3 Dental Marketing Tips for General Dentists

Dental Marketing Tips: General Dentists

As a general dentist, it might seem like you don’t need a targeted marketing strategy to attract patients to your dental practice. After all, general dentists offer everything from cleanings and crowns to veneers and cosmetic fillings. Can’t dental marketing tips be one-size-fits-all?

While most general dentists focus on preventive and restorative oral health care, each practice has an expertise that appeals to a specific market. Some general dentists prefer to work with kids and families. Others prefer to focus on veneers and smile transformations. When planning a marketing strategy, a good approach is to highlight the dental problems that you want to address and the patients you’d like to serve. By not listing every dental procedure that you’ve been trained to offer, you can let patients know what makes your practice exceptional.

With this in mind, here are five effective dental marketing tips to differentiate yourself from other general dental practices. 

1. Identify your general dentistry’s unique selling proposition (USP).

What makes you different from your competitors? To secure your ideal customer, figure out what makes your dental practice special and communicate these values in your marketing copy. Many general dentists are friendly, offer quality services, and try to make their customers feel comfortable. These cliches do not count as unique selling propositions.

Instead, get specific about why customers should choose you instead of the dentist around the corner. What problems do you solve? How can you narrow your scope of expertise to a niche or clientele within general dentistry? Do you offer low prices or payment plans? Do you use a different technique or technology? Figure out what problems patients typically have with dentists and resolve to be the dental practice that solves that problem. If you’re struggling to figure out your general dental practice’s UPS, read this blog post for more dental marketing tips.

2. Create a solid email marketing strategy.

Unless you were filling one too many cavities, you probably noticed that Facebook and Instagram were down for hours on October 4, 2021. This massive outage serves as a powerful reminder. It’s important to build a solid online presence for your dental practice outside of social media platforms. Email marketing is a time-tested way to keep the relationships strong with your current patients. And, to establish brand loyalty with new patients. Throughout the year, send emails reminding your patients to make tooth cleaning and dental checkup appointments before the busy end-of-year season.

The result? Your appointments will be spaced out, and you will have spots available for new patients during the holidays. Emails can also be a fantastic way to remind people to use their unused annual dental insurance benefits before they expire. If it’s covered by insurance, they might as well see their general dentist to detect any early signs of cavities or gum disease that could lead to long-term oral health problems. 

Getting started with email marketing is simple. Don’t know what to write? Check out our free general dentist email templates and more dental marketing tips here. 

3. Improve your practice’s local SEO.

SEO refers to your site’s visibility when people search for keywords on search engines like Google. Local SEO is the practice of optimizing a brick-and-mortar business to attract customers in the same region. As a general dentist, odds are that most of your patients will be people in your town and neighborhood. If you want your practice to come up when people search for “Invisalign near me,” optimize your Google My Business page. Ever seen a profile pop up in Google’s sidebar showing a business’ hours, contact information, address, reviews, and images? Yes, that.

You can edit your practice’s information so that Google knows to include you in local search results. Here’s how to claim your Google My Business Page. Even more, you can find creative ways to get your practice’s website in front of a local audience. Promote philanthropic and community events your dentist practice has partnered with on your dental website. Offer a guide to restaurants that serve healthy lunches and sugar-free dessert options. 

Learn more about our Dental SEO services here.

More Dental Marketing Tips and Custom Guidance from Pain-Free Dental Marketing

Unsure how to implement these dental marketing tips? Don’t know where to begin to make your general dental practice stand out from the crowd? Get in touch with us today for a consultation.