Print advertising used to be at the centre of all advertising because you had little other choice. It can be effective, but it is expensive and hit and miss. It is incredibly hard to track the ROI of your advert.

With the onset of digital marketing, print advertising is becoming less popular. It’s often not the most cost-effective solution for advertising your dental practice, as it tends to be disproportionately expensive.

However, there are still opportunities to attract new patients with print advertising. You just need to compare a potential campaign to online advertising in terms of reach and frequency.

Before considering placing a print advert, you need to really look at the demographic information of the publication. Is this a great fit for your ideal patient and target market? Think about the readers’ ages, average household income, location, etc.

Look at your budget and see what frequency you can afford with the publication. If you cannot afford to run the advert frequently then don’t do it. Remember, frequency is more powerful than reach. You need to run a campaign with a series of ads over a period of time to build brand awareness.

Your print advert

If you do decide to go ahead with print advertising, you need to make sure that your advert grabs your target’s attention. Don’t just put your name and practice address there, you’ll be wasting your time.

Your advert needs to be relevant to your ideal patient and needs to hold their attention. Each advert should focus on what your ideal patient cares about, not what you as a dentist care about. Think back to their needs, fears, and wants.

It is essential that your advert should motivate them to do something. It should give them a reason to contact you through a strong call to action. Making an offer is often a great reason to take action (such as to call, or go to your website, etc.).

I speak to many dentists that have been running the same print advert for years without ever changing it or reviewing it. As with all types of marketing, best practice is to test several adverts and track their response. If one advert has the best response then run that advert until you have more to test. If several get a similar response, I recommend that you alternate between them.

Still have questions?

Contact us for more tips and advice on dental marketing for your practice.

This article is an extract from ‘Fully Booked – Dental marketing secrets for a full appointment book’. Find out more or buy the book here.