Demographics and 3 ways to use them in your marketing plan
Using demographics as part of your marketing plan can help your dental practice cut costs by reaching your ideal client.
To prepare for the grand opening of a pediatric dental practice, for example, you’re likely to hang up televisions, paint the walls bright colors, and launch a new interactive website. While these steps are helpful, they are not all you need to do to have a thriving practice.
Marketing plays a key role in building up your client base and educating the community about the benefits of pediatric dentistry – or any dental practice, for that matter.
Find your target demographic
One of the first components of any small business plan is to develop your target demographic. Demographics examines the characteristics of a population, including markers such as age, gender, location, level of education, and occupation. This can help you better understand your customer base.
The target demographic can impact your dental practice’s decor, procedures, and hours of operation.
Look around your pediatric dental practice and note the aquariums, video game consoles and jackpot prizes that occupy prime real estate.
Whether you put pen to paper and defined your ideal customer, it’s clear you had one in mind when you prepared to open your doors. Reaching decision makers is essential, and speaking directly to a defined audience – parents – will help you stand out from your competitors in general dentistry.
Why is demographics important?
Children grow and the regular addition of new clients is necessary to sustain your practice over the long term. Targeting your demographic can help you reduce what you spend generating leads to grow your business. It can also help build customer loyalty and help you learn more about your customers’ needs.
Again using pediatric dental practices as an example, they find themselves in a unique position. An important part of your job is to educate the community on the benefits of consulting a specialist provider. As you know, tooth decay is one of the most common chronic health problems in children.
Regular dental visits can increase school attendance, improve grades and prevent future complications. Dealing with a specialized clientele allows you to sharpen your concentration and improves your ability to provide quality care. Using demographic data in your marketing efforts can help educate children about dental care and allow you to provide parenting support.
My company, Our Town America, uses demographics to reach a unique market. We target new movers by sending them a welcome package filled with proven offers before they become loyal to competitors. Marketing new movers has proven to be a great tool for dental practices. One of the first things every new resident does is find health care providers.
Here are three ways to incorporate demographics into the marketing plan for your pediatric dental practice – or any dental practice.
- Direct mail postcards. Even in the age of video calls, blue light glasses and Twitter, direct mail continues to deliver a tangible message that converts. The Data & Marketing Association reports that direct mail receives a whopping 9% response rate. Each U.S. Postal Service Door Mail allows you to cover a neighborhood with your message. It also lets you target specific zip codes, incomes, and household sizes. Your postcard can include a proven offer to help drive traffic or provide a QR code to entice people to learn more about your practice online.
- Community marketing. Weekends with young children include trips to the farmer’s market, tee-ball games and other outdoor community events, preferably where a playground is involved. Pediatric dentists can go straight to the source and put a logo on it. Reach your target demographic by sponsoring a youth sports team, a local charity 5k run, or setting up a booth at the Farmer’s Market. Community marketing can amplify your message, allow you to engage with customers, and help create brand recognition.
- Content Marketing and SEO. Producing valuable content focused on the interests and concerns of your target market is another way to reach your demographic. Find out what your audience is looking for online and use those keywords to optimize your content and drive traffic to your website. Blogs and infographics will also serve as a tool to help educate your ideal clients on the value of pediatric dentistry.
Targeting your ideal client using demographic information takes some work upfront, but will pay off in the long run by helping you keep your schedule full.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
After serving our country as a U.S. Army medic, Michael Plummer, Jr. returned to the family business (Our Town America – the nation’s first New Mover Marketing franchise launched by his father in 1972) in 2001 to work in the IT department. More than 15 years later, Plummer now leads the company as CEO and CTO – using his vast technology/data background to make Our Town America the most savvy analytics player in the industry.
A technology expert with over 15 years of leadership experience, Michael Plummer, Jr. has helped establish Our Town America as the fastest growing and most successful New Mover Marketing franchise in the nation. With dozens of franchise partners coast to coast, Our Town America helps thousands of local businesses build loyal, long-term relationships with countless new movers each year.
FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Merakist on Unsplash.
