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Welcome to the Dental Office blog. On this site we will share information on how we conquer the real-world challenges that we each face in our pursuit of running high-quality, successful, profitable and harmonious dental offices.

The Dental Blog invites you to share your knowledge, successes, failures and crazy stories with fellow dental professionals. Sharing our combined knowledge, we can each create our own unique dream practices.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Look for New Patients - Door to Door

When I first started my own private practice, I was short on two important things: cash & patients. I knew I had to do networking to help develop relationships in the community but that was going to be a long-term project. In the short-term I needed to do some form of advertising to get patients in the door.

Short on money, I used the one resource I had plenty of – time. I decided to print a free check-up and X-ray coupon and walk door to door in the area near my office. My marketing plan was not to just leave the flyer on the door but rather to knock on the door and personally deliver each flyer to the occupant.

Every day after work I would walk for about an hour and knock on doors. I would tell the people that I was a new dentist in the community and if they did not currently have a dentist that I would be happy to give them a free exam and X-rays for their entire family.

I figured I could knock on lots of doors each day but I found that I wound up talking to a lot of the people and only got a couple of dozen out each day. I had moms & dads ask me all kinds of questions and about dentistry for their kids. I had seniors ask about dentures and implants. I got all kind of questions. I started to hand out tooth brushes (with my name and office number on them) at the houses I visited.

The door-to-door marketing was working great and I was getting a lot of new patients. I even had a few dentists call me and ask me to stop soliciting their patients. I politely told them what I was saying as I went to each door and that I was truly not trying to take patients away from other dentists rather reach the 50% of people who did not have dentists. I also pointed out that other dentist flyers and other advertising went to my patient’s homes and that they did not seem to be bothered by that. I was marketing my practice – they were free to walk the streets too.

Although no other marketing project ever brought me more solid, long-standing patients than my walking campaign, I only did it that one year. Although many years have passed since my street-walking marketing campaign – the marketing would still work today. People WANT TO KNOW their dentist and people love to ask questions. If you are short on patients you might want to consider going door-to-door looking for them.

Dr. Corey Gold
President – Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

25 comments:

  1. Yes, door to door or face to face marketing strategy is the best way for new dental clinic to spread office and get more patients. The only shortcoming is that it need more time.

    Zeta dental blog

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm looking for a dentist for my wife. She doesn't like the dentist very much but she trusts me to find her a good one. I'm hoping I can find someone who will be inexpensive and reliable.
    John Bond | http://www.cloverdaledentalcentredralexearmme.com/en/about_us.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you for sharing this information on finding customers. This is a good way to go about doing it. I need to find a good dentist that my kids can go to? Any suggestions? Thanks!

    Wayne Deer | http://www.queenswaydentaletobicoke.ca/our_team.html

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  4. I've never actually thought about using door to door marketing for a dentists office. Thinking about it now, it seems like it would be a good idea. The people at the house could ask questions right there about your clinic to see what all you offer. That would also be pretty useful to see what people expect in their dentists. It's a win-win situation how I see it.
    -Seamus | http://www.jpdentalgroup.com/

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  5. Im not sure that my dentist ever considered the door to door approach. I will have to share this with her when I go for Lumineers Pleasanton.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I have medicaid and I am wondering who accepts that insurance here in Calgary? If there isn't anyone who does; what sort of payment plans are available to be able to work off a dental bill? Is this something that I can get the dental practice to discuss before I start up with them?


    bryanflake1984| http://www.bitedental.com

    ReplyDelete
  7. What a brilliant idea for marketing. I have never had a dentist knock on my door. That would really impress me. The free x-ray would be a great incentive to get the family in the door. http://www.flemingtonfamilycosmeticdental.com/services.html

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  8. I have been thinking about starting my own business. The only thing that I have had a hard time with is finding clients. Going door to door is a good idea.
    Gary Puntman | http://www.coredental.ca

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  9. My true love is marketing, and that is impressive. People forget that regardless of what style of marketing you are performing, the sale is not the focus, the individual is the focus. Many marketers view people as being their source of cash, that simply just won't work for a long-term marketing plan.
    Feruccio Lamborghini
    http://aqdentureservice.com/

    ReplyDelete
  10. That's a innovative way of marketing and a best way for new dental clinic to spread office and get more patients. We offer custom dental websites to the dentist, who want to adapt new technology and need to create a brand name locally. There are many advantages of optimizing sites with higher search engine placement, Bring in new patients to your dental clinic. More cost efficient than traditional forms of advertising such as print and radio ads. We will carefully monitor your website and provide you with measures of your audiences on your site.

    ReplyDelete
  11. This seems like a good strategy to find new patients. It also looks like it helped you develop personal relationships with the people you visited. It shows an effort to reach out to the community which I'm sure appealed to a lot of people. Friendly dentists are good dentists.
    Claudia Rosenburg | http://www.dentistrywithaheart.com/contemporary-dentistry.html

    ReplyDelete
  12. Door to door marketing strategy is one of the best way to market your service, also you can give some gimmick like giving a discount to your first time patients. Additional, its pretty advantage to have a blog so that everyone will know more about your company service :)
    Glad I've found your blog, I enjoyed reading.
    Xerxes
    Manhattan dental clinic

    ReplyDelete
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  14. This article is right, dental offices are always looking for new patients to help out. Not because they have too few, but because they want to help out more and more. They know what they are doing and they work hard every day to make sure that their patients are happy and their teeth look great.
    Jak Manson | http://www.sunridgelandingdentalcare.com/services.html

    ReplyDelete
  15. We have created an app that allows people to find any doctors in any area of Australia using location services of the Android phones. We are waiting approval from Apple so the app will be available to iPhone users in 2 weeks.

    Because we had alot of enquires from doctors outside NSW we are changing its name from My Doctor NSW to My Doctor and currently we are accepting registration from doctors from around Australia.

    To join and list your dental practice is free all you have to do is click on www.find-my-doc.com

    ReplyDelete
  16. Inspiring dentist! I find your experience very simple, noble and fun. Well I'll be interested to meet you someday the door to door dentist. Well a dentist open sundays clinic in our community and she is very thoughtful to her patients especially to the kids.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Wow! your story is inspiring and very noble. I really admire your persistence to get more by walking door to door and give flyers and small talk on each house you passed by going home. Well I hope all the best dentist in mcallen tx should have the same determination to succeed.

    ReplyDelete
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  20. The door-to-door approach is actually also widely as a marketing tool to build a client base so that when the time comes the consumer will know your face. I think your approach worked well because the dentist became that real person, and not a masked face with scary-looking tools. It also showed a humble attitude and with that comes relatability, and what's more - this dentist cares.

    Regina Morales @ Sonic Response

    ReplyDelete
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