5 Marketing Tips for Dentists (2023 Updated)
As an experienced dental marketing company, we get it… Running a practice, keeping up with patients, and marketing your practice can certainly become overwhelming during these crazy times. We are here to help take some of the load off and assist with a fundamental part of your business, which many dentists often neglect: Dental Marketing. […]
As an experienced dental marketing company, we get it…
Running a practice, keeping up with patients, and marketing your practice can certainly become overwhelming during these crazy times. We are here to help take some of the load off and assist with a fundamental part of your business, which many dentists often neglect: Dental Marketing.
In a highly competitive dental market in the United States, effective marketing can be the difference between success and failure.
As an experienced dental marketing company, we have been able to identify 5 basic dental marketing strategies to help you build your brand and ensure growth.
Get Involved in the Community
Good business is built on good relationships. Networking outside of the office is a great way to draw in new patients. By participating in community events as a company, sponsoring events, or simply going out and creating brand awareness with some boots-on-the-ground marketing, you can improve your public image.
A good public image in return will increase the likelihood of acquiring new business. This is also a great dental marketing strategy to build trust in your local community and display, actionably, why you are not just another dental practice.
Start an online blog with informative content to improve SEO
Blogs are very effective in strengthening your business’s online presence and improving your website’s SEO. Blogs offer the answers that the user was actively looking for while also advertising your practice.
An informative blog on your website can ensure more traffic to your page, and up your credentials. Writing a blog, although time-consuming, is among the less aggressive dental marketing strategies. It can be very effective in presenting you to potential patients and informing people of your expertise and credibility as a dental practice.
A [well-written] blog, [with quality content], shows people that as a dental practice you are not just interested in providing dental services; but also passionate about offering interesting and valuable information to help them stay informed and make the best dental decisions.
Implement Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Having a strong SEO presence is crucial, if not essential, for maintaining a competitive edge. In the realm of dental marketing tactics, effectively implementing SEO involves ensuring that your website ranks on the initial page of Google search results when individuals seek out “dentist near me.”
There’s a marketing joke that highlights why it is so crucial to implement SEO and appear on the first page of Google… “If you ever need to hide a dead body, you should place it on the second page of Google search results.”
You’re laughing if you’re on the first page of search results, and you’re probably not laughing if you’re on the second. Why is this joke funny, but true? Because only 25% of people ever scroll past the first page of search engines.
Now, there are different ways to implement SEO tactics. But whichever route you take, you need to prepare to give up a good chunk of time to understand, implement, monitor, analyze, and optimize it.
The most basic and first step in implementing SEO:
Having high-quality content on your website’s pages.
You will also need to include relevant keywords that you want to rank for. The intelligent Google algorithms will pick up on this high-quality content and will up your rankings on their search engine.
Keywords are finicky though, you need to make sure you:
- Use the ones that are just right for your practice and demographic.
- Use the right keyword, the right amount of times. Enough, but not too many. (Google picks up on sites that are overloaded with keywords.)
- use keywords that have the appropriate percentage of competition so you can actually rank for them.
When it comes to succeeding at keyword implementation on your site – this is where starting a blog can really help you, as previously mentioned.
The next step in SEO – and more complicated channel – is via PPC advertising (Pay Per Click advertising). PPC is highly beneficial – and, frankly, necessary – for your practice’s growth.
PPC traffic carries immense value because you are directly targeting users that are interested in your services. Therefore, if you do it right, clicks can are more likely to turn into conversions.
If you aren’t knowledgable in Google Adwords, you will either need to devote a lot of time to watching How-To YouTube videos or will want to hire a dental marketing company.
Offer discounts for holidays, seasons, or create contests
Competitions, rewards and discounts are a great way to be more attractive to potential patients.
If people feel they can potentially gain value or win something by engaging with you, they are more likely to do so. It is a great and simple dental marketing strategy to incentivise people to choose your practice over the competition – because you are giving them more!
Decide which holidays or value programs would work best in your community and with your target demographic. Offer special discounts or contests which people can engage with.
Social media posts and advertisements are an effective way to promote these discounts and competitions. If your promotion is attractive enough, it’s also a great idea to create a Google Ads campaign around it.
Patient recall
Patient recall strategies are a good way to show your patients that you care about them and their oral health. Take this type of dental marketing strategy as an opportunity to promote the integrity of your brand and ensure you maintain the consumer as a patient.
Patient recall is another extremely important strategy for a dental practice. Use SMS, email, social media or calling to remind your patients when they have their next biannual cleaning, when it is time to schedule a follow up for a previous appointment or to simply remind them that you are available for dental assistance during this pandemic.
Bottom line…
These dental marketing strategies are just some of the fundamentals of a great marketing plan. You should ensure you are at least practicing the bare minimum of each.
Frankly, as a passionate dentist, you likely don’t have the time to implement all the extensive and necessary dental marketing strategies for growth; much less monitor them… That’s where we come in.
…There’s nothing quite like having your own team of dental marketing experts continuously optimizing your marketing efforts to ensure the best results.
The process? Implement. Analyze. Optimize. Analyze. Optimize… It’s all in the data.
We understand that choosing to hire a dental marketing company is a big decision. You want a team you can trust, people that understand and represent your brand as if it was their own, and a team willing to go that extra mile.
Here at Pain-Free Dental Marketing, we believe in becoming a marketing extension of your team. We are in this together. We only win if you win.
Contact us today, and let’s talk about growing your practice to a whole new level of success.