dental practice management

Ahhh…The beginning of a new year. A time for resolutions and plans, both personally and professionally. It’s relatively easy to come up with a list of new goals to accomplish over the next 12 months, but do you notice a stalemate when it comes to taking the first, second and third steps needed in order to take action to achieve your goals?

You’re not alone. A recent online article from Healthcare Success Strategies talks about the 7 Deadly Sins of Healthcare Marketing and how to identify the roadblocks to productivity. It is a terrific read for dental practice owners, and extremely timely as we enter 2014.

In terms of dental marketing, a common goal I often hear is to “increase social media activity”. This sounds great in theory, but goals should be more specific. How do you plan to increase your activity? What social media sites will you use? How do you define “increase”? A better-stated goal might be: Post 3 times per week to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. When stated like this, your action plan is more clearly defined — and more measurable.

Setting annual marketing goals is a necessary habit to keep your dental practice moving forward, but setting short-term, specific objectives to help you reach them is often the first step towards achieving success in marketing.