“What tools work best for promoting a small service business?”, — write: www.epravda.com.ua
In my 10 years in the business, as a marketing freak, I’ve tried just about every promotional tool that can work in pediatric dentistry, from partnering with a football school near one of the dental offices to Pick of the Year awards and promotional articles in national publications.
Affiliate programs with related businessesIn the first years after the opening of dentistry, we had high hopes for cooperation with private kindergartens, play centers for children and sports schools. Banners were displayed in their premises, leaflets were attached to payment receipts, animators wore branded dentistry suits.
But it never “took off” and every time there was a feeling that we were doing it wrong. The audience is ours, the advertising materials are of excellent quality, but there were no more patients. Conclusion – no one will sell your goods / services on someone else’s territory.
For partners, such cooperation is not a tangible source of income, so you should not expect much from them. One of the most striking examples: our dental pavilion at Sky Family Park, which was open every weekend for three summer months. Our employees conducted a free examination of the oral cavity for everyone. There was almost no result: 14 new patients in three months.
Advertising boards above the road and on the facades of shopping centersWe rented up to ten advertising boards above the road, video boards on the facades of shopping centers. Advertised next to our branches for 9 months. Outdoor advertising did not live up to expectations, the numbers of new customers were at the level of error and we gave up any outdoor advertising.
Bright decoration of the facade of dentistry departments In our business, you can invest in a passageway with visible facade design. Of course, a lot depends on the rent markup / the cost of the premises “per window”, but at the first branch of our dentistry on Obolonsky Embankment, we generated 30% of primary patients through the sign. Therefore, at the beginning, the presence of a bright facade in the passage can be decisive.
Working with bloggers and influencers In 2019-2020, we actively increased cooperation with Instagram bloggers, and in some cases it worked. For example, one post of an active mom blogger could bring up to 30 applications.
Unfortunately, this is no longer the case with dental services. Expensive and almost without result. Sometimes we do promotional campaigns with clients, but only to improve awareness and strengthen the brand.
Advertising in Telegram channels and Viber mailingsThree or four years ago, such advertising channels worked well. We attracted new patients, shared promotions with existing patients. Currently, these channels are dead for us and do not bring any benefit.
Promo and business page in Google In this channel, I include everything: the correct business profile of the company, setting up the map, working with online reviews, paid campaigns, seo-optimization. For our dentistry, this is one of the biggest channels of attracting patients.
Today, the advertising cabinet and work with Google is as simplified as possible, which allows anyone to figure it out and make all the settings within one working day. In my opinion, properly configured work with Google is no longer a competitive advantage, but a tool without which any service business is doomed to die.
Social media communication and advertising on Instagram & Facebook Social networks are the second largest channel for attracting new patients to our network after Google. We invest not only in direct advertising, but also in creating content for pages.
Social pages are a great opportunity to show the business from the inside, its values and the difference from other companies in your field. The cost of applications through Instagram / Facebook shows a good profitability and we continue to experiment a lot with the possibilities of social networks.
Recommendations, referrals, “word of mouth”Referrals are now our biggest source of new patients. In 2014, when we opened, 60% of patients came via the Internet, 30% through the facade, and 10% through the doctor. Currently, referral patients are 50% of all primary patients. Which is pretty good considering our efforts on the internet and front premises.
In general, in the service business, as in the dental business, new clients by recommendation are the norm. At the same time, I am sure that only high-quality service is not enough for recommendations, it is necessary to exceed the expectations of customers. In our dentistry, we constantly try to surprise.
Measuring the effectiveness of one or another activity is, of course, difficult and unnecessary, they work in a complex. I am sure that without them it would be difficult to have a result in 50% of patients as recommended.
I may have missed some tools, but most likely we tried those too and they didn’t work.