10 Tips for a Good Ad
May 1, 1998 2 minutes read
10 Tips for a Good Ad
Once you've decided to place an ad in the phone book, here are 10 points to follow:
1. Change your practice name to start with the letter A.
If your name is Dr. Aardvark, you'll appear before Zinnia Orthopedics. But if you are Dr. Zinnia, and you change your name to AAA Orthopedics, you're in front.
2. Include information on practice type, specialty, and services.
Patients don't want to call doctors blindly. They want to call only those practices which offer what they need at the time.
3. Put your ad only in the phone books that cover your office's immediate area.
Patients want to find a practice close to their homes.
4. List any consumer conveniences you offer.
Among the most popular: accepting charge cards, validating parking or offering free parking, filing insurance claims, or having weekend and evening hours.
5. Don't pay extra for a white pages ad.
If the patient knows your name, he or she will find you.
6. Check out the competition.
Before you place an ad, be sure you look at what other practices are doing. Ask yourself how a new patient would see your ad in comparison with others.
7. Know what kind of ad you want.
There are three types: regular listings, which can be bold faced; informational listings, which are in-column boxed ads; and display ads, which allow practices the most freedom for customization. The largest and oldest ads run first in the display section.
8. List in all the right places.
A family practice that does obstetric and gynecological care and has an internist on staff can list under family practice, OB/GYN, and internal medicine. But remember that each of these listings cost money.
9. Trade on name recognition.
If you are known in the community, be sure your practice name and logo are a prominent part of the ad.
10. Monitor your results.
If you don't know how many people are attracted by your ad, you don't know what you should change next year. Ask new patients how they heard of you. If it was due to your ad, ask them what in particular attracted them to it.
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