Does your practice smell and feel like a “toothache”?

What makes your dental practice memorable to patients?  Branding, once established, is how your practice is perceived based on every single interaction you have with your patients.  This interaction can be planned or it can be unofficial or even accidental.

 Planned marketing can be direct mail pieces, Web sites, business cards, logos and print advertisements.  Unofficial can be communicated through phone calls, email messages, social media and blog posts.  All of these things create a perception which you will hopefully be remembered for in a positive way.  Of course your practice can be branded negatively if there is a consistency in poor customer service or clinical care.

An exercise to reveal why a patient would choose your practice is not a discussion of your core values.  Most dental practices stand for quality, excellent clinical dental care and great customer service.  These are expectations whether delivered or not.  Your brand is special personality traits and a consistency of promises that become an identifier to your own particular brand.

If you want your brand to be high tech within tranquility you would not only have the latest technology but you would use it where applicable to the patient.  This would be routine not hit and miss. Many memories of dentistry that are negative have to do with smell and sounds.  You might develop a signature scent that reminds people of a rain forest not a toothache.   A water fountain feature with beautiful background music instead of the drill and rock music on the radio would create tranquility brand.

If you have established your practice so that patients are seen upon their arrival, you are prepared, deliver the services with the best care and the patient is out on time you are branding your practice to be efficient and professional.  The key is to keep this practice consistent and then to build upon the promises kept.