When your practice is just starting out, it can be tempting to just let new patients find you organically. But steadily growing your patient base is essential for the ongoing health of your practice, especially as patients may move away, change insurance providers, or leave your practice for other reasons.
Having a strategic and consistent plan for your dental office marketing keeps your practice busy, increases revenue, and helps expand the impact you can have in your community. Whether you just founded your practice, or have been in business for years, marketing is worth the investment!
In this article:
Dental Marketing Best Practices
Dental practices that utilize digital marketing tools to reach and engage their patients will experience increased patient retention and attract new patients. When patients are left in the dark, unsure if their dental office is open or if they should reschedule their next appointment, their satisfaction with the dental office may decrease.
Those frustrated patients may then seek the help of other dental practices that are actively marketing their new office hours or virtual dental care.
There is good news. When dental practices send proactive and helpful digital patient communications consistently, they let their patients know they care. Dental practices that share frequent patient communication on their website or Facebook page, will let their patients know that their practice is open and ready to provide patient care today.
Create an Optimized Dental Marketing Website
The first step to marketing your office is to create a professional website. When it comes to attracting new patients, the only thing that’s more important than your physical dental office is your online presence. While patients might drive by your location and decide to book an appointment, having a well-developed website expands your opportunities and allows you to reach patients all around your city.
In the modern age, just having a website isn’t enough. It has to present a professional image and provide a user-friendly interface so potential patients will feel confident in your services. Take the time to build a website that is mobile-responsive, modern, and contains helpful information for patients and prospects alike.
Since your website acts as the centerpiece of your dental marketing strategy, this is the one thing you may want to leave to the experts. ProSites can design your website, provide excellent dental care content, and drive users to convert using our 20 years of dental marketing experience!
Ultimately, there are thousands of different designs to choose from, but each should have the same basics. Here’s a checklist of all the features that will help your website stand out!
✅ Create dental care content to attract new patients and Increase traffic
Writing a blog article serves numerous benefits. First, search engines love fresh, new content. This means writing a blog on a topic related to your expertise can help you get better rankings in search results.
It also helps you build trust and establish yourself as an expert among current and prospective patients. Since the majority of prospective patients conduct research online before they select a dentist or doctor, providing educational, helpful articles will help position you as a credible professional.
And don’t worry, blog articles don’t have to be super lengthy. A simple post packed with relevant and helpful tips only needs to be about 500 words. More than length though, aim to make your article clear and easy to read. Use headers, bullet points and spacing for optimum success.
✅ Use forms and calls-to-action to capture the contact info of new leads
Spending time & money to get visitors to your website without helping them take the next step is like leading a horse to water, but just a picture of one.
Allowing patients & prospective dental patients know how to get a hold of you, book an appointment & having a system to follow up with them will maximize any website traffic efforts.
✅ Gather patient reviews to support your reputation marketing efforts
Online reviews are trusted just as much as a personal recommendation and are a critical part of your online marketing strategy. But, in order to gain more positive reviews, you must ask for them! Start by putting together a list of your most loyal patients.
Then, write a personalized email asking them to share their experience to help educate prospective patients. Make it as easy as possible for them by including a direct link to where they can leave a review for your practice (i.e., your website’s reviews page, or your Google My Business page).
Don’t forget, with ProSites you can take advantage of our complimentary Reputation Marketing feature that helps you remain in control of which reviews appear on your website.
✅ Optimize the user-experience
New visitors should intuitively understand your site’s navigation and be able to quickly find what they’re looking for. Make sure to surface the content that answer the questions most of your patients are asking.
✅ Keep your dental website updated and fresh
If you haven’t changed your website design in more than three or four years, it’s likely that it’s outdated. Internet browsers constantly change which can create an unpleasant viewing experience if your website design is out-of-date.
Ask your website provider if they have any new website styles available that can be easily changed without a fee.
✅ Add full descriptions of the services you offer
For every service you offer, create an individual page fully describing everything that service entails. Do you get common questions from patients about a service? Add FAQs to the page. Is it hard for patients to visualize what will be happening? Use images or video to illustrate & make it simple to understand.
✅ Include an “about” page on your website
The majority of people today do online research before contacting your practice for an appointment. Make your office as transparent as possible and have a page dedicated to teaching visitors about you, your expertise and education, and your staff.
✅ Ensure your website is mobile-friendly
In many cases mobile visits to websites account for over 80% of total web traffic. Google itself now uses the mobile version of websites to determine search engine rankings.
If you give your patients & prospects a great experience when they’re browning your site on their phone, you can expect more & happy customers as well as better search engine rankings.
Learn more about the specifics of what it means to have a mobile friendly website.
Social media isn’t just about funny memes; 42% of consumers use it to access health-related reviews with the goal of choosing a better provider.
Social media marketing gives your dental practice the opportunity to engage and interact with current and potential patients in a more relaxed and personable environment. It also opens the door to help you increase referrals and website traffic.
To get the most out of social media, make sure you complete your profiles with practice information, website URL, hours, specialties, and quick descriptions. Then, post consistently and frequently with content that will resonate with your audience. For example, if your patient base consists of young families, share articles or games that parents can use to teach their children about oral hygiene.
When you’re ready to attract new patients, it’s essential to take full advantage of social media. In order to make the most of your office’s dental marketing, here are a few best practices to use across all social media should you choose to launch a program:
- Fully flesh out the social profiles for your dental practice
- Then, always keep your hours, contact info, and services accurate and up-to-date
- Daily share compelling & helpful content that conveys your expertise
- Quickly respond to messages and comments so visitors feel welcomed and appreciated
Here’s an overview of the main networks & the type of content that works best for each:
- Facebook: Increase referrals and share information about your practice such as holiday office hours, promotions, and events.
- Twitter: Send frequent updates to your current and prospective patients, quick tips and more.
- Instagram: A great place to showcase before and after photos (with your patient’s permission of course) and the aesthetics of your office.
Next let’s look at how dentists, hygienists & other dental office staff are using social media to connect with dental patients:
- Share a photo of your staff on your practice’s social media networks – Today, people post a great deal of their lives on social media. They expect businesses to be equally as transparent. Showcase your practice’s personality by posting a photo of your team with a caption that lists an interesting fact about each person. People like to see that their trusted service providers are humans too, so using some professional humor can help put prospective patients at ease and entice them to contact your practice.
- Use social media to provide customer service – Have someone actively monitor your social media pages to answer any questions people post and respond to any reviews (positive or negative).
- Share before and after photos – A picture is worth a thousand words! Showcase your work (with your patient’s permission) on your website and social media pages.
Expert Tip: Rather than writing your posts one at a time, compose one month’s worth of posts and have your office staff copy and paste the content onto your Facebook page each day or schedule them out for the month. Just don’t forget to go back to your page to answer questions & engage with your audience.
If your staff is too busy, you can also hire a service like ProSites Social Media Management to create content from scratch and post it for your team.
Facebook for the Dental Marketing Win
Now, given that almost 70% of American adults are on Facebook, it is an essential tool for attracting leads and engaging with your current patients. Facebook allows you to continually interact with your community, share dental care tips, and build your brand awareness.
And when you’re ready to aggressively grow your business, Facebook also provides targeted advertising options that will help your practice bring in new patients in your area!
Here are some other compelling reasons why dental practices should use Facebook to rapidly boost their new patient numbers.
79% of online adults use Facebook (AdEspresso).
Why this matters: Once the province of college students and teens, Facebook has matured along with its audience. Chances are, your potential patients are on Facebook right now, some looking for a new dentist
Reaching those potential patients with an engaging business page and highly targeted ads can be done both rapidly and within your budget – delivering a fast return on your marketing investment. If you’re experiencing an emergency, last-minute opening, or another critical change that requires you to alert numerous patients at once, sending a text may be the best way to reach a group of patients at once.
72% of online users who make over $75,000 per year are on Facebook (OmniCore Agency).
Why this matters: If you seek patients who value quality dentistry—and are willing to pay for it—Facebooks users are likely candidates. Of all the social media platforms, this audience is the most affluent.
With income of more than $75,000 per year, you can tap into the ideal patient demographics for your practice.
Americans spend 58 minutes per day on Facebook (HootSuite).
Why this matters: Your current and potential patients are constantly bombarded with noise—from junk emails to group texts to online video ads which play automatically, like it or not. How can you capture their attention?
With 58 dedicated minutes a day, Facebook marketing allows you to engage users when they are in a more relaxed, receptive frame of mind. Here you can grab their undivided attention.
50 million businesses have Facebook pages (HootSuite).
Why this matters: The social media experience—particularly for Facebook users—is all about connecting with friends, family, and businesses in a relaxed, friendly environment. When your practice is there with an active Facebook page, it builds brand awareness with prospective patients.
When your practice isn’t there, it diminishes brand awareness and expectations for your practice. Plus, it leaves room for the competition. There’s simply no downside to having a Facebook page for your practice. Did we mention it’s free?
57% of consumers say that social media influences their shopping (AdEspresso).
Why this matters: Having a presence in a digital environment which influences buying decisions is a must for dentists. With Facebook marketing, you can showcase your expertise while building a rapport with existing and prospective patients.
A strong Facebook business page with glowing reviews, educational articles and enticing promotional offers builds confidence and familiarity—all of which leads to more business for your practice.
Facebook remains the most-used social media site among all ages, used by 64% of Americans age 12 and up (Salesforce, 2019).
Using highly targeted algorithm’s Facebook monitors shares, likes, interaction with content and posting behavior, etc to ensure that all audiences are engaged at a massive level.
That means Facebook Audience Insights can be a powerful way to connect with new and potential patients on a regular basis that is relevant to them personally. That is powerful.
8 in 10 Americans use Facebook on a regular basis.
Since the social media giant provides free access to users, Facebook relies heavily on advertising for the bulk of its revenues. For that reason, the company cleverly tracks user patterns, interests and demographics to entice advertisers.
That means you can fairly precisely target prospective patients with Facebook Ads.
Social Media and Mobile Advertising
Mobile is pervasive and continues to redefine the way we live. Research over the years has consistently indicated that one of the wisest ways to spend your marketing money is by advertising on mobile devices.
As mobile usage continues to skyrocket, marketers have increased mobile ad spend 90% over the last decade. The opportunity is maturing & it’s never been better.
Mobile advertising methods you should consider:
- Google Mobile Ads – Similar to Google Ads pay-per-click advertising, Google Mobile Ads allows you to purchase ad space solely on mobile devices.
- Facebook Mobile Ads – Facebook integrates mobile ads directly into users’ news feed, making your ad discrete but directly in their line of sight.
- Twitter Mobile Ads – Nearly identical to Facebook’s mobile ads, Twitter also incorporates ads directly within users’ news feeds, making your ad front and center.
- Advertising Agencies – There are numerous agencies that allow you to purchase ad space within popular mobile apps such as Angry Birds or Words With Friends, or help you develop your own mobile phone app that directs users to your website.
Most ad pricing is auction-style bidding with options for Cost Per Click ads (CPC), Cost Per Action ads (CPA), and Cost Per 1000 Impression ads (CPM). Some of the well-known mobile advertising agencies include InMobi, adBrite, and Chitika.
What mobile ads should contain:
- Include Your Location – Most mobile users have GPS within their phone that tailors search results, ads, coupons, etc. to their exact location. If they are using their mobile phone to search for your services, including your practice location is critical.
- Keep Your Message Simple – Wherever and however you advertise (i.e. text, video, image), make sure it relates to the services you offer, giving mobile users a clear vision of what you are marketing. Convoluted and overly-complicated messages are not suited for mobile audiences who want their information fast.
- Coupons or Special Offers – 2/3rds of mobile users prefer mobile ads that contain coupons or deals rather than a simple, monotonous commercial. Whether you’re marketing dental or veterinary services, consider advertising discounts that current and prospective patients will find valuable.
- Think Beyond Mobile Search Engines – Mobile users spend over an hour and a half per day using mobile gaming and social networking apps, making these mobile marketing mediums prime real estate to advertise your practice.
Regardless of where you decide to market your practice on mobile devices, one thing is certain: it is vital that you direct mobile users from your ad to your mobile website. Doing so provides an optimal viewing experience for your mobile users each step of the way and will increase their likelihood of contacting your practice to schedule an appointment.
Master Your Dental SEO
You’ve likely heard the term Search Engine Optimization, and its abbreviation “SEO,” as it’s an essential part of your dental office marketing. Patients won’t drive too far to visit their dentist, so local SEO should be your central focus to find patients near you.
It takes time and dedication to create an ongoing SEO strategy that grows year after year, especially since Google constantly re-evaluates pages and prioritizes different factors.
If your dental office is too busy supporting patients, it may be a good option to outsource your website’s SEO. Dental office marketing services like ProSites Dental SEO Services will create pages that focus on the best keywords for your practice and include all the technical minutiae that will help you to rank. Our SEO clients see over 300% ROI on average.
However, if you’re up for doing it yourself, we’ve got you covered there as well. Check out our complete guide to dental website SEO.
Below are some of the most important dental SEO Tips from the guide to get you thinking about what you’d need to make build a successful in house dental SEO program:
- Within your website copy use phrases that prospective patients would use to find your services. For each service you offer, like family dentistry, teeth cleaning, root canals, create custom content and focus it around your location.
- Ensure your dental website is responsive (i.e., automatically scales to the device used). This is also a key element of a “mobile friendly” website mentioned previously in this article.
- Confirm your business contact information (name, address, phone #) is correct across all business directories. Use Moz to check how your business info looks across the web.
- Obtain quality backlinks. Links should come from relevant websites both in terms of both location and topic.
Local Dental Marketing
Generally speaking, local marketing is often a subset of Dental SEO, but in reality, for dentists, it’s THE SEO marketing. You shouldn’t tend to SEO without considering the local aspects (some of which are listed above) like:
- Localize pages on your site.
- Filling out your GMB (Google My Business) profile
- Unify NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) information across the web
See the Ultimate Dental SEO Guide for more specifics.
Start with PPC Advertising for Dentists
SEO is a solid & proven process that often takes months before any measurable results are seen. While you are working on your SEO, for quicker returns try dental PPC.
PPC or Pay-Per-Click advertising gives you the opportunity to buy ads on major search engines, news sites or social networks and get more immediate traffic.
PPC, like SEO, is ever changing. New technology comes along and redefines how advertisers can get in front of their target audience, so it’s best if you work with someone who keeps up with all those changes as well as someone who’s successfully used paid ads to drive traffic to dental offices.
Since we run paid ads day in and out for thousands of dentists, we’ll give you a few of our best tips below to help you get your feet wet if you’d like to try it on your own.
For a more in-depth training, please visit our PPC for Dentists guide.
How do I get the most out of my PPC advertising?
- Relevance – Keywords you bid on should be closely related to your dental services. The more targeted the keywords, the better chances you have to increase your PPC click-through rate.
- Specificity – Your keyword search should be exhaustive. It should not only include popular and frequently searched terms, but long-tail keywords that are more specific and less common. These account for the majority of search traffic. Long-tail keywords are less competitive and therefore may have a lower cost-per-click, but also often display a greater intent or need.
- Adaptability – Keyword lists need to continually evolve, expand and adapt to drive the most qualified traffic to your landing pages every week. Always analyze the performance of your PPC accounts and make adjustments as necessary.
- Analysis – Your PPC ads will lead traffic to your site. Make sure your landing pages are up to the task. They should have clear hierarchies and clear calls-to-action. The call-to-action on each page should be modified regularly to align with your PPC ads. Your PPC ads should direct click-throughs to different landing pages to allow for a more comprehensive analysis of the success of your campaign.
Again, to dive deeper into what it takes to succeed with your dental Google Ads, please visit PPC for Dentists.
Give Dental Marketing Postcards a Try
Direct mail is sometimes thought of as a thing of the past, but it’s still thriving in the dental marketing industry. The ability to reach people in your neighborhood for the cost of a card and a stamp is an impactful way to fill your appointment book. Here are some best practices for conducting your direct mail campaigns:
- Send your patients a thank you postcard – Stay top-of-mind and leave a lasting impression by letting patients know they are appreciated!
- Use precise geotargeting: People aren’t going to travel for more than 30 minutes to see their dentists, so ensure you’re reaching out to the zip codes immediately surrounding your practice.
- Include some sort of offer or promotion. If the people you’re reaching out to already have a dentist, you need to give them a compelling reason to switch.
- Include your full contact information, including phone number, email, address, and social media handles. You want to make it easy for prospects to connect with you!
- If you provide the ability to book appointments online, mention this on the mailer and provide a link to the direct URL where they can book their visit.
- In order to track conversions and understand your return on investment, consider directing them to a unique landing page that includes the ability to book appointments.
- If you’re sending it out in an envelope, use a hand-attached stamp rather than a pre-printed one. This looks like a real person prepared the letter and increases open rates.
- Don’t send it out to your existing clients, as it can spark confusion and frustration. You can easily do a V-lookup on Excel to remove existing clients from your list.
Highlight Dental Patient Reviews
Given that dental practices rely largely on word-of-mouth, it’s essential to collect reviews and provide what marketers call “social proof” on your dental website. When prospects see reviews on your site, they recognize you as a trusted authority in the neighborhood.
We’ve included a few basics & best practices below to maximize your dental review process. Make sure to also check out the following articles when you’re ready to dive deeper into the benefits of online reviews, how to get more and how to manage them when they start rolling in (both good & bad):
Choosing Which Review Sites to Focus On
When choosing which review websites to focus your efforts on, we recommend evaluating your competition. If they have the most reviews on Yelp, send your patients there to submit reviews for your practice. Once you have a comfortable number of reviews on the first site, you can direct patients to another platform. By switching between all three reviews platforms, potential patients can read about your great customer service wherever they look!
Create review pages on Google, Yelp, Facebook, and Dental Directories
Confirm your practice’s identity on various directories online such as Google Maps, Google My Business, and Yelp.
It doesn’t take much time (15 minutes per directory) but can have an amazing positive impact on your practice’s visibility. Plus, verifying your listing provides you with access to a dashboard that allows you to edit your information such as your practice name, address, and phone number which are critical components in ranking within the Google snack pack.
Verifying your listing also allows you to respond to reviews, list business hours, let’s prospective patients call you directly from search results, and provides driving directions through GPS.
Yelp for Dentists
With 102 million monthly visitors and over 39 million reviews, it’s no wonder Yelp is one of the leading sources of new patient referrals. And, each referral Yelp generates adds significant revenue to your practice over the course of one year.
According to a recent study conducted by The Boston Consulting Group, Yelp generates, on average, $8,000 annually for businesses that have optimized their free account.
Additionally, if implementing Yelp’s paid advertising with an annual budget of $4,500, the same study demonstrated that health and medical services bring in an average of $20,000 in increased revenue annually.
Because claiming and optimizing your free Yelp profile has proven, positive impacts, we highly recommend you get started. Create your free account at http://biz.yelp.com and follow the simple prompts to complete your listing, and don’t forget to include a link to your website.
Here are some tips to keep in mind that can help increase your exposure on Yelp:
- Make your profile complete – Filling out your profile thoughtfully and thoroughly will give patients a better understanding of your services and will let them immediately know whether you can meet their needs.
- Advertise your profile – Ask patients to submit a review on Yelp, or keep a sign displayed on your reception desk, mentioning your practice profile on Yelp. Having a positive online reputation can help you stand out as a reputable provider.
- Monitor your profile – Regularly check your profile for new reviews, and be sure to respond with a “thank you” to those who leave a positive comment about your practice. Should you stumble upon a negative review of your services, respectfully respond to the review and try to resolve the problem. Showing concern for your existing patients’ experiences will let prospects know that you care about their satisfaction.
- Offer exciting discounts – Yelp sends out weekly emails to local users, notifying them of nearby deals. By advertising discounts on Yelp, you can be featured in the emails that Yelp sends to nearby prospects, helping you reach a local, targeted audience.
- Share with prospective patients – Similar to Twitter, Yelp allows you to post 140-character status updates. Use these updates to inform prospects of events you’re attending, sponsoring, or hosting to give them an opportunity to attend the event and learn more about your services.
- Link your Facebook and Twitter profiles – When prospects use review sites, such as Yelp, to research your services, they will likely search online to discover everything they can find about your practice. Make it easy and convenient for them to find more information by supplying links to your social networks directly within Yelp.
Google My Business (GMB)
If you’re not familiar, Google My Business (GMB) is a free tool that helps local businesses, such as your dental practice, appear when customers search for your practice or practices like yours on Google search. On your GMB page, you can add pertinent information so potential patients can learn more about your practice. These include: a link to your website, hours of operation, address, phone number, photos, and more.
GMB results are then displayed in the Snack Pack which we explain in more detail below. Because GMB is free, you never pay for a higher placement within the snack pack. Your ranking is based on a complex system that values the merit of your website while considering your location, the search terms used, and services or products offered.
If you’re in an urban or suburban area, it may be tough to get your practice noticed at the top of this list. That’s why we’ve outlined a few key steps below to help you work toward getting featured within the first-page of GMB listings.
The “Snack Pack”
The Google snack pack references the Google map listings that appear directly under pay-per-click (PPC) ads. These are displayed right above organic listings, making it prime real estate at the top of search results.
Though usually only the first three results are shown, many searchers will click “More Places” to get a comprehensive view of results, giving you higher visibility on Google through a popular portal with high traffic. Having an established business listing with GMB also helps add credibility to your site which translates into higher rankings.
How to Claim your Google My Business Listing
First, you must have a Google Account for your practice. Once you have that set up, go to Google My Business where you’ll be walked through the process of setting up an account.
When setting up your GMB account, make sure the business name and address listed are consistent across your website, GMB listing, and all other online marketing platforms. This consistency adds credibility to your site and helps Google identify your practice. Having this information consistent will directly translate to higher rankings in search engine results.
In the final step, GMB will mail a verification code to your claimed practice address. Once you receive the code and enter it, you will have access to your dashboard. If you are having trouble entering your Google My Business verification code, follow these 3 easy steps from Google.
Google My Business Features: Product Collections and Booking
GMB offers two additional features that can be utilized to further improve your listing, online presence, and overall experience for visitors on your GMB page.
Product collections: This feature helps you further showcase and draw attention to the services you offer. Through the products tab in the GMB dashboard, your practice can add information about its various services (e.g. deep cleanings, teeth whitening, dental implants, etc.). This way, viewers can get a quick, at-a-glance overview of your services before arriving at your website to learn more.
Booking feature: For practices that use software supported by Google’s booking feature, patients will now be able to schedule an appointment directly from your GMB page. This feature does require that you have an account with one of Google’s scheduling providers, but it further simplifies the process of patients making an appointment with your practice.
Read more about the new features in this blog about optimizing your GMB profile.
Increase Dental Patient Reviews
With 72% of consumers saying they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, it’s more important than ever to take an active role in your online dental reviews.
While the simplest way to increase online reviews for your dental office is to ask, when, where and how you do it can make a big difference in your results.
Whether you ask face to face as they leave the office, shoot them a text or email or send out a mailer, the most important thing to remember is that nothing can take the place of kindness, good communication & good business practices, in short delighting your existing customers.
Delight Your Existing Clients
As any marketing expert will tell you, it’s more expensive to recruit a new client than to retain an old one. That’s why delighting your current patients should be an integral part of your dental marketing plan!
While your greatest asset will lie in a friendly office and excellent customer service, there are other excellent ways to delight your existing clients. Here are some tips:
- Have an automated reminder system that sends notifications about upcoming appointments
- Consider implementing online forms so patients don’t have to complete paperwork before each appointment
- Quickly respond to Facebook messages, emails, and phone calls to your office
- Provide dental resources to help patients care for their teeth between visits
- Post on social media at least five times a week to boost engagement
- Give out branded swag…bonus points for unique offerings typical dentists won’t have!
- Share personable messages, staff photos, and events on Facebook to build community
- Volunteer with local organizations and schools and highlight this on your website
- Establish a referral program – Like reviews, a referral program taps into the market you’ve already developed: your devoted patients. When a friend or family member mentions their search for a new dentist, you want your patients to eagerly recommend your practice. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is to offer some sort of referral program by providing a discount, gift card, or other incentive for every new patient referred to your practice. In addition to mentioning this program to your patients, you can include it on your business cards, website, and emails to keep the program top-of-mind after every appointment!
- Send your patients a thank you post card – Stay top-of-mind and leave a lasting impression by letting patients know they are appreciated!
- Automate your cosmetic leads – Patients who need a series of treatments can quickly fill your appointment book, so cosmetic leads are an excellent demographic to target in your dental marketing strategy. However, patients who need extensive cosmetic work can be understandably nervous to get started. An easy way to start the conversation with potential patients is to offer a virtual consultation right from your website. Patients will be able to select between emergency and cosmetic consultations, then submit a series of photos and comments on their problem. You’ll be able to evaluate their case, come up with a treatment plan, and respond right from your dashboard.
Assuming you’re doing work worthy of good reviews, go here for ideas on getting more dental reviews.
Video Marketing for Dentists
If your dental practice faces a lot of competition, it’s essential to find ways of standing out from the crowd. Video marketing for dentists gives you the opportunity to show up first on Google search results, appear on YouTube, and make potential patients feel welcomed and supported.
Here are some of the benefits of incorporating video in your dental marketing strategy with Prosites:
- Our video marketing team comes to your practice to capture footage of your location and staff
- Google often places videos ahead of organic results, so you can rank above your competition
- You’ll likely be one of the first dentists in your area to market on YouTube
- Nervous patients will feel more comfortable after seeing a video introduction
- Showcase your friendly staff and gorgeous dental office
- Create video testimonials from your long-time patients to build your local reputation
- ProSites provides constant reporting and metrics so you can track engagement and leads
Dental Email Marketing
Your practice can utilize email marketing to send out appointment reminders, ask for online reviews, and so much more. Consider adding a monthly email newsletter filled with tips, office updates, and information on new procedures or technology you are offering. These regular newsletters help to ensure you stay top-of-mind with your patients.
Bad Dental Marketing Practices
We all know the story; a doctor develops a cure for cancer, but a deadly side effect of the treatment causes the brain to function at its more primitive level, the heart stops, and the patient develops a taste for humans. Next thing you know, the protagonist is flash-mobbing in a graveyard alongside zombies!
Like the doctor attempting to make the world a better place by eliminating cancer, you may find yourself wanting to improve your marketing by bringing back some classic marketing methods. However, you may find those strategies are only a husk of their former selves.
Avoid having your marketing strategy eaten alive by these scary tactics:
Advertising in YellowPages
Ask anyone born before 1995 what YellowPages are and they’ll probably point you to Google. Truth is, YellowPages aren’t being seen by many.
Instead, maximize visibility among potential patients with search engine optimization (SEO) best practices. SEO helps your website get found higher on search results when potential patients search for the services that you offer. The higher you rank, the more likely a visitor will find your website and click your name to see what your practice is about.
TV Advertising
While traditional marketing still has its perks, TV advertising is expensive, difficult to measure, and likely won’t be seen by your target audience.
Instead of wasting precious advertising dollars on ad space that potential patients likely will not see (or simply tune out), consider pay-per-click advertising; a digital marketing method that allows you to target specific audiences in various locations, set your own budget, and only pay when someone clicks your ad.
Make sure your PPC campaigns direct visitors to a special landing page about your practice and its services for optimal performance and ROI.
Newspaper Ads
The world is long past the point where people pick up a physical newspaper to get information. Instead of searching through ads, prospective patients rely on their social networks for recommendations because they know they’ll be able to pull from a broad audience they trust.
That’s why it’s crucial for you to create and maintain an online social media presence by updating your profiles and collecting reviews that give prospective patients an inside look at your practice.
Additionally, you can incentivize your existing patients with a referral program so they’re more likely to recommend you the next time their Facebook friend reaches out.
Being Too Informal on Social Media
There’s a delicate balance of showing your personality and being transparent on social media while maintaining a level of professionalism. Create posts that resonate and engage with your patients in a conversational manner, but steer clear of rants, profanity, and anything that is overly opinionated.
Having a Non-responsive Website
In today’s digital world, having a website that isn’t mobile-friendly is just as scary (and painful to patients) as getting a cavity filled sans Novocain. Most of your website visitors are likely checking it out on their smartphone – so make sure your website loads quickly, has enlarged text, simplified navigation, and thumb-friendly buttons. Otherwise, 8 in 10 people will stop engaging with content on your website.
Too Frequent Appointment Reminders
While patients do want and need appointment reminders – there’s a fine line between being helpful vs. irritating. It’s important to reach patients in the right way at the right time – in the ways that they prefer.
Look for a patient communications solution that helps you reach 100% of patients with timely and automated reminders including dental appointment reminder texts, emails and phone calls.
You Don’t Have Any Reviews
This simply screams red flag. Today, 91% of people regularly read online reviews and as much as 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation.
If there’s little to nothing about your practice from other patients – it leaves potential patients quieting wondering “why?”
To combat this fear – ask happy patients to leave reviews on your Facebook, Yelp, Website, and/or Google My Business pages to put your best foot forward. Make sure to respond to all comments with gratitude to show patients and viewers you care!
You Try to DIY to Save Money with Little to No Experience
While it may sound like a good idea in theory, sometimes leaving it to the professionals in the space may deliver a greater return on investment for your practice than attempting to do it yourself.
For example, running a pay-per-click campaign for your dental practice could be an extremely profitable strategy for your practice – when you know what you’re doing. There’s also the risk of overspending – or not using your budget wisely.
Do your research before investing too much time or money into an effort on your own that you’re not familiar with. In the ever-changing world of Internet technology, it may behoove your practice to stick with an online marketing company.
Building your practice requires ongoing testing, support, and dental marketing expertise. If you decide you want a dedicated dental marketing team to help attract new patients, reach out to ProSites today!
