What is the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Awareness Campaign?

Most of you are probably familiar by now with the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Awareness Campaign spearheaded by the Dental Trade Alliance in early July. If you’re not yet familiar, the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Awareness Campaign is an industry-wide initiative to warn consumers about the risks of postponing regular checkups and neglecting recommended treatments in this down economy. Furthermore, the campaign aims to encourage dental professionals to proactively educate their patients about the potential overall health problems that can develop as a result of avoiding the dentist.

There’s no doubt that this is a tall, but necessary task as most dentists report a drop in patient visits over the past 6-12 months. I’m not going to go into a whole lot of detail about theOral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Awareness Campaign because that information is already available on a number of sites. However, if you would like more information about the campaign, the sites/video listed below are great resources.

Website Resources
1. Official Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Website for Dental Professionals
2. Official Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Website for Dental Consumers
3. Dental Trade Alliance Website

Video Resource
Dental Economics managing editor Kevin Henry talks to Dental Trade Alliance CEO Gary Price about a new campaign aimed at dental teams, patients, and the dental trade.

Thank You Lanmark Group

The Lanmark Group, the dental industry’s largest advertising, marketing, and public relations agency, is graciously contributing their efforts to the campaign by developing the overall strategy, creative concepts, and tactical execution on a pro bono basis (dentaltradealliance.org).

One major benefit of the integrated marketing strategy employed by the Lanmark Group to promote this campaign is the number of marketing materials that they’ve made available for you to use in your own promotion of the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ initiative. Below, I’ve listed a number of materials that you can and should download for FREE and integrate into your marketing plan.

Free Marketing Materials to Download Now

• Press Release
• Letter to the Editor
• Newsletter Article
• Public Service Announcement (15 Second Spot)
• E-mail Template
• Patient Education Brochure
• Patient Education Posters
• Local Newspaper Ads
• Patient Recall Card
• Mailing/Postcard
• Official Campaign Logos A) PDF 2) Zip File

How Can You Effectively Market the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Awareness Campaign?

1. Get your team on board.
You MUST get your team on board if you want to effectively promote this campaign. You not only need to introduce your team to the campaign, but you also need to underscore your commitment to the campaign as a collective unit. Finally, it’s imperative that you ensure your team understands how this commitment will effect their day-to-day responsibilities.

2. Use these materials in your correspondence with patients.
Chances are, you’re already sending out recall cards, regular mailings and perhaps even e-mails to your patients. Try substituting your regular marketing materials with these. The key is to repeatedly and consistently get this message in front of your patients. If you want to customize these materials for your business, the Dental Trade Alliance has teamed up with PrintingForLess.com to do this for you quickly and at a fair price.

3. Discuss this initiative with your patients.
When patients come in for their appointments ask them if they saw your mailing, e-mail, recall card, etc. Regardless of their response, educate them about the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ campaign and reinforce your commitment to the initiative. No need to ram this down their throats. A short, informal discussion is all you can reasonably expect to have with most patients anyway.

4. Place patient education posters around your practice
Pick appropriate, highly trafficked spots to place patient education posters around your practice.

5. Embed the official Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Youtube video on your site or blog.
You can find the embed code on this video’s Youtube page. Below is what the official video looks like.

6. Write about the campaign online
Publish a post on your blog if you have one, create a Facebook update, create a tweet on Twitter, discuss the initiative in online forums, etc. Again, don’t go overboard here. Doing so will effectively diminish the odds that you will captivate you audience.

7. Place the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ logo on your site to show your support.
Download now:1)PDF 2) Zip File

8. Officially pledge your support to the campaign
To pledge your support, contact Dental Trade Alliance CEO Gary Price at 703-379-7755.

9. Engage with like-minded dental professionals on the campaign’s official Social Media sites

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Youtube

Final Thoughts

These 9 marketing tips cover the essentials for effectively marketing the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Awareness Campaign for your practice. However, as you’ve probably noticed, options are also available for those of you with larger budgets that seek greater involvement with the campaign. These options include: public service announcements, local newspaper ads, press releases, letters to the editor, etc. The marketing possibilities are really only bound by your creativity. See what you can come up with.

Your Tips

How is your practice marketing the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Awareness Campaign? Are you doing something unique that could benefit others? Please share in a comment below.

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