Partner Up: Regardless of whether you live in the same town where you practice, get to know small business owners around your office. I’m not suggesting you join the chamber of commerce. Take a more grass-roots approach. Plan a day when you go into businesses and introduce yourself. You might ask business owners if they’d like to submit a guest blog for your blogsite. Perhaps the owner would link swap with you—post your website link on their site, you post theirs on your site. Getting to know other business owners can ground you within your community and put a face behind your brand.

Plan an Event: Everyone loves to have fun, so plan to host an event at your office. The type of event should be determined by seasonal influences, weather, and your location. For instance, if you have a small office that’s on the third floor of an office building, you can’t very well host a family fun day or dog show. However, you could host a private wine-and-cheese mixer for local realtors. Why? Because realtors know EVERYONE!

Volunteer Locally: Many dentists are philanthropists, sharing their services with underprivileged populations across the globe. However, opportunities for local volunteerism are all around you. Sponsor a team workday, gardening for an elderly patient. Or, if you prefer, host a dental care day at your local elementary school. When you do volunteer locally, be sure to blog about it, post photos on Facebook, and distribute a press release to local newspapers.

Call On the Kids: Connect with your community’s high-school booster clubs for band, football, cheerleading, and other sports. Find out how you can support the teams and get your name in front of students and parents. You might rent a space on the football stadium’s score board, provide free athletic Mouthguards for the soccer team, or donate lunch during a cheerleader workshop. Get photos with your team at school sports events and competitions, and pepper your office walls with them. People LOVE to see their kids and neighbors in photographs.

Get Visible: Savvy dentists invest in a memorable logo. They also make sure that logo, and their brand, is highly visible on signage. In addition to signs, though, your logo should be scattered about town. Consider your options: newspaper, magazines, rented space for a sign (football scoreboard, grocery store carts), movie theater advertisements, t-shirts for patients, ads in the school paper and yearbook. What’s the most effective? The answer depends on your community’s demographics and trends. Bottom line is, the more your logo is out there, the more people will know who you are.

Modern Dental Practice Marketing offers comprehensive Internet marketing for dentists. We provide completely custom websites, as well as blogsites, blog content, content marketing, social networking, and search engine optimization. However, we’re always happy to share advice and ideas to help our clients improve their overall marketing strategies, on-line and off!

There are pros and cons to self branding your dental practice. One positive point is, no other dentist in your area is likely to have the same practice name. However, what if you want to sell your practice in the future? If you don’t plan to sell your name along with the practice, then a complete rebranding will be necessary. In short, your practice would be worth more to a potential buyer if your name isn’t in the brand.

Here are a few questions for you to consider before ordering signs and business cards:

• Do you want your city or location name in your dental practice name?
  The benefit would be that consumers would know your location by your practice name, the practice name could easily accompany the business in a sale, and the name would do well for local Internet searches.
• What do you envision for a logo?
  A brand is more than a name. It’s the impression people have in their mind when they think of your business. What image could accompany your practice name?
• Is it important to you that your name be in the practice name?
  If your father and grandfather practiced dentistry in the town where you now practice, having the family name in your practice name would be a wise idea.
• Is a tagline necessary to explain your service offerings? (ex: Cosmetic & Family Dentistry)
  Sometimes, a practice name doesn’t convey a complete message. For instance, a practice named Chicago Smiles may need a tagline to differentiate the services from a photography studio or modeling agency. Chicago Smiles, Cosmetic & Restorative Dentistry paints a more complete picture.
• Is the practice name available?
  More than once I’ve had a client brand a practice, only to receive a lawyer’s letter that says the practice name is already being used. This little mistake can cost you a mint! Be sure to check with your county office and secure a DBA. Also, do a Google search to find out if any other company is using the name.
• Is the domain name available?
  Just because you officially own a practice name does not mean that you also own the domain. In fact, the two are not at all related. Anyone can buy any domain, any time, even if the business name belongs to someone else. This means, your colleagues can purchase all available variations of YOUR name, so do your homework. If your name is available for purchase, buy it right now. If you don’t, someone else will…legally!

For help with your dental practice name, logo, brand, and marketing strategy, call Modern Dental Practice Marketing today at 972-781-8861. We offer a free consultation and Internet presence analysis, and our team of experts can help you with your dental website, blog, content marketing, social networking, videos, and more.

Dr. Kaminer has an awesome reputation as a leader in dental technology. He evaluates new products for many dental product and technology manufacturers, and he’s well versed in the use of dental lasers for both hard and soft tissue applications. Dr. Kaminer has been a featured writer for many industry journals, and he speaks internationally on dental technology. We are proud to work with him and his two offices.

When Dr. Kaminer came to MDPM, he needed a complete overhaul on his branding. Like many dentists, he had used acquaintances to work on logo ideas and marketing concepts, but he wasn’t thrilled with the results. To start his re-branding process, we created a series of logo concepts, then worked back and forth with him to polish a final logo that truly reflects his state-of-the-art practice, Smiles by Design.

From there, we provided a layout for business cards. We then built his blog and began posting regularly, linking back to his existing website to foster a greater reputation with Google and other search engines. We also worked on his social networking pages so that they could be “out there,” ready to serve him when his new site goes live.

After an interview call regarding his philosophy, vision for his site, and clinical services, the MDPM graphic designer went to work on a few comps, and the copywriters composed his website content. In the mean time, Dr. Kaminer produced a video tour of his office to incorporate on the blog, website, and a YouTube page.

Today, everything is coming together, and we are in the last steps of making his new website live.

For some dentists, this rebranding and Internet marketing process takes only a month or two, and for others, it takes many months. At MDPM, we’re here to work at the pace our clients feel comfortable, providing timely responses and exceptional ideas. If you’d like to discuss a rebrand for your dental office, call Jill at 972-781-8861 today.