If I had to give just two bits of advice to help your ads be more effective during the next 2 months it’d be:

– Relevance
– Pattern Interrupt

First, relevance. You have not just 2 major holidays to contend with.

Be sure your ads capitalize on some aspect of the holiday surrounding them when they are released, dropped, debuted, etc.

Incorporate the holiday into the theme of the ad. It will make it relevant to the conversations in the minds of your prospective patients and it’ll get more readership…and eyeballs are what we are after.

So if you’re dropping an ad this week it ought be themed T-giving and then in December, Christmas, etc.

Next, your ad must, must, must stick out. It must create or facilitate a pattern interrupt. It can’t look like all the other dental ads. It can’t smack of just another postcard in the mail, just another implant dentistry ad, just another ad of any kind. It has to command attention by way of feel, the unusual ad copy (like an outrageous guarantee) or look.

With the exception of the interwebs (online = TV), most media you’re using, you have sight and feel to work with. So, those have to pop to differentiate your ad – color (or lack of as with the retro ad series), design elements (retro vs. modern as example) and texture are critical.

Getting new patients this time of year ain’t easy. It’s not a laydown for most. It’s a slog and every dollar invested, every ad ran, all must work doubly hard this time of year. There is a ton of competition for the consumer dollar.

Begs the question: Should you be promoting emergency dentistry services during this time to attract patients from outside your normal realm of “ideal patient” to generate cash and keep a few that want to stay beyond the 911 relationship.

In my mind, any income beats no income. Your banker doesn’t care what kind of dentistry you are doing. And, where our economy is going in the next 12 months, no one knows. You should be prepared mentally, and from a marketing perspective, for the worst.