What is to come for the dental profession in 2023?

The year is almost over, and 2023 is looming large. Of course, dentists, like any other business, should reflect on 2022 and learn from what could have been done better at the clinical, administrative, and marketing levels.

It is forecasted that the profession will grow by up to 12.1%?during the next seven years. At the same time, dental technology and treatments will differ from what patients are used to.

What are the drivers of the coming changes?

It's new technology and significant changes in patient/consumer behavior.

For apparent reasons, Dentists are pretty good at adopting new technology. However, they are not quite as good at spotting the behavioral shift and the changes within their target market and their existing patient pool.

There is an important correlation between the two.

Changes in dental technology directly force changes in patient and consumer behavior, and both change together at a constant rate. And this is no coincidence. Dentists need to know that they cannot embrace new technology and, at the same time, disregard the changes in the behavior of their entire target market. Doing so is committing commercial suicide.

There is a lot at stake here.?New patient acquisition, the number of new patient calls, Google Reviews, collection rates, case acceptance rates, decrease in canceled appointments, and no-shows are at risk if dentists turn a blind eye to what is happening right in front of them. Every Dental Practice needs to look at its marketing again and make changes. If they dont, they can be sure one of their competitors will.

Before I go,?I want to share with you a true example of what can happen if priority is given to upgrading dental technology at the expense of neglecting marketing efforts.

I spoke to a dentist recently who asked me if I could help with their marketing.?The dentist told me about the situation the practice is in, that many changes are needed to revive the practice, and that they needed more new patients. I created the right marketing plan for their budget and addressed their priorities.

A week or so went by. I called the practice and asked if they had looked at my proposal. The dentist was very apologetic and told me that they had decided to invest in a teeth whitening system instead and that, unfortunately, at this moment, there was no money left for marketing.

They now had a great way to whiten teeth?but were just as far away from solving their problem of getting more patients as they were a few weeks ago.

This real-life example reminds me of the story of a farmer who gave his last cow in part exchange for an automatic milking machine.

Thank you for your time.

Wishing you success

Max Vullhorst-Lorch

CEO/Founder "The Dental Marketing Institute"

Client Testimonial

"We have worked with different marketing agencies over the years. We have not met anyone who could rival the level of marketing and SEO expertise Max and his team have brought to my dental practices for the last ten years. They have increased our results year after year." - Shankar Iyer DDS,MDS,FDSRCPS (Glasgow)