I was given a new assignment today at work: I had to find a way to increase awareness of the dentistry on a small scale. I needed some way to get the word out about the dentistry without using too much money. At first, I wasn’t quite sure what to do. How was I going to find a way to promote the office without organizing a huge event?

            I came across a website called Ideas By Net and was able to find ideas for many different promotional items that the office could offer for what ever reasons we decided on later. While the website offered plenty of different options for products, including umbrellas, mugs and things for the front office, which would have come in handy, I was less than delighted to find that the website is based in the UK. They were nice enough to offer websites that offer products and ship in the United States so that was a plus. I ended up finding little trinkets like water bottles and pens that I could put the logo on. The website offered some other options for items, but I settled for pens because who can’t use a pen and water bottles because they were cheap enough to fit in the budget and nice looking enough to offer as gifts. Plus, they were big enough so the logo would be noticeable from a decent distance away.

            I then had to find a way to incorporate the promotional items into the dental program. The pens could be given away with much less discretion than the water bottles. We had to offer some sort of incentives that could bee used to convince people to do something. I decided that maybe giving patients more than just some promotional products might be helpful, so I created coupons with the logo of the dentistry that were meant to be for patients who had given referrals. I also created another coupon that could be placed in local newspapers for first time patients. I wasn’t sure of how my boss would take to the idea but she seemed pretty receptive. I didn’t order the stuff from the website yet because my boss likes to authorize any and all transactions before they go through, and plus I had to fill out a purchase order for the items for bookkeeping reasons. She also wanted to give some other items a try to see if they may be good for the office. Hopefully, though, we’ll be able to start offering the prizes and coupons some time within the next few weeks.