When you step into the business world, branding is a phenomenon you will hear a lot of. This is why it is important to understand what branding really is and why you, as a dentist, should focus on branding your dental practice. This article will help you understand what branding is, its importance, and how you can do positive branding of your dental practice.
Understanding Branding
Branding is defined as a name, design, symbol, term, or any other feature that identifies a seller's product, service, or good as different and unique from the other sellers. If your brand is not different, then you do not have much branding. Branding is what your clients think of you. It is the thought that comes to their mind when they think of you. What is the feeling, vibe, and aura that they associate with your practice?
Branding is important because it attracts patients and increases patient retention, and allows you to charge more per patient. Have you ever wondered why when you go to the market, you are willing to pay different prices for two products that are the same? For example, you will most certainly pay double for a bottle of coke even when you can get an almost identical product from the grocery store. Both beverages are dark, fizzy, and filled with sugar. But in the mind of customers, these two products are poles apart. Companies spend millions of dollars and years building their brand in order to gain customer loyalty and distinguish themselves from their competitors. Branding creates a unique feeling associated with your service and product that results in different buying behaviors.
What is Branding?
For a dental practice, you will be surprised to know that branding is not just having a good logo and signage. That is simply scraping the surface of branding. Branding comprises a lot more. The truth is that everything you practice, believe in, in vision is branding.
You might be advertising your dental practice and creating beautiful posters, but having an unfriendly receptionist or unprofessional customer service can ruin your brand. How? Put yourself in your patient's shoes. Imagine they need to get their dental checkup done but don't know which dental office to visit. They search for dentists online and find a clinic with a good, informative, easy-to-use website that has pictures of friendly-looking staff. The dental office is not too far from their house, so they make a call to take details. However, the receptionist takes ages to pick up the call, and when she does, she sounds rude, uninterested, and unhelpful. Will the patient trust the dental practice with their health and money? Probably not.
What the patient experiences when they enter your dental office has the same effect. What does the interior look like, how does it smell, how nice are the staff, and how professional do they look? All of these factors contribute to making your brand.
You are Not the Owner of Your Brand
This might be shocking, but you do not actually own your brand. As much as you try to create a brand for your services, in the end, your brand is how your clients see it. When dental practice owners were asked to close their eyes and imagine how they want their clients to see their brand ideally, the responses were interesting. It was found that there was very little reference to dentistry, and there was a range of factors on which they wished to build their brand that was not related to dentistry.
Building Your Brand
The question is, how do you create a good brand for your dental practice? Remember that every little thing you do with your practice is branding. In order to create a positive brand, you need to make sure your clients have a positive experience and pay attention to every small detail. It's the little things you do that create the difference and differentiate you from other competitors. Try to improve small parts of your dental practice one by one instead of creating big changes. In order to trust a service, people notice every small thing. You need to put yourself in the shoes of your clients and think, 'What would you like/dislike if you walked into your dental office?' Everything such as the receptionist's behavior, staff dressing, the aura of the premises, interior, plants, benches, chairs, machines, and paint matters.
A Few Questions You Should Ask Yourself:
- What is the vision and mission of your dental practice? What do you support and what are you against?
- What are your values and beliefs? How will you communicate these values to your staff and clients?
- What makes your dental practice unique? How do you differ from the other dental practices out there? Why should the clients choose and come to your dental office?
- Who are your target population and ideal client? How can you improve your client's experience?
- How consistent is your branding?
In a Nutshell
Branding can be a tiring process, but it is essential and fruitful in the long run. Branding allows you to attract patients, retain patients, and even charge greater than your competitors for your services. Branding requires effort, time, and a lot of thought. You need to think about every small detail and how it can impact the image of your brand.
You need to create a positive brand image in your client's mind. By focusing on what makes you unique and different form, your competitors can boost what you wish to achieve. You need to stay determined, consistent, and dedicated to your brand in order to create a positive brand image in your client's head.