Want to know how to be Fully Booked?

Marketing expert Carolyn S. Dean debunks dental marketing myths in her new book. By Meg Crawford

As the MD of My Dental Marketing, a specialist outfit providing marketing and website design services for dental practices, Carolyn S. Dean knows exactly what makes for a successful business. Happily, she’s now sharing her knowledge in her first book, a practical and detailed guide to dental marketing titled Fully Booked: Dental Marketing Secrets for a Full Appointment Book.

Dean has focused on dental marketing for years, but her skills were honed while working like a demon in sales and marketing in the IT sector during its boom. By the time the bottom fell out of the market, Dean and her husband had been enduring backbreaking weekly commutes from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur and Tokyo, working longer and longer hours. Suffering corporate fatigue, Dean found herself gravitating to the opposite end of the career spectrum, studying to become a qualified counsellor and hypnotherapist. Unsurprisingly, when she coupled her new skills with her marketing prowess, her practice caught fire.

The lightbulb moment that led Dean to her true calling came when she attended a seminar on starting up and running a psychology practice. “You could have cut, copied and replaced psychology with any other word,” Dean reflects. “There was no real consideration of the problems faced by practitioners and how to apply marketing principles to them. I knew I could do better.”

Dean’s confidence was borne out when her resulting award-winning business, Wellsites, boomed. Initially, Wellsites provided specialist marketing services to medical as well as dental practitioners, but over time Dean realised that the ‘sweet spot’ of her operation was dentistry. Accordingly, Wellsites evolved into My Dental Practice, which is where she has focused her energies since 2009.

Dean’s latest achievement is the publication of Fully Booked in March this year. Dean felt compelled to write it knowing that there was a dearth of dental marketing books specific to Australian dentistry. 

“How you can market in Australia is different because of the relevant guidelines,” she explains. “Plus, the Australian market is different in terms of what it expects.”

“Practices need to realise that everything they do is marketing.”—Carolyn S. Dean

Wanting to write a book is one thing; being ready to publish is quite another. Dean jokes, “It took me 18 months from the initial concept and research to printing—it was the longest 18 months of my life.”

Dean has watched dentistry in Australia change dramatically in recent years. One of the biggest changes is that a considered approach to marketing is now a must. Dean outlines the factors that make Australian dentistry such a fiercely competitive market, starting with an oversupply of dentists.

She tells how a recent attendee at her full-day marketing course reported that he now competes against 27 other practices in his suburb compared to when he opened 25 years ago and was the only practice. “He said he needed to be [at the course] because if he didn’t market, he couldn’t compete and if he didn’t compete, he wouldn’t survive.”

Other factors that have contributed to competition include the rise of corporate dental chains and health-fund practices pushing prices down, dental tourism, and a change in patient expectations. Dean observes, “For a dentist in practice these days, it’s never been harder. The reality is that dentistry is regarded as a discretionary spend. So dentists have to be able to get their messages out there among all of the other messages.”

She emphasises that there’s no one magical fix or ‘must do’ when it comes to marketing because every practice is different. However, there are some fundamentals to keep front of mind.

“Practices need to realise that everything they do is marketing,” says Dean. “So many practices think that a newspaper advert is their marketing. They don’t understand that the receptionist is doing marketing every time they pick up the phone—the practice is marketing for them. For instance, when you walk into the reception area, people will make a judgement on the practice and the clinical skills of the practitioners from the look and the feel of the practice. I’d argue that every single practice out there is marketing and they need to be aware of the touch points of the practice and what they’re communicating.”

Dean recalls visiting a practice that had been established for 25 years. “I walked into the reception area and there was a dead pot plant, faded furniture, art work slipping out of frames, a laminated and blu-tacked ‘turn off your mobile phone’ sign.

“For a dentist in practice these days, it’s never been harder. The reality is that dentistry is regarded as a discretionary spend. So dentists have to be able to get their messages out there among all of the other messages.”—Carolyn S. Dean

“The three dentists working there all had different branding on their business cards—one was in a free plastic holder from the printer’s, and another was in an ancient metal holder. Outside, there was peeling paintwork, dusty signage and a hole in the wall where the door had been thrown open too hard.

“Then I walked into the treatment rooms. What do you think I saw? What I saw was the latest technology, the latest chairs. They were doing themselves such a disservice because when a patient comes into the practice, they’ll judge the clinical skills of a dentist on what they see; by the time they’d get to those treatment rooms, the assessment would be that they were shabby.”

Dean also urges practices to look at their figures. “I believe that marketing starts and ends with numbers,” she says. “A practice needs to know how many new patients it’s getting in, how many are leaving, the growth lines, profit, revenue and how they are changing. It’s only when you pin these down that you can establish what needs to change.”

On the flip side, some practices have put genuine thought into making the experience of going to the dentist as pleasant as possible. For instance, as Dean notes in her book, some practices now provide warm towels and lip salve, and at least one practice she’s aware of has a ‘chill-out room’, with herbal tea and massage chairs for downtime post-treatment. However, Dean is careful to point out that practices should “beware the shiny objects.

“There are so many cool and funky things a practice could be doing, but they can actually be distractions. It’s by far more important to have the basics in place—have a marketing plan, know your numbers and be consistent.”