As a dental marketing expert you might wonder why I am suggesting that you should stop your dental marketing right now. Well, I’m talking about a very specific type of marketing and that is marketing which treats dentistry like it is a product.
Buy one get one free.
Only 15 10 2 remaining Invisalign treatments available.
Both of these are examples of using ‘product’ style marketing techniques, these techniques work excellently if we are trying to shift products from our store as they incite the buyer to make a snap decision. Purchasing products is low risk because:
- We can review the product prior to purchase to ensure we are happy with its quality.
- We can take the product back afterwards if we are not happy with the quality.
- The quality is almost guaranteed to be exactly the same between all products due to the industrialised manufacturing process.
This means purchasing products is generally low risk, even if price is high. Consider this, if I’m spending £15,000 on a new car I can test it beforehand and take it back afterwards if it doesn’t meet the agreed criteria all safe in the knowledge that every single car manufactured is almost the same. Purchasing a £15,000 car is, in general, a low risk decision. (It may have high-risk financial decisions but the actual decision to purchase the car is low risk)
Services on the other hand are high risk because:
- The service cannot be reviewed before hand, as the service provider delivers the service, the user consumes the service at exactly the same time. Think about teaching, as the words come out of the teachers mouth the person listening absorbs and consumes the information.
- Once a service has been delivered it cannot be given back. Think again about teaching, once you have listened to the words you cannot ‘unlisten’ and give the knowledge back again.
- The service quality will change dependent upon the person delivering the service.
This is completely opposite to marketing a product.
So now think about purchasing a £200 treatment from the dentist. That new white filling cannot be reviewed before hand, you cannot make the white filling to stock and put on a shelf, the patient cannot give it back afterwards if they don’t like it and finally the patient will know that the quality of that filling can change dependent upon the operator delivering the service.
For this reason purchasing a £200 white filling from the dentist is a higher risk purchase than purchasing a £15,000 new car.
It’s not about the money, it’s about the risk.
Product marketing is about getting people to make a snap decision because risk is low, service marketing is about increasing trust and reducing risk and if we get the two mixed up we will end up commoditising the service..
We all know that dentistry is not a product, we all know the patient cannot review the treatment beforehand, we all know that the quality can vary dependent upon the operator, we all know the patient cannot give back the white filling afterwards so please stop treating dentistry as a product and trying to get patients to make a snap decision.
This is why online marketing is perfectly tailored for dentistry as it allows us to gently build a relationship with a patient, all the while demonstrating that you genuinely care for their oral health, we work on increasing trust and reducing risk not trying to get patients to make a snap decision.
Focus your marketing on increasing trust and reducing risk and the profits will follow.
This is in your hands, you decide how you want to portray your industry… Let the comments flow!