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Brand image is defined by the profile your business maintains in your competitive environment, for dental offices, this means the proximity of the office, where patients are drawn from. A good metaphor for an effective local brand action is a stone thrown into a still pond- the image of your brand ripples out in your customer area, fading out at the point when your marketing dollar loses impact. Web based tools such as SEO and social media may push your brand impact out further, or increase the longevity of your investment, but in the local market there is no substitute for continual investment in local marketing. So, why brand your practice? Think about your own shopping habits. Chances are you choose the name brand product over the generic product, assuming that the quality of the name brand product is better. Same rules apply to dental practices. You will pick the "brand" you know and trust of over the brand you know nothing about. Shaping your reputation through purposeful branding is your most valuable asset.

Practicing dentistry means endless possibilities of helping others and getting involved in the community. Here is how dental practices in Frisco, a top growing region in the country and a highly competitive place for dental practices, are proceeding to increase their visibility within the community.

Local events such as festivals, sport events, fairs, and charities offer great opportunities to publicize dental services and increase a practice's visibility within the community and it is not necessarily time-consuming nor requires a big budget: involvement can range from simple participation to sponsorship: by simply asking patients and friends to meet them at a local event (Music In The Square) via Facebook, Sweet Tooth Dental Loft showcase their involvement in the neighborhood's life.

Depending on their nature, other events may require more planning ahead or/ and having a marketing budget. Some events such as fairs allow fliers distribution and booths rentals. Others, such as races, offer the opportunity for the dental team to get creative with costumes and decorated t-shirts. [See Dental Care of Frisco at the Red Balloon Race]

Hosting events and contests is another way to increase visibility and drive traffic to existing social media accounts. Events that can be organized by a practice include:

• patient appreciation day:

[See Ozier Orthodontics2015 Patient Appreciation Party]

• donations (Halloween candy buy back, Red Nose Day)

[See Dental care of frisco's school supply donation for Frisco Family Services and Sweet Tooth Dental Loft toy's collection for the troops.]

• national day/ week/ month celebrations (shark week, national dental health month)

• contests (patients referrals, mother's day drawing, best vacation picture, etc.)

[See Corbridge Orthodontics Traveling T-shirt Contest]

• grand openings or re-openings [See Dental Care of Frisco's grand opening]

Last but not least, publicizing all event participation and activities on a variety of social media (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google +, Instagram, Youtube) is primordial to reach a maximum exposure and audience. A "Like contest" is a great way to boost a Facebook page likes, such as the one organized by Sweet Tooth Dental Loft.

Dentamedia ® is Orabrite's content marketing source, and it reviews the marketing practices of dental offices in the U.S., tracking the leaders in both in-bound and out-bound marketing techniques. The last few years have seen a revolution in the use of new marketing tools by locally owned health care businesses, and our research shows that dental offices lead the way. While the majority of U.S. dental practices remain mired in a static, directory driven approach to local marketing and some offices take halting steps towards the future setting up a web site, dabbling in social media; in our survey we find some offices fully committed to both in-bound and out –bound marketing. We have found dental offices with not one, but two individuals solely dedicated to marketing and community outreach, and the good news is that our research has shown that when an office devotes dedicated resources to these areas, they get results. Dentamedia was created to document these results, so that dental offices can easily discover what works; so that they can find case studies on line, so they can see what is going on in their immediate area, and get a leg up on their competition.

At Dentamedia, we have developed a system to score the marketing effectiveness of dental offices, which we call Social Factors. The social factors include a mix of in-bound and out-bound marketing techniques used by the leading offices. Frisco was rated high on many 'fastest growing' cities in the U.S.; it's a city of over one hundred thousand people, and our research has found 81 dental offices, 67 of which have web sites and logos, which is a high percentage, when you consider the national average is just over 50%. Among this group of highly rated offices, there are those that stand out, and thus rank highly on our scale:

• Dental Care of Frisco (32)
• Price Family Orthodontics (31)
• Ozier Orthodontics (25)
• Benham Orthodontics (23)
• Corbridge Orthodontics (22)
• Sweet Tooth Dental Loft (21)
• Dula Orthodontics (20)
• Frisco Dental Care (16)

Eight out of the 81 offices in Frisco show an elevated use of social factors marketing; and another 22 offices are using some of the social factors marketing techniques, so that we can conclude that 30 out of the 81 offices in Frisco are engaged in some form of in-bound and out-bound marketing.

What is it about Frisco, TX that has brought about such a concentration of marketing oriented dental offices? At Dentamedia, we are tracking dental offices across the U.S., and so we have begun to recognize some of these successful techniques used by offices in other areas. Our research has uncovered some other aggressively forward looking areas, such as South Jordan, UT and Sarasota FL., for example: areas where there is new population growth with the growth focused on affluent families. This conclusion is supported by the fact that orthodontic offices lead the way in social factors marketing- orthodontic practice owners have to appeal to parents in their 30s and 40s, and this competitive dollar has a lot of choice, as most orthodontic practices do not accept insurance. Our Frisco survey, which will continue with periodic reviews, will tell us whether other dental specialties also feel compelled to enter the marketing competition. If we look at general dentistry in Frisco, it lags the area trend- we must also consider that general dentists must compete against chain dentistry- large national chains are growing quickly at the moment- Aspen Dental, Kool Smiles, Pacific Dental, and Heartland Dental for example, as well as many regional chains, which have corporate based marketing. In reality, the independent general dentist should be more focused on social factors marketing; we can guess that they lack the financing or the background to implement such a strategy. Such general dentistry offices would be the prime targets for a full service marketing solution implemented from the outside- as it is doubtful they would ever invest in the personnel necessary to implement their own social factors marketing.

Dentamedia research has identified 3 important layers of personnel necessary to implement a successful social factors marketing program: 1) office manager; 2) marketing manager; and 3) community outreach manager. In offices where 2) & 3) are not present the burden of constructing and maintaining the marketing program falls on the owner or office manager, which is not a sustainable solution. Throughout our research, we see many false starts down the path of social factors marketing, and our conclusion is that such half steps are due to inconsistent personnel investment and lack of interest by the owner, who is still not convinced of the effectiveness of such an investment. After all, he/she is a medical professional first, not a marketing person. It is not until the office owner is completely sold on the idea of social factors marketing, and is willing to dedicate the personnel and financial resources to the program, that the dental office can truly start down the road to marketing independence.

Frisco Dental Care- front office and marketing/social media 'guru.'

Each successful marketing oriented office in Frisco has dedicated marketing/ management personnel, and once they turn the corner, and realize the benefits of this approach, the results of the marketing campaign begin to pay for themselves, and ownership investment continues. On top of their dedication to social media, the marketing manager has time organize office events, promotions and charities, which turn out to be the key factors in successful office marketing, as these traditional outbound techniques have proven to be the most important in developing a local custom base.

The result of the investment in marketing personnel in the dental office is increased dedication to the basics of social factors marketing: 1) brand development, 2) social media; 3) participation in local events and charities; 4) more developed locally oriented out bound marketing.