The word "marketing" often conjures up an image of packs of suit-clad yuppies with flip-charts in high rise offices with huge windows.

This is not how it really is.

Marketing is no longer an option for dental practices. To some extent, every practice performs the function of marketing – perhaps without even realizing it.

Here are five useful tips, but remember this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many things that you can do to successfully promote your practice – some expensive, some free. The main point to bear in mind is carefully formulate a plan and budget - and stick to it.

Many dental practices pay for space in their local yellow pages. How effective is this however?

It can be expensive, inflexible in that you cannot modify your ad every few months if you think you could do better, there will possibly be hundreds of similar ads in the section so you may not get noticed, and it may not really reach your target audience.

This is not to say that you should not advertise in the yellow pages. You should weigh up the costs of the ad with the benefits it brings in. Some practices find they attract a lot of patients through advertising in the yellow pages. It depends on what type of patients you are hoping to attract. Also, make sure you design it effectively to stand out. This can either be done with an eye-catching design or color scheme, or by personalizing your message to speak out to your target audience.

(This is only an option if your practice is of a significant size and you do have fairly high profits.)

Research has shown radio to be a more effective advertising medium than TV. People are less likely to switch between stations, as they do with TV, and it can be more personal.

The cost involved means you must get it right first time;

If your objective is to attract new patients, this can be an effective tool. But first a few words of caution:

The key points here are:

You may not think of this as marketing, but it is. How many times have you gone into your local GPs Practice only to be greeted by a grumpy receptionist with a bored manner, more interested in his/her crossword than you? How did it make you feel?

Services are available whereby dentists have one-to-one coaching sessions on how to successfully market their practice and make it grow. Not only can such services be extremely expensive, but such a "coach" could also take credit for the success of your new practice (in a squat situation) when your new practice would have grown anyway.

Advertising is one way of attempting to attract and retain patients. However, the most essential point to bear in mind is to focus on building and sustaining stronger relationships with patients as, increasingly, this is likely to make your practice more financially stable.

You should assess the benefits of advertising by quantifying the flow of fee income arising from advertising Referral Patients and compare these with the advertising costs.

Mac Kotecha (FCA) is a Chartered Accountant who deals exclusively with dentists and has been established for over 25 years. His company offers Accountancy, taxation & payroll services in addition to invaluable advice on practice management, buying/setting up a practice and other dental issues.

Contact him on 020 8346 0391 or go to www.specialistdentalaccountants.co.uk  to learn more.