Do's and don'ts for practice marketing: What's your plan for 2018?

You can't recycle the same marketing strategies year after year because they become less and less effective. Sure, you might want to repeat some of your most potent promotions, but you should also add new campaigns, methods, and activities. Putting together your marketing plan now will help your practice hit the ground running in 2018.

Create a marketing calendar. Map out your activities for at least the first six months of next year. If you can schedule your strategies for the entire year, even better. If you're planning any major events, such as a practice open house, you need to get them on the calendar as soon as possible.

Don't overlook social media. Most practices have a Facebook page, but many haven't explored advertising with the social media giant yet. If you haven't tried Facebook ads yet, do so in 2018. These promotions are easy to create, inexpensive, and often highly effective. You can target your ads based on location, age, interests, and other characteristics. And unlike traditional marketing, you can track the effectiveness of your campaigns by seeing how many potential patients clicked on your ads.

Roger P. Levin, DDS, is the founder and CEO of Levin Group, the leading dental practice consulting firm in North America.

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