Traditional advertising still reigns supreme. Tell me your answer to this and see if you disagree.

Well I do not now think I would start off with a mobile site. Last week I would have thought that was a good idea!!

I would contact Mr. Dentist with a Direct mail campaign to offer free teeth whitening offer, to introduce her Business to locals. I have already (hypothetically) found 4200 targeted customers. They can reach them NOW.
Dentist has response. Happy Dentist.

I can then offer to help with website, seo, facebook etc.

Just my thoughts.

Karen.

One word...Diversify.

Depending upon Demographics and Geographic Influences I would apply proportionate amounts of the budget across a few different mediums.

Combination of Direct Mail, Print, and even some local TV to begin with.

I would however also add an SMS Campaign to create an immediate call to action in the above mediums.

SEO would def have its place and it is something that I would also implement from the get go.

Awesome question, and not one easily answered.

I'd like to preface my answer with an observation: in my humble opinion, so many amateurs pick up a WSO and believe the hype that after a 2-hour read, they are a "marketing expert."

In reality, though, learning a few online tricks prepares you to sell a specific service, and doesn't necessarily make you a marketing expert.

My ability to rank a website, develop a website or start a local adwords campaign doesn't not make me a marketer. It makes me a techy that knows how to complete a certain task.

My knowledge of mobile websites and how to put a QR code in a local print ad, again, does not make me a marketing expert... it just makes me a guy that knows how to get those particular tasks done.

Honestly, how many "offliners" really know how to put together a professional and coherent marketing strategy? Not many, I'd wager.

That being said, though, here's my attempt:

1. A professional Website is a must.

2. Print ad in local paper to announce the opening of the clinic is a must.

3. Outdoor signage is a must.

4. Begin SEO of website.

5. Local directory submissions.

6. Google Places + Google Places SEO

7. Immediately put together a strategy to get reviews on Google Places.

8. I would contact the local paper and see if they'd like to do a story on the client and their clinic.

9. I would interview the client and have that interview transcribed and edited into a simple book that could be showcased at local bookstores and perhaps in pharmacies and doctor's offices. I would put that same book on Amazon.com both in print and on Kindle. I would pay some people to read the book and give honest reviews on Amazon as well.

Eventually, your client could then be marketed as a best-selling author and local expert in the field of dentistry.

10. Local online ads on Kijiji, Craig's list or other.

11. Place an Ad in local university / college papers offering discounts to students. Students may also be more likely to post reviews online since they're more savvy when it comes to Google Places, etc.

12. Distribute marketing material to local seniors' residences and offer discounts to seniors.

13. Distribute direct mail pieces (postcards) to go out to all residents in the area of the clinic. Offer a limited time deep discount for new patients. In my area in particular, an offer of some deep discount for children would go over extremely well.

As new clients start to come in, I would absolutely get them all on a text message and email list, so they could receive reminders for appointments.

That's all I can think of for now.

1/ optimise Google Places

2/ Arrange a half or full page article in the local free home delivered newspapers in exchange for paying for an advertorial (do you guys have these in the US?) and see if this can be done more than once

3/ talk to the local shopping centres Management and see if it is possible to set up a small display in the walk through area between the shops whereby you have AV on continual loop showing the effects of teeth whitening and how easy it is to have done.
At the booth have a contest running whereby they win a prize (an ipad or free treatment or whatever)> Entry forms have name, address and MOBILE phone No.
Do the above at different shopping centres in the lead up to the opening or if only one major centre then do over a number of weeks.

4/ use the mobile No's for a SMS campaign just prior to and in the first few weeks of the Dentist opening.

Plus set up web site, facebook and all the other internet based tools.

Bob I guess that's what you were looking for, rather than the normal i based solutions.

Enjoy.

Take good care of those that you love.

Robbie T

It kills me when people try to suggest to a business to stop direct mailing, yellow pages ads, newspapers, etc.

15k/mo

Direct mailing with postcards
Mailing inserts
BNI
Website
Radio
SEO, google places and organic surrounding cities
Social Media
PayPerClick until ranking
Probably a billboard too

Of course you said chicago, but if it was any other market aside from LA or NYC, we could probably do radio cheaper. Here, for it to be worth it money wise, you could justify $4,500 in radio ads... which gets you 1 a day for 10 days per 60 second spot. I'd probably do 20 days of the month with an ad if I were in Chicago... Here in my area, I have connections where I could run 3 ads a day on the top rated stations for 5K/mo.

Since there is a market difference... lets just pretend we're in the St. Louis MO area...

Radio spots 3 per day $5,000
Direct Mailing to 5,000 people...$2,100 basically
BNI... one time membership fee... I forget what it is, 400?
SEO..google places.. organic in other cities.. in house, no cost out of my pocket
Pay Per Click until ranked $700/mo
Social Media, twitter, facebook, etc. - in house, no out of pocket cost
Website - no out of pocket cost
Facebook PPC for fan page - $500/mo
Chamber of commerce membership one time fee - $500ish.. for a publicized tape cutting, call the local papers to be a part of this, develop an angle.
Billboard - $1,500/mo

$300 additional miscellaneous costs.

So that puts us at about $11,000.

I'd probably produce a television ad for about $2,000 during the first month as well. So I'd probably make abut 2 grand the very first month...

Month 2...

We wouldn't have the BNI or chamber costs, we wouldn't have the money on the commercial production... so that saves us about $3,000... about $5,200 left to spend this month or I keep the profit. I would probably keep about $3,000 of it, $2,200 will be for next month.

Month 3.. I call my account rep at the radio station and tell them so and so their competitors are giving me 3 ads a day for $4,000... I ask them to beat it or sweeten my deal. Since I'm already advertising with them, it would be no problem for the competing stations to beat the deal and give me what I want. I save $1,000/mo now.

This month, we're probably ranking for all the terms we need, so we're going to cut the PPC down to $200/mo in the terms we can do better on. This opens up an additional $500/mo.

With the additional $500/mo and the $2,200 I saved from last month, we start doing TV ads. Just on the small local channels, spend about $4,000/mo on this now, but to get a better rate I'm doing 6,000 for the first month.

Remaining months.

Pretty much stay the same... This has me spending $12,300 every month with $2,700 going to me. The dentist is now making an absolute killing and probably too booked up to handle it all himself, seriously. The $2,700 is on auto pilot now. I'd probably drop the pay per click so it frees up another $200... maybe even drop the FB fan page ads to $100/mo... so that opens up another 400... so all in all i will be making $3,300 from this account, and this will be a lifetime account.

Crap... I just saw that you said $3,000/mo in consulting... and 15K in advertising LOL. That kind of changes things a tab bit, but not really. I think for someone just opening their own practice, I would have them booked up with that kind of budget.

I do want to clarify, I would not bother with a QR code.. I would not bother with SMS for this stage of the business... Seriously... if you know what radio ads, direct mailing and all these techniques could do together... the dentist will be one of the most well known in no time.

Like the OP said. Im is great but don't limit yourself to just online. I can still run a DM campaign and pull in some conversion rates that you would not believe. Honestly its all in the copy/pitch. There is a reason why copywriters/sales writers charge so much for those words.

Ask him questions about what he wants for his practice, the type of clients he wants to attract, the main services he wants to focus on, his most profitable services ,learn about the area, the geo demos of the area and target market and what they read, view, respond to (If I didnt already know that I maybe from another area) .

then Id start to develop the strategies starting with the quick wins to get the money rolling in aiming to upsell to the preferred services once onboard .

IN reality you'd need to know more than provided in the OP question to really answer the question truthfully and fully else you're presuming a hell of a lot about what he's wanting

The very first thing I do is build a website mobile website and google places.

Now on all the advertising material I can direct the to my online info.

The next thing is to do a Business launch and invite the media etc and local businesses leaders and have a good press release and special offers to hand out.

Then do all the rest above and try and find niches in the community.

Quentin

Hmm,

I think one of the first things I'd do is put some money into researching the market using some poles and Facebook ads. Perhaps even a coupon for a dental exam/cleaning/whitening for completing the pole and filling out their name and email.

I'd definitely look into the yellow pages right away because they usually only publish twice a year.

Radio spots for special offers targeted to rush hour drive times with seasonal promotions. An example might be, its almost valentines days! Get your teeth whitened for that special day with your crush. I'd do some stuff like that.

Of course we'd be doing SEO and lead funnel optimization/lead capture in the background.

I'd definitely use the money to get them exposure in as many media venues as possible.

I'd focus on his existing client base, whether by a referral system or otherwise.

I'd then immerse myself in what his current client communications look like....whether they are automated (major issue typically)... whether he collects and markets/communicates via email with them, etc.

So I'd spend 80% of my time and his budget on the people who have ALREADY experienced his work -- 20% on the "outside" market.

Bob you're out of your mind. Traditional marketing is dead. I would create a site and seo it and facebook and twiter and qr codes pointing all over the place and sell google places and get ton of fake testimonials. Oh and a mobile site.

But seriously though, I agree. I don't understand why people make that assumption. I guess it's because, for example, most yellow pages ads look identical and give no reason why to do business with them. Added to that, the business owner has no tracking system in place whatsoever. Then he gets a few calls altogether and what does he say? Yellow pages don't work.

Same with ads on the newspaper, magazines, radio. They're all mostly a "business card". This is our name, this is our number, call us". No offer, no benefits, no USP, no urgency, no call to action. Of course, traditional marketing is dead for them. They don't know how to use it, track it or get the best of it. This is where we come to educate them, test it, track it, and make it work.

I would ask him how many days could he run his office for $15k. So if it cost him $2k per day to cover his cost he could run for 7 1/2 days. Then I would pick a number of days to offer free services, lets say 3 days, and hit every media outlet with Press Releases and have a press conference, ect. By the end of the first month everyone will know who he is and that his business is open and cares about the community.

Then hit all the traditional methods above and it won't be the first time they have heard of him!!

I would go in as an ONLINE marketing consultant and refer them to an offline marketing company to fulfil the other side of it.

I don't pretend to be a marketing expert, my knowledge and value comes from marketing a business online.

The benefit of marketing online over offline, while it doesn't make offline methods irrelevant, it is direct response marketing at it's finest as you can test, tweak and optimize in real-time.

Traditional advertising works great if you do it right. Too many small advertisers try to emulate the image advertising of major brands. Unless you have piles of cash to support that strategy, it is better to use direct marketing methods that drive traffic to a specific offer, sale or promotion.

No other medium, of advertising can beat good ole fashioned direct mail marketing, AKA traditional marketing,

I would find a targeted list ( yes they exist, if you know where to look )
Mail out so many postcards monthly, with a high converting response offer, i GUARANTEE you that in the first 3 months, he will have already recouped his ROI, the rest is a bonus to the Dentist, and he may even complain he is overloaded, with work, all is possible, but the power of the right method to use, if YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT, can be compared to SEO, PPC< SMS< or any other medium of advertising, i beg to differ, and i assure you that all the latter is something that can be upselled later on for even more profit in our pockets,

SO TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING WORK? Hell yeah maties

No other medium, of advertising can beat good ole fashioned direct mail marketing, AKA traditional marketing,

I would find a targeted list ( yes they exist, if you know where to look )
Mail out so many postcards monthly, with a high converting response offer, i GUARANTEE you that in the first 3 months, he will have already recouped his ROI, the rest is a bonus to the Dentist, and he may even complain he is overloaded, with work, all is possible, but the power of the right method to use, if YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT, can be compared to SEO, PPC< SMS< or any other medium of advertising, i beg to differ, and i assure you that all the latter is something that can be upselled later on for even more profit in our pockets,

SO TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING WORK? Hell yeah maties

One form of marketing that I did not see mentioned is professional directories. There are several major dentist directories that routinely come up on the first page of Google along with the Google Places when you do a geo search. Several of them advertise extensively, including in print and on radio. I would think that a new dentist would want to make sure he got good placement in those directories as part of his diversified marketing strategy.

I like your point Bob Ross (by the way, nice name. I grew up watching Bob Ross as a child). I think a lot of people are too quick to jump to either offline marketing or online marketing, often forgetting that there even is a middle ground. Needless to say your dentist would defiantly benefit from offline marketing as it would get his name out quickly to the surrounding area. While online marketing could certainly be beneficial, it shouldn’t be his main focus, it’s not like he can offer root canals over the web.

I'd say most people are now turning online when they are looking for a service or product.

My thoughts:
Yellowpages - don't own a book and would rarely think of opening one. I get my results from Google.
Newspaper - don't read the local paper & I don't buy the newspapers - I get them online. By getting them online, I just read what I want to read, therefore don't see many ads.
Direct Mail - unless it jumps @ me, it gets thrown out pretty quickly.
Radio - I have satellite radio - I don't get any commercials on my radio.
TV - that's the only place you'll get me unless, unless I decide to cancel out my cable & hook up with NetFlix or Apple tv - no ads here either. But then again, I have a PVR and I hardly watch any live shows...so I skip all commercials.

Online - I'm there daily!

But that's just me. I know that Baby Boomers are actually set in their own ways and refer to the usual phone book, newspaper & so on. Some people actually prefer the physical touch of it all. Seems more real, more authentic...but they are slowly becoming a minority.

My husband works at the post office and he says that there is SO much paper being thrown out...the local newspaper, direct mail and so on! So sad to see and if only those who PAID for it all saw this... What a waste really!

So I think with all the new technology named above, we really need to focus on a different marketing strategy.

I'm new here. So, take my post with a grain of salt (or sugar, or whatever your fancy), but I don't think that traditional advertising is "dead". Any marketer who tells you otherwise simply doesn't have a clue. As others have suggested, the key is diversification. I would probably put the traditional marketing methods at the bottom of the list, but I wouldn't totally eliminate them from my strategy. Why? Because they are not as effective in terms of tracking ROI.

For example: let's say you spent $5K for a billboard ad (not sure how much these cost, so this is a total hypothetical). Can you tell me how many people saw that ad? Can you tell me how many people wrote your phone number/website down? Of those people, how many people actually contacted you as a result of the ad? At best, you'll be able to ask clients how they found you. The truth of the matter is - they may not remember. So how do you know what's working or not? How can you personalize this advertising for each drive on the road? Internet advertising allows you to do that. For a business that's just starting out, I would invest a good portion of that budget into some form of internet advertising - maybe Groupon (or some other local daily deal site), MyPoints, PPC, or something else. Then, once some revenue is being generated and the cost of those traditional advertising methods won't hurt so bad (based on revenues) then I'd expand to the traditional (or interruptive) advertising.

Traditional marketing is the way to go.

At least don't have the issues of ambiguous spammers !!!

BNI as a suggestion? Are you kidding me? Don't waste your time and money with that networking ripoff. It's for those aggressive fakey people. Just go to one meeting and you'll see. Don't pay them anything.

OK, I think Ewenmack had mostly the right ideas but I would add two things. I would find out the successful dentists either in the clients area or somewhere around them and begin to reverse engineer their success. I may even just go talk to the successful ones and say hey, I heard you are the best in the business and would love to learn about you...can I buy you lunch?

The other step I did not see mentioned is basic testing. I would throw some of the budget each month at new ideas. For instance, I would start to question why someone would change a dentist and begin to go after those customers. I would also look for people spending a lot of money in order to look good soon...such as brides and grooms to be...there are a million ways to better access the money making customers and I would make damn sure i knew their profiles before I threw any money at commercials or ads or even online.

Just a couple additions there.

Btw, I do not think a majority of successful offliners are unknowledgeable about non-online marketing methods. The group here seems to be on the ball.

Traditional advertising is still moving fast though other mode of advertising started .Like display advertising & advertising trailers i.e,glass walled trucks displaying new products to the audience through out the street & also videos too.

I too, like Ewen, would sit down and talk to the dentist.

I'd tell him about the average dentist, that it takes 7 to 10 years of 50-60 hours a week of work to get to an upper income level. Family and other activities are probably going to take a back seat. Present the FACTS to him.

My main question I want answered is, WHO does he want for a client.

MOST of the methods discussed in the thread are all about him wanting to make money. Fair enough. But HOW?

This guy will not have another chance to set his practice up in a manner which suits him.

See, I've worked with many dentists, and most of them spend a decade building their practice with just any old clients who need a dentist.

But there are a couple, who have a practice to be admired.

So, I would advise this new guy to SPECIALIZE his practice, to cater ONLY to professionals. Other dentists, doctors, attornies, college professors, CEOs CFOs, COOs.

I'd help him write a letter to these people.

"I cater to professionals who are time strapped and just don't like wasting time in a dentist's office waiting for their appointment.

I do NOT operate a PUBLIC practice, my dentistry is exclusively for busy professionals like yourself.

I offer exclusive dental care and limited hours, with emergencies for you and your family always available.

blah blah blah....

A pretty easy OLD fashioned direct response campaign, to a TARGETED list of professionals.

A personal letter that explains why his prices are higher, why they pay a "reservation fee" of 1000 right up front, which insures they get quick, easy, painless dental care at their convenience.

The letter would explain the dentist works only by appointment, but can fit in emergencies.

Why he has chosen this route over a general public everyone welcome type of businesses.

We would target COUNTRY CLUBS with the marketing, as well as professional organizations.

It might be what a Dan Kennedy would call TAKE AWAY marketing.

The dentist just won't work with anyone, he is EXCLUSIVE, AND targets his market, which is what OLD fashioned off line marketing can do.

Why? Why bother with a web site? Why screw around with QR codes, mobile marketing, no need for SEO...

He can ELIMINATE the need for those ADDED expenses...while using a letter carefully aimed at the right target, to bring in all the business he has time for. Allowing him to make as much money in 30 hours a week of pleasant and controlled work conditions as a frantic dentist would make in 60 hours and always needing to advertise.

Like a coincierge doctor, his practice could be set up to cater to a select client who has the money and willingness to pay a premium price to get superior service.

IF this dentist builds his practice with OLD school direct response marketing, and does a good job, good old fashioned WOM word of mouth, referrals at the Country Club will give him a thriving practice and the TIME to enjoy his Established Dentist income that takes other's years, even a decade to make.

He can start at the top simply because he used OLD school marketing.

gjabiz