Opening a New Practice – Timeline

Opening a new practice provides a very unique opportunity to launch your brand to a new demographic. In marketing, NEW always sells and the way that your brand is presented to this fresh target audience can establish lifetime patients! It is important to optimize this opportunity and your marketing dollars.

The focus of your campaign messaging should always be about the patient and how this new location serves them. You have certainly put a lot into your new practice, and it is easy to want to brag! Brag to us here at SMC and focus your marketing on how the new location better serves your patients with mentions of; location, parking, advanced technology, same day treatment, staff accreditations and more comfortable chairs!

Start marketing and establishing your practice in the community before you open, this will help to ensure success in your first few months and beyond! 

Before Practice Opening

As soon as possible → Order your practice sign!

Four to Five Months Prior to Opening

Establish and Document Core Values and Mission Statement

Once you have established your core values and mission statement for your practice you will have a solid foundation to execute your hiring, targeting and marketing with that focus. 

Research Your Target Audience

• Know your ideal patient and develop your patient avatar
  • Hire a team that would work well with your ideal patient
  • Develop marketing strategies that target and engage your ideal patient
  • You may have to create your ideal patient avatar based on your location. If your community is mostly 55+, trying to target teens and young adults will be very difficult

Develop a Hiring and Recruitment Strategy

• Hire based on your core values and mission statement
• Create a list of positions, organizational hierarchy chart and job descriptions
  • Practice Recruitment Strategy
  • Post positions and start collecting resumes

Research Your Competition 

• Understand what other practices are offering in your area 
• Know what sets you apart and promote that
• Develop your Unique Selling Proposition 
  • Create call to actions that position your practice well against competing practices 

Build Your Branding

• Develop your practice’s logo
  • Create a vertical and horizontal logo 
    • Can be utilized for different types of media
  • Create a black and white, transparent and color version
  • Create multiple file types
    • .ai
    • .wps
    • .jpg
    • .png
  • Save your logos somewhere safe and easily accessible
• Develop a brand guide
  • Establish HEX colors 
  • Establish fonts
  • Save your brand guide somewhere safe and easily accessible

Website

• Work with a company that has documented experience creating dental websites that reach, engage and convert new patients
• Buy your domain name
  • Consumers know to look for your business name
  • Attempt to get a .com 
• Make sure your website engages your patient avatar and is built to convert new patients. 
• Start building your meet-the-team page ASAP, this will become one of the most visited pages on your website
  • Add team members as they are hired 

Marketing 

• Establish your marketing budget
  • A DeNovo practice will base it’s marketing budget off of how many new patients they will want to bring through the door 
  • An acquisition will want to set their marketing budget between 5% and 10% of revenue depending on how fast they desire to grow 
• Launch your social media pages
  • Document your build-out with photos and videos
    • Ask for feedback on design decisions within the office
  • Engage your target audience 
  • Start following and interacting with other local businesses
  • Tag your vendor’s social media pages
  • Utilize for hiring
  • Promote the launch of your website
  • Make a hashtag unique to your practice
• Establish the identity of your practice in the community
  • Reach out to partnering businesses
  • Join the local Chamber of Commerce
  • Join local networking and business groups 
  • Introduce your practice to local organizations
    • Homeowners associations
    • Little league and sports teams
    • Nearby schools and PTAs
      • Great American Teach-In
  • Sponsor community events
  • Work with local non-profit organizations

90 Days Prior to Opening

Place a Temporary ‘Opening Soon’ Sign in Front of Your Practice

• Make sure it is large and visible for those driving by
• Start working on getting your permanent sign installed

Order Stationary and Branded Print Materials

• Business cards
• Pamphlets
• Letterhead
• Appointment Reminder Cards
• Mailers
• Patient referral / Care to share cards

Start Researching Practice Management Systems

• Know what functions and support you are looking for
  • Scheduling
  • Billing
  • Marketing
  • Texting
  • Emailing
• Request demos and ask questions
• Select a PMS that’s functionality can support the growth of your practice and your long term goals
  • Expanding to additional practices
  • Adding specialists

Create your Online Listings

Consistency is key, make sure all aspects of your business from address to hours are presented the same, any small variables can negatively impact your rankings.

• Google My Business and Google Maps
  • Make sure that your map pin is located in the exact, correct location
• List of Online Directories

Marketing

• Start Developing and Managing Your Lead Sources
  • Website
  • Referrals
  • Reviews
  • Online Listing
  • Chat 
  • Online Scheduling 

• Create an Appealing Call-To-Action (CTA)
  • Offer for new patients; exam, x-ray, cleaning
  • Offer for emergency appointments
    • This may be your opportunity to sway patients over from their current practice if they have no immediate availability and are seeking immediate care
  • Positions your practice against competing practices
  • Convinces patients to switch from their current practice 

60 Days Prior to Opening

Update Your Temporary Signage in Front of the Practice

• If budget allows, change out your temporary signage. Disrupting what passerbys came to expect with something new will attract their attention again.
  • Keep your drive-by audience engaged
  • Promote your website launch and social media pages
  • Add a picture of your doctor

Select Practice Management System

• Start setting up your dashboards and understanding functionality
• If available, block off days and times your schedule will be open to patients
• Work with representative to prepare for training new hires

Order Promotional Products

• Get creative and order promotional items that your patients will use
  • Pens
  • Cups – stainless steel of Tervis
  • Toothbrushes
  • Floss
  • Lip balm
  • Umbrellas
  • Window scrapers
  • Hand sanitizer
  • Can koozies

Marketing

• Research and purchase lead tracking technology
  • It is best to have these systems in place before your team starts interacting with consumers
    • Phones
    • Website chat / Online inquiries
• Social media
  • Continue engaging with your community
  • Like, share and comment on other business’ posts
  • Promote attendance at local events and networking functions
  • Post a picture or video of your new sign being installed
• Community events
  • Set up a tent at local carnivals, festivals and markets
    • Create a cool game to engage attendees and make your brand memorable 
      • Give away promotional items for winning

30 Days Prior to Opening 

Establish First Quarter KPI Goals

• Break down by month, week and day 
  • New patient numbers
  • Production and collection 

Hire and Train Front Desk Team

• Provide a structured onboarding process
  • Practice New Team Member Onboarding
• Train team on operating systems and internal SOPs
• Educate team on promotional offers
• Start answering phones and online chats / inquiries 
  • Coach team on converting inquires into booked appointments
  • Start filling your schedule
• Establish lead conversion goals
  • Phones
  • Website chat / Online inquiries

Marketing

• Establish KPI goals for marketing spend
• Launch lead tracking technology
  • This will help monitor where your best leads are coming from and how well your team is converting them into patients
    • Phones 
    • Website chat / Online inquiries 
• Launch marketing campaigns featuring appealing CTAs
  • Google Ads
  • Facebook Ads
• Social Media
  • Continue posting progress on the build-out of the practice
  • Focus on patient comfort accommodations
  • Feature new hires as #meettheteam
  • Have the team create videos to post
  • Engage with local businesses
  • Promote any networking affiliations with local businesses, chambers and non-profit organizations
  • Start promoting your grand opening
    • Provide a countdown clock
    • Create an event (even if it will be virtual)
    • Go LIVE on the day of opening
    • Social media posting should increase as you get closer to opening
  • Create an engaging contest that partners with a local business