Have you ever heard of AuctionWeb, BackRub or Blue Ribbon Sports? These are all fledgling start-ups that, at some point, rebranded so that today you know them as multinational giants eBay, Google and Nike respectively! It may sound extreme, but renaming your business can breathe new life into it.

Defining your brand is a critical first step in any marketing plan and it takes time and thought. Once you’ve done it, you might like to think that you’ll never have to repeat the exercise, but nothing lasts forever. There comes a time in every business’s life when the branding gets stale or outdated. Change might also be desirable due to a change in ownership or focus.

Several high-profile brands have gone through identity adjustments over the years. A less drastic solution than renaming is to merely modify your business name to freshen it up. A recent example is the Huffington Post that, following the departure of its founder, chose to rebrand as the snappier ‘Huffpost’. In other cases, the business name is fine as it is and all that’s needed is a new or reworked logo, as we’ve seen over the years from the likes of Apple and Coca Cola.

As with all change, there is risk, but also the potential for great rewards. The risk is that you’ll alienate some of your loyal client base. In dental practice this would likely mean your older patients who might be more averse to change. The rewards, however, can be plentiful, especially if you’re looking to attract new patients. The decision, therefore, has to take into account what your prime demographic is, based on your location and services, and what kind of change will either reel them in or send them packing.

In short, when you start to feel like your practice image could use a refresh, it’s time to take stock of where you are as a company, how you are seen in the community and where you want to go. The exercise is an excellent opportunity to check the pulse of your practice and make the changes necessary to give it a jumpstart. The first step is to engage a specialist marketing agency to help guide you through the process. If you choose the right one, they’ll give you an honest assessment of what you should keep, and what you should let go of, and then help you do just that.

Milkshake Dental Marketing is a leading provider of specialist dental marketing in the UK, so give us a call on 01844 292086, visit our website or connect with us on social media (@MilkshakeDental).

The film was ‘Field of Dreams’ and, in it, an American corn farmer hears a voice telling him, “If you build it, he will come.” You may not have seen, or remember, the film, but the quote has morphed into popular culture, albeit in a changed form. “If you build it, they will come’ became a global catch phrase that is still repeated, even when it patently does not apply.

It may have worked a treat to entice the ghosts of deceased baseball stars to a cornfield in the film, but when it comes to growing your business it’s utter rubbish. And dangerous rubbish at that. You know you need a great website as the cornerstone of your marketing, but if you expect to ‘build it and they will come’, you’ll be left sitting staring at the phones, wondering why they’re not ringing.

Sure, in the early days of the internet, this approach would have worked, because there simply weren’t that many websites online. As things progressed, search engine optimisation (SEO) developed to help users find your website, and designers performed a cursory SEO sweep on sites prior to launch. However today, with over 1 billion websites on the web, even this isn’t good enough to get you found.

Today, good web designers incorporate SEO best practices into their designs from the start, giving you the best of function without sacrificing form. This should, at a minimum, include ensuring your site is fully-responsive and your content is optimised. But to help you truly stand out from the crowd, your marketing team should also be performing regular search engine elevation (SEE). This is an ongoing process of strategically refreshing your content to focus on keywords that highlight your chosen campaigns. Search engines love it, which means they’ll lift your site to the top of the search results.

Milkshake Dental Marketing is the only agency in the world to offer SEE, so put us to work for you by giving us a call on 01844 292086, visiting our website or connecting with us on social media (@MilkshakeDental).

We’ll ‘build it to make sure they come’!

So, did you do anything special for World Play Your Ukelele Day? Lame Duck Day? Wave All Your Fingers at Your Neighbours Day? No, we’re not kidding - these are all ‘special days’ that were celebrated last month. You may think it’s all getting a bit much, with several special calls to action competing for every single day of the year. But we’d ask you to think again, because the flip side is that these are all opportunities for your marketing to take a free ride on social media.

Step out of your dental scrubs for a minute and see things from your patients’ perspective. Most of them are logging on and off social media pretty much all day long. And the posts they’re sharing are the ones that catch their imagination, which probably doesn’t include your strict reminder to floss twice daily. So how do you grab their interest? Have fun and be engaging. Choose a few special occasion days and tie them into your practice, making them highly shareable, whilst still working for you.

An example? 2^nd March was National Old Stuff Day, so why not ask your followers what they’re planning to recycle or throw out and, at the same time, remind them to replace their old toothbrush? 2^nd March was also National Book Day, a perfect time to ask your patients who their favourite fictional dentist is (and remind them to ‘like’ and ‘share’ if YOU are their favourite real dentist)! Anything that gets them to engage with you and, ideally, share your post, is marketing gold. Your posts will be seen by not only your followers, but everyone searching for the associated hashtag. And, best of all, it’s free.

Oh and don’t forget the special weeks and months too! Most, if not all, are conveniently indexed on https://www.awarenessdays.co.uk (for more serious causes) and https://www.daysoftheyear.com (for the more whimsical) so why not put a few on your social media calendar and ride those hashtags to success?

And if you don’t have time for such shenanigans, don’t worry - we have two dedicated social media gurus on staff whose job it is to post fun and engaging content for you (yes, they do love their work). So give us a call on 01844 292086, visit our website (link to https://milkshakedental.co.uk) or connect with us on social media (@MilkshakeDental) and we’ll soon have you participating in Quirky Country Music Song Titles Day on 27^th March (just joking)!