Need ideas to advertise a business!!!!!?

Question

I work for a dental practice, and we recently opened up another office in a different location. We are having a slow start, getting patients in. Our office is in an office complex, and it is not seen by the road. We can not have a sign by the road, because we dont own the property. It is a beautiful modern office, and the patient we do get love us. But the question is, we need more ideas on how to advertise that we are back there, to get more patients. We are in a very big city, Jacksonville Fl. So we know it is not lack of people. Any idea will help. (Exclluding the phone book) Thanks

Answer 1

Radio, TV and newspaper are NOT the answer -- they reach too broadly, and thus 90% or 98% of the audience you're paying for will NOT be close enough to use your services.

Cable TV is an option, if your local cable outlet allows zip-code-specific targeting (but I'm not sure it would be cost-effective).

More practical solutions:
- direct mailing; either to all households or, more appropriately, buying lists that target the households you think are most likely to be clients; the total cost is likely to run from 30 cents to $1 per piece mailed, depending on what you send and how you send it.
- coupon mailers; you pay a much lower cost to have your coupon included in a bundle with others; there are several formats, with widely varying effectiveness.
- join your local chamber of commerce, and perhaps the "newcomer's club" or welcome wagon; perhaps other civic groups or "referral groups"
- Why exactly can't you have a sign? Is this a negotiation with the landlord? city regulations? Option: can you get permission to put a "sandwich board" sign out on the street corner for a limited period? Or some other temporary signage? How about marking your SUV or van with your dental practice name, and parking it on the street, or visible from the street?
- there are a zillion other options. good luck

Answer 2

First, is the new location more convenient for any of your current customers? While these aren't new customers per se, they would increase the amount of people who a) know about the new location and b) can recommend it to their geographically-located friends.

Second, how flexible are you on prices/discounts/etc? Promotions can really help get people to try a business, however, some business are against ever giving discounts (like a sandwhich delivery chain I work for). Offer first time customers their first annual dental exam for free, but still require insurance, contact info, etc so when it's time for the next appointment they already have everything set up with you.

Because you say "people who DO come love us", I think a promotion of some sort would be very effective: once you bring people in the door, they'll stay. And that's exactly what a promotion does.

Lastly, some random ideas for promotion. Give referal cards to your current clients after their next visit, with your office's contact information, basically stating that you're giving them as a convenience for when friends of theirs need a dentist. Have someone walk down the busiest street near you in a sandwich sign during rush hour with the promotion/simple advertisement. If your dental office is doing something unique, see if you can get a local paper to write a brief story on it (and how you're benefiting the community). Do a radio ad. Do a television ad on a local station. If all that fails, ask your current clients to spread the word. Tell them that you need help achieiving critical mass, and you need to spread the word. If your customers really "love you", they'll want to help spread the word, because they naturally think if they love it others will too.

Answer 3

better to use radio / tv and news paper advertising. Yellow paged are only published 1 time a year and trying to get a top 10 or 20 listing on google / yahoo search engines is an expensive and drawn out procedure.
good luck

Answer 4

Have you ever thought about advertising online? This is a great tool especially with Google local search. I would build a web site designed to bring in organic traffic.

For more information on how to do this, check out the link to a short video in the source box.

Answer 5

take you list of clients from the existing business

send out announcements, basically saying that your new location might be more convenient to some of your existing clients.

put in a 5 or 10 dollar coupon that works when they give it to a Friend, ( a new client0 who brings in the coupon on their first (new) visit

Answer 6

Change your focus to attracting your target market, and creating a model that allows you to promote your services by follow up email, and return visits to your content website.

Check out this article:
Lead Generation #1 - Why Target Marketing Will Create Profits On-Line?
http://ezinearticles.com/??&id=554767

Hope you find this helpful

Leo