, is it truly new.

I'll heed to the point that a dental website is a new media, but hardly a new idea. In fact, many dentists rushed to put all of their old brochure information on a website. This is about as far as anyone can get from new.

Dental spas have been, and still are a growing trend in the dental industry, and although a small percentage of dentists are doing this, there have been many dental practices in the past that have added services to their menu.

In a dental spa, you may be adding spa-like services, but in the overall dental marketing era, adding additional services is not new. Having a hygienist, or adding orthodontic services to your practice is the same thing.

Taking credit payments... it has been happening since the beginning of time. Putting a brand name on something like DentalCredit, does not make it new.

I'm not saying there is nothing new in dental marketing, but 99% of the new dental marketing ideas out there, are simply modifications of old ideas.

The point is, there are three constants in marketing:

1. Market: Who you are talking to. This could be your neighborhood, current patients, or even a subsection of demographics, or geographics.

2. Message: This is what you are telling them. Is your message about a charity you support, a special offer you have, or even a staff member that just had a baby.

3. Media: This is how you present your message to your market. This includes email, websites, newsletters, television, postcards, radio, etc...

So when it comes to new dental marketing ideas, there is hardly anything that is new. There is new media that comes along. You can and should always be presenting new messages, and of course, there are new markets popping up daily.

There is nothing wrong with taking something someone else has done, and changing one of the above and making it your own. Adapting a message to a different media, or hitting a different market is just as new as reinventing the internet.

In your own practice, you need to consider taking a successful marketing message and adapting it to as many new media as possible. Putting the wording from a successful postcard on your website, or taking your profitable yellow pages ad, and turning it into a newspaper insert.

This is how truly successful practices handle their dental marketing. Their dental newsletter is mailed in print, and then adapted to a blog. Their yellow pages ad becomes a postcard.

This way, you functionally stack your ideas into a huge conglomerate of new patient attraction methods using "new to you" message, markets, and media.

Your dental practice brand not only looks more congruent this way, but you also no longer need to test and try "new" things. Find a solid message, and adapt it to every market and media you can.