Ultimate Guide to a Dental Practice Rebranding [Free Checklist]

(This post was originally published March 24, 2016, and was extensively updated on November 29, 2021)

When it comes to marketing strategies, branding gets a lot of discussion. Nearly every dental office brand can benefit from a little improvement, but rebranding your practice is a big decision. It involves taking a step back and reconsidering everything about how your practice is presented to potential patients.

At Titan Web Agency, we help dental practices fine-tune their branding all the time. Without proper branding, the best marketing efforts may be in vain. For that reason, we have created this guide to help you decide if rebranding your practice is right for you and what to do if it is. If you are branding your dental office and trying to build your reputation, there's still much you can learn from this blog post.

What is Dental Practice Rebranding?

Let's start with the basics. What is dental practice rebranding, and what goes into it? Rebranding involves rethinking every aspect of the public presentation of your practice.

Typically, a full rebrand includes a new logo, color scheme, business signage, letterhead, and business cards, and it can also include a new business name. It will also include new digital branding. You will need a new website, profile pictures, cover photos, bios for your social media profiles, a new email newsletter design, and more.

We have worked with several dentists doing full rebrands when they have purchased the office from another dentist and want to change the dental practice name to include their name or an entirely new name. It is a task that must be undertaken with precision and an understanding of how your new brand will affect your ability to attract prospective patients.

8 Reasons Why You May Need to Rebrand Your Dental Practice

There are many reasons why you might want to rebrand your dental practice. Here are 8 for you to consider.

1. Your Practice Has Expanded

Perhaps when you bought your practice, you had just a couple of chairs and did primarily preventative work. You now have a half dozen chairs, and you do a lot of restorative and cosmetic dentistry in addition to your starting preventative work.

You don’t want your old branding to limit the scope of what you have to offer.

The same is true if your practice has expanded beyond your geographical name. If your practice name was specific to a city, but you have expanded to a neighboring city, you will want to consider an updated name and either a full or partial rebrand.

2. A Merger or Acquisition

If you have merged or acquired another dental practice, rebranding is usually recommended. We often see, after a merger, a new brand by combining the two practices’ names to help retain the loyalty of existing customers. However, combining the names isn't typically the best way to go. You'll likely want to consider creating a new name and notifying all existing patients of the change.

3. Legal Issues

Legal issues can sneak up on any business and make rebranding a necessity. The most common issue is having a brand name, logo, or slogan too similar to a trademarked company. Even if you have been using the logo or name for years, it might not be worthwhile to take the case to court and pay legal fees.

4. Negative Publicity

It is not very likely that your practice has been associated with a corporate collapse or crime, but if your dental practice reputation is not healthy, then you will need to do some repair work. In many cases, it will be possible, and preferable, to repair your brand without rebranding. Simply renaming the company and coming out with a new logo and dental website is a shady way to get out from under negative publicity.

Sometimes, your brand can end up being associated with something that you have no control over and have nothing to do with, but it can still bring up negative thoughts and emotions in your customers. A good example of this is the sports drink Tsunami, which had to rebrand in 2005 after a giant tsunami killed hundreds of thousands in Indonesia.

If you have a publicity problem that is out of your control, then rebranding can be an effective way to reinvent yourself.

5. Out-of-Date Brand Image

If you bought a practice that has been in business for decades or you, yourself, have been in business for a long time, your brand may have become dated over time. The public's response to and expectations of branding have evolved, and you may need to update your brand to stay in step with the times.

6. Need for Differentiation

Is your practice getting lost in the crowd? If your practice is in an area where you have a lot of competitors, then rebranding your practice will help to improve your visibility and help potential patients understand why they should choose you as their dentist.

7. Loss of Relevancy

For any brand to be successful, it must be relevant to its target audience. If your branding is not resonating with the people you want to attract as patients, then it may be time to rebrand to make your practice relevant once again.

8. Struggling to Attract New Patients

Stagnating patient lists is one of the most common problems we deal with as dental marketing experts. It is easy to assume that because you provide quality dental care, patients will come, but that is not always the case. New branding can help inspire your current patients to refer their friends and family and attract new patients through creative dental marketing.

Cost of Rebranding a Dental Practice

One of the rebranding questions we hear the most is this:

How much does it cost to rebrand a dental practice?

That is an important question because you cannot undergo the rebranding process if you do not have the budget to support it.

Costs can vary depending on the size of your practice. For example, it will cost more to rebrand a practice with multiple locations than it will to rebrand a stand-alone practice. As a rule of thumb, you should expect to spend between 10% and 20% of your marketing budget on rebranding.

For example, if your marketing budget is $100,000, then your rebranding will likely cost you somewhere between $10,000 and $20,000.

At Titan Web Agency, we can help you with every aspect of rebranding, including:

• New practice name suggestions
• Creating a new logo, colors, style guide, etc.
• New website URL (domain name) suggestions
• Creation of a new website or updating an existing site to match the new brand
• Updating existing online properties such as Facebook, Google, and more
• A press release announcing the change, with distribution to the local newspapers and tv stations.

Titan Web Agency specializes in helping dentists and other healthcare professionals rebrand or build a brand for their practice at an affordable price that the big branding agencies don't offer.

Usually, before you have secured a loan or financing to buy a practice, you'll want to consider the potential cost of a rebrand because rebrands are often complicated, expensive and necessary.

Mistakes to Avoid When Rebranding Your Dental Practice

As you might imagine, the road to rebranding your practice is paved with potential roadblocks and pitfalls. It is important to avoid these if you can.

Changing Your Name for No Good Reason

Rebranding may include a name change but should only do so if necessary. Any negative publicity that is beyond your control or merging with another practice may require a name change. You should keep in mind that changing your practice name frivolously means you will be giving up any name recognition you have acquired. In most cases, rebranding involves keeping the same name and changing the branding around it.

Sacrificing Simplicity to Appear More Interesting

Good branding is simple. It needs to be easily understood, conveying the most essential information and values of your practice as quickly and clearly as possible. Dental rebranding efforts sometimes fail because the new brand sacrifices simplicity. You should focus on how your new brand will be perceived and make it as clean and uncomplicated as you can.

No Concrete Plan and Timeline

There's no denying that rebranding is a big undertaking, and it may be difficult to predict how long it will take. That said, it is essential to make a concrete rebranding plan and create a timeline for each element. If you don't, you may end up with unclear messaging that confuses your audience and negatively impacts your practice.

Not Having a Brand Style Guide

A big part of effective branding is consistency. If you don't pay attention to the details, potential patients may not recognize your brand when they see it. That means letting your brand colors, typography, and iconography dictate the design of your website, your printed marketing materials, your social media posts, and even the design of your office. So, having a brand style guide will allow you to make the rebranding successful.

How to Rebrand Your Dental Practice: Best Practices

Now that you have decided that rebranding is the right choice for your practice, you are ready to get started. To help you do a good job with the dental branding process, here are some best practices to follow.

Hire a Rebranding Team

The first step is to hire a rebranding team to help you. While you know your brand, most dental professionals are focused on oral health, not marketing. That means you need assistance from a knowledgeable company to help you identify key differentiators between you and your competitors and create branding that will help you achieve your goals.

Understand What it Takes

If you have decided that rebranding is worthwhile for your practice, the next step you should take is considering is how much of an undertaking it really is.

Your company rebranding will take a lot more effort than designing a new logo and updating your stationery. You will need new signage and a website update as well. You can’t cut corners on this. Research indicates that 60% of US Millennials expect their experience with brands to show consistency online, in-store, and on the phone.

If you are changing the name of your practice, you will need to purchase a new domain name, and all your social media profiles should be updated with your new graphics and brand name.

It is also essential to update your local business listings (Yelp, HealthGrades, Google Business Profile, Facebook, etc.) and wherever else your business may appear if you want to remain relevant in Google Local search.

At the same time, rebranding a business comes with certain downsides. We have already mentioned the cost, so you know you will need to be prepared to invest some money in rebranding.

After everything's said and done, it may have cost you tens of thousands of dollars- not to mention the value of your time investment.

If your rebranding involves a name change, you will lose any name recognition you had, and you may lose some customers in your push to appeal to new ones. You may also experience a decrease in your organic search results at first. There are some best practices you can follow to minimize the effects.

In short, it’s important to understand the scope of rebranding before you dive in.

Have Your Vision in Mind

When developing your branding strategy, it is easy to get caught up in the details, such as brand colors and dental logo design. These are important steps, but they are not the first steps to rebranding a company.

Before you start the process, you need to spend time evaluating your practice’s current strengths and weaknesses. Rebranding is an effort to solve a problem with your existing messaging. So, what exactly is that problem?

You may want to survey existing patients to find out. If you already know what the problems with your current branding are, then it is essential to focus on what you want your branding to do and keep that idea at the heart of every rebranding decision you make.

Collaborate with Your Team

Any experienced rebranding team will work closely with you to develop your new brand and everything associated with it, from your logo to appointment reminder cards to signage.

Remember to communicate your priorities and look at the entire process as something collaborative. Keep an open mind and don't be afraid of innovative ideas. Remember, hiring a professional team gives you access to specialized experience and expertise that you don't have.

Talk to People

You probably have some idea of what’s wrong with your current brand, but it is more important to know what others think.

Spend some time reaching out to your current patients, employees, or even experts in the healthcare industry to get their opinions about your dental practice’s brand and services. A clever way to get your employees excited about rebranding is to allow them to become active participants.

If you can get people to be honest with you and paint a clear picture of what they do and don’t like, this valuable information can help you achieve your overall goals.

You should have a good idea of the core messaging that you want to have after you rebrand and have a clear understanding of how it will solve your current branding problem.

Consider Your Competition

The best way to understand where you stand in your local market is by comparing yourself to the competition’s marketing strategy. Spend some time researching your direct and indirect competitors in your market. Answer the following questions:

• What is their brand message?
• What are their overall attributes?
• How do they bring value to their customers?

Answering these questions will help you figure out where you are currently positioned in the market and help you brainstorm ideas that can help you stand out from your competitors during your dental practice rebrand.

Consider Your Own Interests

Rebranding is the perfect opportunity for you to cater to your interests and draw in the kind of patients you want. Of course, you will want to focus on what prospective patients want, but it's also essential to think about what you want.

Which aspect of your job brings you the most joy? For example, you might prefer certain procedures over others, or you might love working with young children.

Use your rebranding as an opportunity to specialize in the type of dental services that you would like to provide in the way you would like to provide them.

Consider Psychology of Colors

Track the Success of Your Rebrand Effort

The final element of a successful rebranding is tracking your results. Working with an expert team will minimize the risk that your new brand won't resonate with your audience, but you still may need to do some fine-tuning of your branding package. You will need to monitor your results and tweak them as needed to reap the full benefits of branding.

You should monitor the following things to track your rebranding:

• Website analytics
• PPC ad results
• Organic search
• Social media statistics (follows and shares)
• Reviews

If you notice that your rebranding is not delivering the results you want, then you can make any changes necessary to keep your branding memorable.

Ready to Start Your Dental Practice Rebrand?

Rebranding your dental practice is an effective way to differentiate yourself from your competitors, attract new patients, and take on your competition. The guidelines we have included here will help you have a successful rebranding that ticks all the boxes.

Are you ready to create a new brand that will attract new patients by assuring them of the high level of care they'll receive at your practice? Titan Web Agency is here to help.