A Ultimate Guide to Creating Your Dental Brochure

The Marketing Challenge for Dentists

Dental practice owners and marketers have a unique set of challenges. For many people, the annual dentist appointment is one of the most dreaded appointments of the year, however thousands still visit their local dentist because it's widely agreed that clean and healthy teeth are worth the trip.

So, what does this mean for a dental practice? It means that unlike other businesses you don't have to convince people why visiting the dentist is valuable, your challenge is that most communities have a plethora of local dentists so you have to effectively communicate why your practice is preferable over others.

Regardless if your dental practice is up-and-coming or well established, new clients are a dental marketer's number one goal. Think about some of the challenges your dental practice is facing. Are you not growing fast enough? Are people not aware of your services? How many people do you think are aware of the benefits your practice provides beyond teeth cleanings and cavity removals?

This ultimate guide will show you how to utilize brochures to address a myriad of dental marketing problems!

Dental Brochures 101

Getting a constant flow of new customers is key for your practice.

Your dental brochure has three main goals that it needs to accomplish:

1. Your brochure should effectively communicate your dental practice's brand, including your core values and services.
2. Your brochure should highlight the benefits of choosing your dental practice over others in the area.
3. Your dental office's brochure should be professionally executed and should include compelling images, neat designs and well written content.

Brochures are ideal because they are one of the most customizable marketing tools and they provide the space to share ample information to customers. Below are some benefits of using brochures.

• Brochures are a proven, cost-effective marketing tool that can be used on their own or integrated into other marketing initiatives.
• They provide greater space to share information with consumers such as FAQS, customer reviews and images.
• Brochures can include coupons or discounts that incentivize customers to visit your practice.
• They can be mailed, handed out or placed in public areas for consumers to have access to them.
• Brochures are easily passed around making them great for referrals!

Designing the Ultimate Brochure for your Dental Practice

The presentation and design of your brochure is one of the most important factors in creating a professional design because it's a reflection of the quality of the services that you provide.

e-brochures in PDF format have great acceptance between young patients.

Cover

Great covers utilize compelling images, cool titles and limited text and it is the first thing readers see. Think about some images that people associate with a great dentist? Some common images include sparkling white teeth, a happy patient in the exam room or a team of attractive, powerful looking dental professionals that give the reader confidence in your services.

A common myth is that the title of your brochure needs to be the name of your practice but this is not always true. Titles that are rhetorical questions or innovative phrases will catch your reader's attention better.

What title stands out more, "Oakwood Pediatric Dental Practice" or "Does Your Child Have Healthy Teeth?" A prospective client who might be a mother will be more likely to pick up the second brochure because you've sparked a question that if she keeps reading - you'll answer.

Style & Design

The most important factor to remember for your design is consistency! Your brochure must remain visually consistent so that it maintains your corporate identity. This concept can be followed with your dental practices' business card, posters, brochures, website and letterhead, and also includes fonts, layout, images and content.

A dental marketing manager reviews color schemes for a brochure.

A well-known fact for psychologists and marketers is that frequently changing your brand design and message can negatively impact your business. One early aspect of human evolution was pattern recognition or “neuronal retribution.” This phenomenon leads our brains to think that consistent patterns are recognizable and thus trustable. Your dental practice needs to have a consistent brand identity because it instills credibility and trust with consumers.

Once readers move past the cover they will be greeted by content and potentially large amounts of text. In order to ensure a pleasurable reading experience, your brochure should have ample white space. White space helps capture reader's attention, it makes the text pop and white is the color associated with healthy teeth and cleanliness!

Images

A picture depicting a happy client's teeth may be more appropriate and inviting than a picture of a high-complexity dental surgery.

Images are also essential to designing a professional dental brochure, people want to visually see what you can do for them. Compelling photos can include before and after pictures of someone who has had a whitening treatment, a smiling couple or a photo of untreated teeth to warn patients, be creative! The most important note about images is that your images should correlate to the services that you provide.

Content

If you've done a great job with the cover and included captivating images then your reader's next step will be to read your content. However, beware! Nielson's research found that 79% of people scan web pages and this will mean the same for your brochure. To address the fact that most people will be skimming your text, a professionally designed marketing brochure needs to master the art of scannable content. To find out how to write scannable content use these tips below.

• Be concise
• Do not use excessive passive voice
• Try not to provide too much detail
• Reduce the amount you repeat words or concepts
• Highlight important words or phrases using bold, italicized or hyperlinked text, but do not abuse!
• Utilize headings and subheads to organize content
• Ensure that each paragraph is reasonable in length and focuses on one main idea
• Written using conversational language to better relate to the reader
• Bullet points! Use them like I am now to break down information to readers

Overall, your content must accurately convey the services you can provide to potential clients.

A proud dentist working with a young happy patient. Correctly targeting your clientele is a must.

Let's look at a brief real-life case study that illustrates the importance of accurately marketing your dental services. About a year ago an internet-based brochure design agency began working with a local dentistry in Dallas Texas called ABC Dentistry. Dallas is the fourth most populated metropolitan area in the United States so one of the company's biggest challenges was making their practice stand out from local competitors.

ABC Dentistry specialized in pediatric dentistry but their initial brochure did not include the fact that they specialized in working with children. Their first brochure marketed their services as a general dental practice and as a result ABC Dentistry had a hard time targeting the right customers. Readers were unaware of how ABC Dental could serve their family's needs better than other local dentists.

ABC Dentistry was located a quarter of a mile away from a general dentistry called "Fixed Dental". Before ABC Dentistry worked to rebrand their services with the internet-based design agency they were in heavy competition with "Fixed Dental". The community did not know that ABC Dentistry was a place for children and thus many local families sent their children to "Fixed Dental" instead.

Both places did dental work but thanks to updated target marketing, ABC Dentistry was able to distinguish themselves by effectively communicating to families and mothers that their services were an easy, fun and safe dental experience for young children.

Does your dental practice specialize in a specific service or do something exceptionally well? This can be cosmetic or reconstructive dentistry, teeth whitening or even alleviating pain! If so, make sure this information is evident to readers!

Brochure Options for Dentists

Ok, so now what? You've just read all this great information and now you're wondering how you'll design an awesome dental brochure. To get the job done your dental practice has many options when creating a brochure.

Designing Your Own Brochure

Pros

• Offers full creative control of the brochure's content and design
• Costs little to no money to design

Cons

• Requires a lot of time
• Brochure is often times not full professional quality
• Many websites that offer DIY templates recycle brochure designs threatening the originality of your brochure

Buying a Pre-made Template

Pros

• Offers relative creative control of the brochure's content
• The brochure's design has the potential to be mid-level quality

Cons

• "Fill in the blank" brochure templates make it difficult to integrate your content and brand identity into a pre-designed brochure. This often leads to a lack of cohesiveness and an unprofessional final result.

Hiring a Freelancer or Buying a Template Through a Contest Website

Pros

• Low cost and prices are often negotiable
• Provides tailored brochure designs for your dental practice

Cons

• Freelancers typically use the same public templates that you'd use if you were to design your own brochure threatening authenticity
• It can be difficult to verify the quality and credibility of your freelancer leading to either a lack of professionalism or plagiarized content
• If your freelancer doesn't share their original file it can be difficult or impossible to edit your brochure in the future

Freelance brochure designers usually rely on templates. Freelancers participating in contest-based websites like 99designs.com cannot invest too much time on every bid so they also rely on templates.

Using a Traditional PR Agency

Pros

• Guaranteed premiere level marketing materials and brochure designs at a professional quality
• Provides the ability to meet with your designer in person

Cons

• Independent PR companies usually cost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars for contracted work making it the most expensive option

Utilizing an Internet Based Brochure Design Agency

Pros

• Online agencies offer the same quality as traditional PR companies along with the full range of print and design services
• Reasonable prices for great services
• Online agencies are professionals so they work directly with your dental business's needs to design original brochures and content

Cons

• Very large medical practices may prefer to work with someone that they can meet in person

Time to Design Your Ultimate Dental Brochure

Now it's time to design your ultimate brochure! Check out some of our other recommendations to get more information, get inspired and most importantly, get started!

• Need images? Try Shutterstock or Istockphoto
• Need inspiration? Try Pinterest
• Need an internet design agency? Try Trifold

Good luck!