When Dr. Michael Silverman couldn’t find a marketing company that knew how to promote dental practices, he started one himself
Do you struggle with marketing your dental practice? Michael Silverman, DMD, founder of RAMP Results, understands. “A dentist needs to be chairside with patients,” he noted. “They need to be leading their team. They don't need to be marketing experts unless that's a passion of theirs.”
Dr. Silverman is that exception: a dentist with a passion for marketing. And for the past quarter century, this unusual combination has been at the heart of RAMP Results, a full-service marketing company focused on helping dental practices grow and thrive.
“It’s a testament to how we’ve grown alongside technology and the profession that we’re still going strong after 25 years,” he said. “Very few marketing companies in the industry last that long.”
Born Out of Necessity
RAMP Results started when Dr. Silverman was frustrated that the dominant marketing strategy of the time—postcards—was not effective for his sedation dentistry practice in Philadelphia, PA. “I really didn’t have a way of finding patients who were seeking dental care but were afraid of the dentist,” he recalled.
Although it was expensive, he decided to try advertising on terrestrial radio. When that turned out to be highly successful, he started creating radio campaigns for other dentists. Over time, he learned to negotiate media buys. “But I was still a practicing dentist,” he said. “So I started hiring media, creative, and metrics experts to develop other techniques to make marketing successful.”
Radio advertising is now just one of many services RAMP offers, from more traditional tactics to the latest digital strategies. “Allocation makes the difference. You don't put all your eggs in one basket,” he stated.
“The goal is to attract high-value patients at the lowest cost,” he said. “That's where I play a key role because I understand both dentists and patients, and how to prepare teams for media-derived patients.”
This understanding, he believes, is what sets RAMP apart—and why the average client stays over 8 years.
Finding the Right Patients
Dr. Silverman also attributes RAMP’s success to its targeted messaging, which delivers ads to a practice’s desired patient population using the type of media most likely to reach those patients. For example, recently a practice wanted to stop taking a specific type of insurance but was afraid of losing patients.
“We found several large employers in the area that didn’t use that insurance," he said. "We geofenced those locations and delivered ads to their employees. The practice was able to pull in a lot of new customers, even though they no longer took that insurance.”
Dedicated to Overdelivering
“My attitude from being a dentist for so many decades is always to underpromise and overdeliver,” said Dr. Silverman. He does the same for RAMP clients.
“I love building businesses,” he said. “And if I can be part of somebody's practice in the marketing area, I feel like I'm helping them build their business.”
