Avoid Wasting Money: Price Your Clinic Correctly Before Advertising

Admin
May 14
2 min read

Dental Marketing Campaigns Only Generate Profit When Aligned with a Solid Pricing Strategy. Learn How to Calculate Your Prices Correctly Before Investing in Advertising.

In a highly competitive market, dental clinics increasingly turn to digital marketing to attract patients. However, many professionals make a crucial mistake: they invest in advertising before ensuring they are charging correctly for their services. The result? They attract patients but suffer financial losses. Before investing in marketing, it is essential to structure your pricing strategically.

The Foundation of Success: Strategic Pricing

Pricing involves much more than simply adding costs and applying a margin. It must consider the total service cost (materials, chair time, taxes, overhead), the clinic’s positioning, the target audience profile, and the prices practiced by the market. Without this balance, your clinic may have a high volume of sales but still operate at a loss.

Practical Example: A clinic charges US$24 for a dental cleaning, but after calculating all involved costs (materials, chair time, taxes, commissions, energy), it realizes the actual cost is US$20. The net margin is only US$4 — an amount that can easily be consumed by discounts, bad debt, or poorly targeted marketing efforts.

Practical Tip: Use a spreadsheet or management software to identify the real cost per procedure and define the ideal profit margin.

The Mistake of Investing in Marketing Without Correct Pricing

Well-executed marketing campaigns drive volume, but volume with incorrect pricing leads to losses. If the clinic is selling below its breakeven point or failing to cover all costs, marketing will simply accelerate the path to financial collapse.

Moreover, incoherent pricing devalues the clinic’s image and may attract a clientele misaligned with its value proposition. Conversely, proper pricing increases conversion rates, reduces bad debt, and improves the profitability of each patient.

How to Calculate the Right Price

An effective pricing methodology for dental services involves the following steps:

Direct Costs: Materials, staff time, equipment usage.
Indirect Costs: Rent, utilities, reception, cleaning, taxes.
Desired Profit Margin: Percentage that ensures sustainability and growth.
Market Analysis: Compare with direct competitors within the same positioning level.
Perceived Value: Understand how much your target audience is willing to pay for quality and differentials.

Practical Tip: When pricing, include the marketing cost per patient. For example, if you invest US$400 in ads and attract 40 new patients, your acquisition cost is US$10 per patient. This cost must be factored into your final price.

When and How to Start Marketing

After validating your prices, review your positioning, identify your ideal audience, and only then direct investments into marketing. The combination of strategic pricing with well-targeted campaigns is what truly makes marketing profitable.

Also, invest in communicating the added value — instead of advertising “cleaning for US$20,” highlight the benefits of personalized care, clinic biosafety, staff qualifications, and expected results.

Conclusion

Marketing is essential but only works when the business fundamentals are well structured. And the first pillar is pricing. There’s no point in advertising if you don’t know whether you are making or losing money with each appointment. Therefore, before launching campaigns, review your costs, margins, and pricing strategy. The success of your clinic starts with the numbers.