Summary
The video explores the strategic role of pricing within the broader context of marketing a dental practice, emphasizing the importance of differentiation and creating a cohesive big picture narrative to attract new patients. Since potential patients have limited time and attention to deeply evaluate every dental practice, they rely heavily on the narrative a practice projects as a shortcut to understand what it offers. This narrative must clearly differentiate the practice from competitors by addressing unmet needs and desires in the market.
Pricing is described as one of many touch points—the various experiences and impressions a patient encounters, ranging from the website and staff uniforms to the physical location and treatment quality. All touch points must align consistently with the narrative the practice wants to communicate. Misalignment—such as offering premium services but pricing similarly to discount competitors—breaks trust and damages the narrative’s coherence.
The video stresses the importance of consistency across all touch points. While some touch points, like the choice of plaza or school attended, may be harder to change, they still contribute to the overall perception and must be considered carefully. Pricing, however, is a highly influential and controllable touch point that serves as a reliable shortcut for patients to gauge the practice’s positioning.
A critical insight is that meaningful differentiation must be based on understanding the target audience’s values and needs. Differentiating solely to be different or based on internal preferences is ineffective if it does not resonate with potential patients. Once a practice identifies relevant differentiation, all touch points, including pricing, must be aligned to reinforce this message, thereby enhancing patient attraction and trust.
Key Concepts and Insights
- Big Picture Narrative: The overall story a dental practice tells about itself to attract patients.
- Differentiation: Positioning the practice uniquely by addressing unmet patient needs and desires.
- Touch Points: All experiences a patient has with the practice, e.g., website, uniforms, diplomas, treatment, pricing.
- Consistency and Coherence: All touch points must align with the narrative to build trust and credibility.
- Pricing as a Touch Point: A major, visible factor influencing patient perception—must reflect the practice’s positioning.
- Target Audience Focus: Differentiation must be meaningful to the patients you want to attract.
- Trust Building: Consistent presentation across all touch points fosters trust; inconsistency breaks it.
Touch Points Examples and Impact
| Touch Point | Influence on Patient Perception | Control Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Website | First impression; professionalism and style | Moderate |
| Staff Uniforms | Visual branding and professionalism | Easy |
| Diplomas on Wall | Credibility and expertise | Harder to change retrospectively |
| Physical Location (Plaza) | Accessibility and status | Hard (location chosen strategically) |
| Treatment Quality | Core service demonstration | Critical, ongoing |
| Telephone Greeting | Patient experience and friendliness | Easy |
| Pricing | Perceived value and positioning | Easy to adjust |
Summary of Pricing Role
- Pricing serves as a shortcut for patients to evaluate the practice’s market position.
- Aligning pricing with the desired narrative (e.g., premium vs. budget) is essential.
- Pricing that contradicts other touch points (e.g., premium decor but low prices) leads to confusion and mistrust.
- Pricing decisions should follow from clear understanding of who the practice serves and what those patients value.
Recommendations for Dental Practices
- Develop a clear narrative that highlights how your practice uniquely meets patient needs.
- Identify your target audience and what differentiates your practice meaningfully for them.
- Ensure all touch points—including pricing—are aligned and consistent with this narrative.
- Avoid setting prices solely based on competition; instead, price to reflect your value proposition.
- Consider every touch point as part of the patient’s journey and leverage them to reinforce your positioning.
Conclusion
The video underscores that pricing is not just a number but a strategic message. When aligned with a well-crafted, patient-centered narrative and consistent touch points, pricing becomes a powerful tool to attract and build trust with new patients in a crowded dental market. Differentiation should be meaningful and reflected holistically in every aspect of the practice to ensure coherence and credibility.
00:00:01
So, what is the role of pricing? What how can we use it best to attract and get people to want to engage with your dental practice? And we’re going to look at pricing, but we’re also going to look at the big picture narrative. And I’ll explain what that means. When we try to attract new patients, what we have to do is we have to paint a picture, a narrative of who you are. Because people today are too busy. We don’t have the time and attention to go and investigate and truly get to know every dental
00:00:34
office. It’s impossible. We would have to be a patient at that office to really understand it. So, what they rely on, what patients rely on is your narrative, how you present yourself, the story and the picture that you paint as a shortcut to understand what it is that you truly offer. And that picture is painted best when it comes to differentiation. Because if you show up as the same way that every other dental office shows up, why would someone pick you? There’s a lot of needs that are
00:01:06
currently being met in the market, but there’s also a lot of wants and desires about dentistry that aren’t being met. So our goal or hopefully your goal is to differentiate to position yourself in a way to paint that picture to say that you are a provider of dentistry in that way that isn’t being net be met currently by the current providers of the market. So that’s differentiation and that’s the big picture narrative. So how does pricing play into that big picture narrative? Well, pricing is a
00:01:39
touch point. What’s a touch point? Touch points are all the different events that someone all the different experiences that someone can experience with you as a practice. So it can be as simple as things like your website, the uniform your staff wears, the diplomas on the wall, all the way to the things like the plaza, the actual treatment itself, how you greet people, uh what’s set on the phone, right? All these different experiences of you as a practice. So it’s one thing to differentiate and
00:02:10
present yourself as one way and it’s another thing to actually show up and what we want to do is we want to align all the touch points all the experiences of your practice to align with how you differentiate it the big picture narrative of what you’re trying to represent of what you’re trying to say that your practice stands for. And when we can align that we create consistency and coherence. So we have consistent touch points so people aren’t experiencing one thing and then experiencing a different thing which
00:02:41
breaks trust. Right? If you say you’re one thing and then you show up a different way that’s inconsistent and it breaks trust and it’s also coherent. It all aligns. If you say that we’re going to provide dentistry um in a way that isn’t being met, in a way that is premium and pricing as a touch point. Let’s say you lower your price to be competitive with all the other cheaper offices in your area. Then we break co um cohesion because we said we were one way, but now this touch point is out of cohesion. So
00:03:15
it’s it’s similar to consistency. When this happens, what it breaks the big picture narrative that we’re trying to build. They come in and they’re like, “Oh, are they really premium if their prices are the same? Are they and and consider all your other touch points. Are they really premium if the diploma on the wall is the same school as the other diploma? Are they really premium if the interior decor looks the same as the other offic’s interior decor? And you get the idea. Some touch points are
00:03:45
going to be more difficult for you to influence than other touch points. For example, a touch point is the plaza that you’re in. Sure, it might be very difficult to change that, but it’s also something that’s within your control. You chose that plaza, right? that you chose the school that you went to to some degree. And so you have to consider all the different touch points that you have. And pricing is is a big one. It’s a big way. It’s a very reliable shortcut for people to understand what your
00:04:12
practice is truly about. So the role pricing plays in that big picture narrative is to align with how you choose to differentiate. And how you choose to differentiate is widely misunderstood. We have to first start with who we’re seeking to serve. What do they find meaningful? Because we don’t want to differentiate in a way that’s just meaningful to us or that’s just different to be different. If we differentiate in a way that people don’t care about, then okay, they’ll say
00:04:41
that we’re different, but they won’t choose to come to you. So differentiate first in a way that’s meaningful to people and then align all the touch points including price to support that narrative that you’re trying to paint. And once you do, you’ll get a lot more attraction. Thanks.