Stagnant Dental Practice

Business Slow? You’re Not Alone

It’s no secret – competition among dentists like yourself is increasing, and increasing quickly. The ADA estimates there will be 16% more dentists in the United States by 2022, meaning you only have a handful of years to get competitive.  You might be feeling the effects of increased competition right now. Or, you might be seeing just the initial signs that increased competition is coming your way.

The strongest and loudest signal that your practice is in for hard times is your revenue and production has either a) flattened or b) started falling slightly. Or, maybe you are starting to see it in your new patient count. Maybe you went from 20 or 40 new patients per month, but now you’re only seeing 10 or 20, or worse yet you’re down to less than 10 new patients per month.  Any of these stats are a sounding alarm that it’s time for your practice to start getting competitive.  Let’s take a deeper look.

Some Of These May Describe You

• Young Patients Aren’t Finding Me
  You have a solid patient base, but the new people finding you seem to be older. For some reason, younger patients are not finding you at a high rate.
• My Average Patient Age is Getting Older
  The average age of your patient is getting older. As a result, you're not seeing new families, and your patient base continues to get smaller.
• Revenue & Production Is Flat or Falling
  You’ve noticed a trend where your practice stopped growing some years ago, or maybe even more recently. You hear other practices are increasing production, but you’re not.
• Competitors/Corporates Are Moving In
  You might have noticed more and more practices opening up in your city, or areas near you. You might even notice more corporates or chains in your city.
• My Current Marketing Isn’t Working
  You’re running marketing campaigns, and you’ve hired marketing companies, but you can’t tell if it’s working. You have no real results and might be wasting money.
• No Effective Marketing At All
  You haven’t needed marketing in the past. You’ve worked mostly off of referrals and word of mouth and never felt like you needed to market. You’re wondering if you need to now.

How Did This Happen? Possible Reasons Are…

• Haven’t Stayed Cutting Edge
  By not marketing properly, your practice may be falling behind. Competitors are using cutting edge marketing techniques and you need to as well in order to compete with them. Competition has been evolving while your marketing has not kept up. Marketing technology may be passing your practice while others around you are using it to their advantage.
• Your Marketing Doesn’t Speak to Gen Y and Millennials
  The new generations of potential new patients think, act, and make decisions much differently than older generations. To attract them, you must market to them.  You’ll need a marketing company that understands these generations and knows how to attract them.
• Made Some Bad Marketing Hires
  It happens to almost every practice. You may have hired a marketing company, or multiple marketing companies who did not live up to their promises and deliver you new patients.
• Might Be Penalized by Google
  If you’ve hired marketing companies in the past, and now you’re not showing up on Google where you think you should be showing up, there’s a chance your website has been penalized.
• Might Be Doing It Yourself
  You’ve never needed to hire a marketing company because you’ve been handing it yourself. You’ve ‘dabbled’ in marketing, but now you see it’s not working and driving patients.
• You’ve Hired a “Local” Marketing Company Because They Are Close
  You decided to hire a local marketing company in your area, but they don’t specialize in dentistry and have limited experience with highly competitive industries like the dental market.