The Mountain of Education
Many of our attitudes and habits of a lifetime are formed as we go through the educational system. As marketers, our need is to penetrate the boundaries to add our influence to their thinking, lest we be ignored in the formative years, years when behaviors and patterns are developed for health care habits and belief systems.
The Mountain of Education is like a big reservoir. Within its boundaries is contained, at one time or another, 99% of the local people, potential patients, that you are likely to come in contact with and treat. Everyone goes through the educational grinder: raw minds assimilated, fed a diet “good” for society, watered, baked, decorated and finally packaged for fruitfulness at age 18. Many of our attitudes and habits of a lifetime are formed as we go through the educational system. As marketers, our need is to penetrate the boundaries to add our influence to their thinking, lest we be ignored in the formative years, years when behaviors and patterns are developed for health care habits and belief systems.
Besides access to moldable minds, we also acknowledge that peer pressure and authority figures play an important aspect in the Mountain of Education. Young people want to be led and want to be accepted. This is where we can use very positively the power of our expert status as medical and dental providers to promote health, beauty and wellness. We can enter the training ground as a provider, serving the needs of those in charge (the Board of Education, School Principals, Teachers, and even Book Publishers) to lay out a case for inclusion of meaningful discussion on what is the best and most appropriate dental and medical teaching at each level of the educational process.
What does the education system need? Access to the students and their parents revolves around providing funding, teaching materials, delivering specialty information, and, believe it or not, entertainment. Yes, the more fun you make the event, the more access you can achieve. Let me explain.
Once there was a baby hippo who had a tooth ache and his mama was going to take him to the dentist. But the baby hippo, Bippo, was scared because of what all his friends had told him. So Bippo the Hippo’s mom read him a book all about the visit to the dentist and how nice the dentist was and how he only helped baby hippos feel better. So Bippo was happy.
For many years we had a dental team member don a Bippo the Hippo mascot costume and visit the local elementary schools in our district on special National Dental Health Month occasions. He was always accompanied by The Tooth Fairy (our dental hygienist) who could actually talk and run the slide show on dental health. Bippo and the Tooth Fairy provided us access to thousands of children and their parents as well as all the teachers of the region. Each child’s goody bag went home with info about dental care and our practice. Bippo also came to visit children in our practice on a weekly basis and was available for special programs at schools and birthday parties.
Funding is a major way to interface with the educational system. Access is granted because of the huge need. My first year in Suwanee, starting a new practice, I signed up to be the Platinum Sponsor for the North Gwinnett High School Football program and got a full-page ad in the program that year as well as being highlighted as such on the field at halftime before the entire stadium of fans, parents and students.
The second major initiative for access to the students and ultimately to their parents we undertook was the Hat Trick For Reading program through the local ECHL professional hockey team, the Gwinnett Gladiators. Each student in the surrounding metro area was sent a letter, through the school system, that entitled them to two free tickets to the hockey game on the Suwanee Dental Care Hat Trick for Reading night IF they read three books by a certain date in the school year, generally within the first month of school. We were named as the sponsor and got the recognition in each classroom and more importantly each household. A total of 500,000 students get the message each year. The two Hat Trick for Reading nights are each a sell-out every year (20,000 fans total), and we have been doing this every year for 11 years. My cost is just a few thousand dollars a year. You can do the math and know the ROI is good.
My biggest local impact in influencing the Mountain of Education came when I sponsored the North Gwinnett Schools Foundation for three years running. There is generally a private, non-profit, fund-raising arm to every school district and I chose to play at a high level for a season of my dental career, being the Platinum Sponsor for a healthy six figure donation each year. What this gained us was year-round advertising and marketing to the movers and shakers of the community through participation in The Big T’Do, a charity fundraiser event, a speaking position and an award we received. All things are negotiable, so we created a special Suwanee Dental Care flier to be delivered inside the “start-of-the-school-year” info packet which went to every parent in our six school North Gwinnett cluster. The bottom line is that we got many new patients, not just students and their parents but important community leaders who wanted to be associated with The Education Dentist” in town.
Knowing the coaches, classroom teachers, administrators and presidents of the PTA is important if you are to make headway into the Mountain of Education. You can participate in the celebration with the students by being involved as their sponsor, coach, team dentist, lecturer in their classroom, donor, or mentor. You can attend team events. At the end of the year, many scholarships are given out at the local high schools. Why not do as we did and set up a scholarship in honor of your favorite person (my dad, a veterinarian) or named after your own practice (as in the Suwanee Dental Science Scholarship Award). For $1000 a year you can have a bevy of students vying for your scholarship by writing an essay such as “Why dentistry is an important profession” or “How medicine has extended the life span of Americans”, or “How similar is training to be a dentist, a physician and a veterinarian?” etc.
Gwinnett County has a unique program called Principal For A Day in which community leaders are ceremonial principals in local elementary, middle and high schools for one day of the year, learning the ins and outs of the school system, what it takes to run on a daily basis. The opportunity is to get to know and participate with the decision makers and the ones who control access to the reservoir.
I’ve spoken here mostly about using your resources to gain access to a fairly controlled environment, the educational system. Use your imagination and go through the list of marketing questions from the first of this series of articles on the 7 Mountains of Marketing and look at formulating your own strategy or plan of attack. We chose to become known in our community as The Education Dentist. You can too!