Dental Branding in a Nutshell - Why is it Important?
Posted on 1/4/2017 by Wendy Hensley, Marketing Manager
Branding - which includes logos, images, fonts, colors, and your practice story - are all so important for your image. If you want to build your practice, you want to build your brand. Your brand is how your patients will recognize you. It's what helps set you apart from your competition. If your brand is an afterthought for your practice, your practice will be an afterthought to new patients as well.
Marketing company: "Do you have a logo?"
Dentist: "I do. It was created in 1989 by an old friend but he didn't give us any files other than this .gif."
We can't tell you how many times we've heard that same story played out in different dental offices. We start a marketing project and the necessary branding materials aren’t available in the formats and resolutions necessary to create quality projects. This ends up costing the dental office not only money because we must create new materials but time as well as they must either spend time rounding up the necessities and/or working with us to create new.
Here are a couple things to keep in mind while developing your brand.
Logo Files
If you have someone create a logo for you, be sure to get the high-resolution vector files. These will be illustrator (.ai), vector (.eps), or high-resolution PDF file that other designers can use for other purposes. Other file formats save the images in a compressed format and when scaled up for various uses will look grainy and/or pixelated.
High resolution vector or illustrator files however can be scaled up and/or down to fit any application without image degradation. What this means for your marketing materials is that you will have clear, beautiful images and logos to best showcase your brand and office.
Logo Usage
Your logo will be more impactful if you use the same logo across all your materials. For examples of what others do, think about logos you recognize such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Microsoft, Google. These companies use the same logos everywhere. They focus on brand awareness for their base brand. By taking a cue from them, you will spend far LESS money to get new patients.
Having multiple logos and brands dilutes your brand and you will need to create a marketing strategy for each logo/brand that will end up costing money.
Creating a brand story
Everyone has a story and so does your practice. This story will help guide your marketing efforts. Here are a few questions you can answer to help develop your brand story.
Who is your target patient?
Why do they come to your practice as opposed to your competition?
What are a few adjectives that describe your practice? Are you family oriented, technically advanced, cosmetic based?
What colors and fonts do you like when you think about office logos? Try to put together a list of logos and fonts you like so the designer can review those with you.
Focusing on the basics in advance of kicking off your marketing project will save you time and money in the long run.
If you're looking for someone to help you get started, our Senior Marketing Consultants have the expertise to guide you through the process and help you create a seamless marketing strategy. Contact us to get started!
Dental Marketing Blog | Marketing for Dentists | WEO Media WEO Media is a national dental marketing company providing dentists with a full range of services including custom websites, SEO, PPC, social media, videos, online reputation management, branding, and much more. WEO Media, 125 S. 1st Ave, P.O. Box 249, Hillsboro, OR 97123 : 888-788-4670 : weomedia.com : 10/9/2024 : Page Phrases: Dental marketing, websites for dentists, SEO for dentists, social media for dentists, online reputation for dentists
Branding - which includes logos, images, fonts, colors, and your practice story - are all so important for your image. If you want to build your practice, you want to build your brand. Your brand is how your patients will recognize you. It's what helps set you apart from your competition. If your brand is an afterthought for your practice, your practice will be an afterthought to new patients as well.
