Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

You're in a chicken-and-egg situation. When you deliver a lot of new patients to your doctor/dentist constituency, they'll be eager to sign up. And it will be a lot easier to get people to the site looking for the right doctor/dentist when you have a lot of them on the roster.

This is not unlike a magazine, where advertisers like to advertise when there are a lot of subscribers, and subscribers like to subscribe when there's a lot of rich content (funded by the advertisers).

So the way to build your business is to work both ends simultaneously, and spend heavily up-front to get to the critical mass point. It takes nerves of steel and a complete and unwavering commitment to make it to your goal. (And a big bank account helps too!)

Start with local advertising across a number of media ... radio, cable tv, print, direct mail, online search advertising, etc. Because there's a threshold of awareness, don't do it half-way, or you're just wasting your money. (If you never get to the threshold, you will never know if the concept is a good one.)

The strategy should be to spend very heavily up-front, so you get to the threshold quickly. If you don't do that, it will ultimately cost more ... if you ever get there. It can be a slow, painful death if you drag it out too long.

One thing you could focus on that would be important to doctors signing up is increasing online conversions. Then the story to the docs is - that you have the most 'qualified' traffic because the people that do come to your site convert (schedule appointments). They will also be interested in your growth thus far and your plan for growing traffic to know that you are actively seeking to make your site better.

As far as increasing your traffic, there are numerous things you could do but PPC would likely be good in your mix since you can capture people as they are seeking doctors. Integration with social and blogging could be great for SEO, in addition to helping people think of you often.

Hope this helps!
Claire

Start by assessing how people in your target area find dentists/doctors. What is the (estimated) search volume for your targeted keywords.

Next, how does your website rank relative to your competition's? How quickly can people who are looking for your website's directory find you? Once they find you, how long do they stick around? How do they know that your list is worth exploring (why should they trust it - is there any social proof that these people are any better than simply exploring the yellow pages)?

As for value - let physicians and dentists list for FREE for a few months. If there's value, they'll know and they'll pay to sign up. If not, you at least have their contact information...