Simon Chard explains the importance of brand building and how he has cultivated his own brand.
To build a strong personal brand, you need to know your purpose for doing it and your target audience.
Consider how you can offer value to the people you’re trying to reach to create a community. For practice owners, this might mean answering common patient questions on your social media platforms or designing your website to appeal to your ideal patient. If building a professional-facing brand, this will require providing content relevant to them.
Personally, I have always tried to communicate with both patients and clinicians. Regarding the latter, I give an insight into my workflows, the technology I use and the outcomes I achieve, as well as sharing my core values for dentistry.
For patients, my brand is very much one of creating natural-looking yet beautiful smiles for different types of people. This often means that any new patients who seek me out are already aligned with my ethos – they want the natural aesthetic that I strive for and therefore, they come to me for the kind of dentistry that I already like to do.
My branding for the practice is a little different in that it focuses more on the patient journey, our investment in technology and designing the best possible experience for the patient.
Play to your strengths
Of course, building a new brand from scratch is hard work. It’s important to play to your strengths and do what you enjoy because you’ll spend a significant amount of time doing it.
For instance, if you don’t like being in front of the camera, consider platforms with more written content, or podcasts. Be prepared to push yourself outside your comfort zone from time to time, but it’s important to enjoy what you’re doing. When I started, I wasn’t a natural on camera, but I have practised and evaluated previous performances to improve. It’s now become a useful skill set.
The benefits of getting your brand right are considerable, as building a strong brand can lead to exciting new career opportunities. My brand has been incredibly important for my practice, bringing in patients from across the UK and abroad.
I have also been humbled to receive many requests to lecture internationally, even at this early stage of my career. My brand has ultimately helped to create a very enjoyable and varied career so far!
Building loyalty
Take Pärla as an example – a new venture I started with colleagues in 2020. The brand has been established as the next generation of oral care, promoting the importance of plastic-free dentistry. We were very clear on our mission from the start – we wanted to help save the oceans from the 20 billion toothpaste tubes going to landfill every year.
Our slogan, ‘Designed by dentists to be good for you and the planet’, clearly defines our three pillars – a product by professionals, good ingredients and environmentally-friendly. Basing our marketing around these values helped to differentiate us and solidify our name as one of the spearheads of eco-friendly oral care in the UK.
Our clear call to action has built a community of loyal followers and in less than three years, we have achieved a fantastic level of professional and national awareness.
Maintaining the brand
Once established, the next challenge is to maintain the brand over time. Those that have lasted the longest demonstrate consistency in messaging, style and values that are repeated time and time again. Their brands are so strong that you recognise them simply from one image or slogan – ‘Just do it’ for example, is instantly associated with Nike, even without its logo on display.
The same should be applied when building a brand in dentistry. Be consistent, be honest and authentic to your true self. People will appreciate your transparency and where they resonate with your core values, will engage with and support your brand.
For further details about the British Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, visit www.bacd.com.
