Marketing helps you reach potential patients, plus maintain a good, ongoing relationship with current patients. However, knowing how and where to spend your marketing budget and efforts can be difficult. Digital marketing is a critical aspect of any strategy since most people search online for medical professionals, but other methods are effective as well. An effective strategy overall is essential to achieve the best results.
Start with a dental marketing plan to ensure it is coordinated and measurable.
Define your goals for your dental marketing campaigns, to allow you to target and measure your efforts. Determine your personal mission, what services you are focussing on, and what your overall objectives are. Set a concrete goal for the number of new patients you would like to achieve, and then determine the type of patient you are targeting.
When deciding on what type of patient will be your target audience, consider their potential customer lifetime value, or how much you can expect to earn, compared to how much it will cost to attract them. Make sure to encourage the loyalty of existing patients while you explore ways to attract new dental patients.
Here are some of the best dental marketing ideas to consider for your dental office. With all marketing, focus on your successes and results, including pictures, not just your dental services offered, as these give a better idea of what patients can expect.
Digital Presence
Have a professional dental website to encourage patients to visit, and make sure it is optimized and responsive. First impressions are important. Prospective patients respond better to professional logos and branding, as these are a reflection of your business. Make sure it is mobile-friendly, as more patients conduct their research on their phones. Bios for your dental team are important to include, as this emphasizes their qualifications and makes them more personal.
Be sure to keep your Google Business Page updated and current, as well as your website.
Search engine optimization (SEO) takes advantage of the algorithms that search engines, like Google, use when presenting results to searchers. Optimization can help lead patients to your website by showing your dental practice higher on the list of search results, which is critical in being seen online.
Online advertising boosts visibility and is a key part of online marketing. Google Ads offers pay-per-click ads, so you are only charged if someone clicks on them. You can customize ads and can include business information, promotions or offers, and more. Advertising with Google Maps is another good way to attract notice, especially if positive patient reviews and ratings are included. Remarketing ads are useful to catch a potential patient who leaves your website without booking or contacting you. These people can be individually targeted with remarketing ads, using cookies to encourage them to complete an interaction with your site.
Blog posts and video blogs help your business get seen; they also lend more credibility to your business. Patients feel more comfortable coming to your business if you blog, and feel you are more legitimate. You can include information about common procedures, answer patient questions, or other useful content. Blogging also boosts your SEO greatly.
Marketing efforts can be simplified with a marketing company, to help you determine marketing strategies and provide professional-looking online content.
Post your online reviews and be sure to respond to them. Many potential patients rely heavily on reviews before using a business; reviews increase how much people will trust your business. Reviews provide invaluable advertising that helps attract new patients. Respond to positive reviews online, to show you care and reinforce a positive message, as well as any negative ones, and actively seek reviews from your patients.
Social Media Marketing Ideas
Actively maintaining social media accounts and a social media presence is critical in the modern market. Focus on your brand personality when making social media posts to differentiate your business.
Maintain active social media pages on the different platforms, and see which is most successful. Share photos, useful information, video marketing, and more. Facebook is popular for those looking for reviews and information about dental offices. Remarketing is useful here, as well. Facebook ads can show when a person has shown interest in your business but has not made a booking.
Focus On Local
Consider sponsoring local events, to support your local community. This is a good way to find appropriate businesses to partner with, too, such as real estate agents who can pass on your information to new residents. If other local businesses have complementary services that do not compete with yours, you can set up a patient referral program with them.
Traditional direct mail, newsletters, and email marketing can be effective marketing strategies to reach people in your community. Target people who are new to the community and have recently moved, since they will be looking for healthcare professionals. Be sure to include the website and contact information.
You can collect the email addresses of an existing patients, or through a referral program. With a patient’s email address, you can send occasional seasonal greetings, promotions, or useful information, to remind them of your dental office. Be sure to avoid becoming ‘spammy’, though. An incentive-based referral program provides word-of-mouth growth and can be a source of tracking growth. It also lets you reward loyal clients.
Local media advertising, such as radio, can be cost-effective and yield good results.
Remove Blocks To Your Dental Practice
Patients may need a nudge to change dentists; new patient specials help motivate people to switch. If cost was preventing them from seeking treatment, this could make the difference. You can tie the special in with encouraging patient testimonials to get needed reviews.
More and more patients now expect the convenience of online bookings; enabling one-click bookings on your site can affect whether you get the booking or not.
Helping Dental Practices Plan For Success
Dental Tax Accounting and Financial Solutions helps dentists save money and time with their dental practice. We can show you the best ways to start, grow or expand your dental practice, as well as provide you with planning strategies to improve profitability and efficiency.
Adam has an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business in London and also holds a Chartered Investment Manager designation.
