Invest a chunk of your Clinic starting budget in marketing too.
Dentistry in Nepal ( just like in the western world) is service oriented business. You have to invest good amount of money to start a practice. And, dental clinic is not like physicians’ clinic as it needs more and sophisticated equipments, expensive materials, armamentoriums and big and impressively clean space . So, to make your business known to more people, following the rules, you can do Marketing in diffrent ways.
- Website: It is a portal or entry point of your possible costumers who eneter and see your activitities. Via this any person in market can find you and decide to meet you as an option. If you treat them well, they will stick to your practice.
- Social sites ( to connect and engage mass. Everyone has social media nowadays. Mostly people ty to search your place before they walk in ). Good Photography and unique content are must for that (good visual is master of marketing. Even social media like instagram is biased towards good and engaging visuals)
- Good Videos ( couple of nice videos are useful to tell about your practice story to masses to slowly/unknowinngly make them aware vis-a-vis beckoning them to your practice (to be frank).
- Descriptive contents are also important for google search friendly dentist. A common people friendy information is a organic description you can write anywhere in a platform. Be it website or social sites.
- e-brochures: hand to hand big brochure days are rare of late. So to send your service summary,education/awareness contents to connected people, you have to send e-brochures)
- e-cards: During special festivals and celebrations to remind your connected people/clients letting them know that you care them, you can send e-cards on behalf of your practice.
- In the last but not the least, business cards are pocket friendly marketing tool. Still you can meet a person who are not used to the virtual world. During your friends’ home visit, marriage and other party gatherings, people may ask your number but always “Telling number and quick practice pitch” can not be possible. So, nice business cards can be necessary at times.
So, be generous enough for that investment as that could be one time as well as timely investments which in turn may bring more costumers. And, costumer will pay you just like any other businesses.
By Dr Dinesh Karki, Dentist and Marketing enthusiast based in Kathmandu.