How Long Does It Take To Brand A Practice?
Developing your brand is a long-term marketing strategy, and there isn’t an exact science on how long it will take. If you start with a firm, clear vision and keep your efforts consistent, you’ll have a solid, recognizable brand for your practice. Branding your practice is about setting yourself apart and keeping your brand top of mind. Over time, your target audience will think of your brand when they are in need of the services you offer. Branding your practice before you market is the key to ensuring your marketing is successful.
Here are 4 Steps to Brand Your Practice!
Step 1: Create A Relatable Brand
You may think your first step is to create your logo and other brand visuals, but that is not the case. While your logo is a part of branding, a logo is just a logo without the proper messaging.
Your first step is to know who you are creating the brand for and who you are marketing to. What kind of practice are you? Are you a general family dentist? Do you specialize in helping small children feel at ease at the dentist or cater to adults who have fear and anxiety around going to the dentist?
Creating an “ideal patient” helps. While we strongly recommend one ideal patient, ensure you limit it to a maximum of two. You want to ensure you create a detailed persona that you keep in mind when creating ads, designing mailers, and even social media posts. When you know who you are marketing to, you are able to create a relatable brand for your targeted audience.
Once you understand who you will be marketing to, you’ll want to create a vision for your brand. Your vision includes your goals for your practice, what you’re offering your patients, and how you want to convey yourselves to them.
Step 2: Brand Identity
Next is your brand identity, which includes your logo, other visual aspects of your brand, and how you want to get your message out into the world. It is crucial to make sure the target audience will relate to the name, colors, and design of your brand.
For those who have their brand identity in place, this is a good exercise to evaluate how your image connects to your community.
Step 3: Brand Roll Out
This process is about creating a strategy for rolling out your new or improved brand. There is a lot to consider as it relates to employees, current patients, and the community. During this process, you will need support in building your communication strategy, timing, sources, and budget recommendations.
Consistency is essential, so you’ll need someone to ensure your brand messaging always reflects your vision and speaks to your ideal patients. This process requires professionals with experience. If you don’t do this step right, you could overspend the market or miss out on numerous potential patients.
Step 4: Brand Management
Once your brand has officially rolled out, you will want to ensure your brand is influencing your community the way it was intended. Having someone manage how your brand is represented means it’s yours, not some boxed-up marketing solution meant to persuade people with specials and discounts. A great brand consistently influences the market and brings in high-value patients that take your recommendations, write great reviews, and refer you to patients just like them.
Become Five Mile Famous
Once you have created your perfect brand, don’t overindulge in a variety of tactics. Discover our “Five Mile Famous Method” that surpasses all other marketing platforms.
Venture Practices provides consulting and coaching support, vendor support, media buying services, graphic arts, campaign analysis, and web design support, to help you develop and manage a unique brand of your own!
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