
What it Takes To Succeed at Marketing for Dentists III
Part 3 of 3
By Daniel A. Bobrow, MBA (University of Chicago) & MBA (K.U.L. Belgium)
Internal and External Marketing
Internal marketing concerns itself primarily with communication among your patients of record. In a general sense, anything, which has an impact on your patient’s perception of your practice, is a form of internal marketing.
External marketing is intended to create awareness and induce a response among people with whom you’ve not yet established a relationship.
As mentioned above, some practices need only create awareness of their existence and location to induce a response. Marketing, where the element of persuasion is absent (or subtle) is called Institutional (or Awareness) Marketing. Its sole concern is to brand the practice.
Examples of internal marketing include: treatment presentation,patient recall and reactivation, on-hold messages, referral programs, and cause-related event marketing.
The distinction between internal and external marketing is somewhat blurred when one speaks about referral programs. This is because, while directed at patients of record (internal marketing), their intent is to attract prospective patients (external marketing).
Examples of external marketing
Telephone Call Handling is another area where internal and external marketing can overlap. This is because current
Use of the Internet has proliferated to the point where it is used
Links In A Chain
We stress that the programs offered here cannot work in isolation. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. For example, the success of your external marketing programs will depend to a great extent on having your internal marketing systems in place (and vice versa). This is the case because external marketing programs are best at generating inquiries. It’s what you do with that traffic (and here is where internal marketing and other essential systems enter the picture) that can mean the success or failure of your external marketing efforts.
Other “links in the chain” that are equally important to continued practice growth
STS IV will present Tools To Make Reliable Marketing Decisions.
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