Tyson Steele Associates - Advanced Dental Marketing Concepts

You guys do great work! Thanks for the nice work marketing my practice!
– Jen Kim, DDS
Thank You. Thank you. We saw 107 new patients in July!! Only our fourth month of mailings.
– Rhonda Hogan, DMD
Latest News
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ADAidm Shuts Down
On July 10, 2009 the American Dental Association announced that the association's for-profit joint venture with marketing firm ADAidm had "experienced significant production and operational difficulties." As a result, the ADA has decided to shutter ADAidm, "providing customers with a full refund for paid undelivered goods and services."
ADAidm was founded in 2007 as a revenue enhancement vehicle that planned to profit by providing marketing services to ADA members. Services were supposed to include dental website development, direct mail campaigns, dental logo design, display advertising, and even message on hold production.
However, various observers in the dental industry note that ADAidm's marketing strategies suffered from exceedingly poor returns-on-investment and failures to deliver product in a timely manner. Ultimately, dentists and their advisors grew increasingly critical of ADAidm leading to the ADA leadership decision to shut down the joint venture.
ADA trustee Dr. Robert Faiella has been appointed chair of the ADA's for-profit division (ADABEI) to resolve outstanding issues. Dr. Failella can be reached at: faiellar@ada.org.
Is the recession over for dentistry?
We've had some economic growth in the last half of 2009. And, technically, that means the recession is over. However, the real question is whether we can maintain economic growth into 2010. And that's a tougher question.
Recent growth has been driven primarily by government stimulus (cash for clunkers, home buyer credits, etc.) and the rebuilding of depleted inventory. However, these are not permanent sources of growth. With real under-employment at 17.5% we've got a significant challenge to consumer confidence and spending.
Given that 80% of dental spending is largely elective, that's going to be a drag on cosmetic and preventive dentistry in 2010. So don't expect to be riding the wave of a strong economy any time soon.
The best strategy now is to continue to refine your patient relations and marketing in order to pick up the 80% of people who are still fully employed -- building your referral base to take advantage of the eventual "real" end to this Great Recession.