All businesses need clients in order to have something to smile about. And that’s why you need the best dental marketing strategies for yours.
One great thing that you have going for you is that there is always a need for dental services, regardless of location.
The demand will always be there. Now the trick is in attracting potential patients and making sure they choose you over the competition.
A dental practice is usually considered successful if it is attracting as many as 50 patients per month.
So if that’s your goal, how do you go about getting to that figure and perhaps even beyond that?
Like we said above, you need a few sound dental marketing strategies, that’s what!
First, people need to know about your dental practice. If they are looking for solutions to their dental issues, then they need to know about YOU.
Once potential customers learn that your practice exists, expect a boost in business.
Then, they need to understand what makes you different and better than the competition. That’s where our dental marketing strategies come into play.
So let’s take a look at the following 10 dental marketing strategies that have been proven to work.
Pick one or even several that you believe can help your own practice thrive and attract more clients than ever before.
10 Dental Marketing Strategies That Work to Attract New Patients
1. Who’s Your Audience?
You need to know your audience. This is the very first step in creating successful dental marketing strategies.
You need to identify your audience in order to target them properly.
Are you aiming to be more of a family dentist that offers affordable products and services?
Or do you want to be more of a high-end dentist that caters to a higher-paying clientele?
You need to decide from the start so that you can plan your dental marketing strategies accordingly.
While you can serve different types of clients in the long run, it is wise to hone in on a specific audience when you are initially…
…building out your dental marketing strategies.
A good example of learning your audience is keeping in mind that women actually make up more than 90% of every dental buying decision that’s made.
So if you’re targeting families, this information tells you to address your marketing efforts towards moms!
That’s huge and shows just how much power a specific segment of your audience can have.
But again, this is just one example of understanding your audience.
To really be accurate in identifying your specific audience, you need to do a bit of research and careful thinking.
Identifying your target market is a crucial step in building your dental marketing strategies.
It tells you who to target and guides your approach in how to market to them.
2. Know Your Competition
Just as important as knowing your audience is knowing your competition. Learning about your audience means knowing how to target them properly.
On the other hand, knowing your competition is about understanding which practices & what offers your audience is choosing between.
If you know what other dental practices offer, then you can react accordingly by creating your own unique offers.
One strategy is to improve on what they are already offering. Another is to introduce something that is entirely new to the market.
Either way, you will need to learn how to one-up the competition.
You may have to beat them at their own game to do it. Consider using these strategies:
- How do they advertise their services and products? If they’re offering discounts, then you can perhaps offer a better deal or a better value.
- Do they accept walk-in patients or only by appointment? You can offer both plus weekend services by appointment.
- Google is of course a great way to research on the competition. Use it to your advantage by looking at what they offer.
- You can also look at the reviews they receive to see what your shared target market does and does not like about their practice!
- You can also hire a digital marketing company to complete a competitor analysis for you.
Your mindset should be that you have to learn all you can about your competitors in creating your dental marketing strategies.
3. You Can’t Beat a Strong Offer
Who can resist a strong offer? Not that many, if you do it correctly.
A strong offer will get your business noticed and help drive people to your practice.
Whether you’re targeting a low, mid or high income audience, everyone budgets.
Everyone loves to cut costs on necessities where they can without cutting quality. Show them that your practice can help them do that.
You can tailor your offers to the audience niche based on the research you’ve already done in steps 1 and 2.
There are several ways to implement this. Look at the following offers as examples:
- Discount package for families of four or more that book an appointment for a cleaning or any type of service you might want to include.
- Mover’s special offer that is sent to people and especially families that have just moved into the area.
- Offer free cleaning to every medical dental service appointment made.
Be careful in choosing what kind of offer you are going to make. Offers are not effective if they are not appealing to the person you’re giving the offer to.
For example, it doesn’t matter how many times you go back and cut prices on a family discount your practice is running if your…
…target audience is mostly single men.
Make your offers smart and strategic to create effective dental marketing strategies.
4. Personalized Content
Let’s talk some dental industry numbers. Keep in mind, numbers don’t lie so you can base your dental marketing strategies off them.
Did you know that more than 50% of potential dental patients go online if they want to find a new dental care service provider?
That’s a significant number! Another significance of that figure is that it proves that most people rely on the Internet for information and services.
Here is another one:
About 47 % of those same potential new patients would like to first read as many as 5 online reviews before they choose a dental care provider.
Now this shows that people trust what other people who have gone through something similar have to say.
This calls for more personalized content that targets those potential clients to move them through the sales funnel.
To use that content to build trust between your company + potential clients, you can:
- Target names, emails, phone numbers that are found in your database.
- The next step is to offer prospects access to exclusive or in-depth content to get more information.
- Add value to the visitor’s experience by making sure that the problems or pain points of those potential clients are solved.
So content is king. Always keep in mind that it is one of the most powerful dental marketing strategies you can use.
5. Better Branding and Value
With all of the information from the research you’ve done in your hands, it’s time to build your brand.
You need to build upon it to come up with better branding than what you started with.
Better branding means that your brand is capable of filling a need that no one else is capable of doing.
This helps give you a bit of an edge, however slight, over your competitors. And it all leads to an overall better value as well.
Better branding also means people recognizing your logo & business and associating it with that value.
The value proposition is pushed to a high level and that’s what you want to see.
As an example, let’s say you’re offering affordable packages for families. The value proposition there is to include family discounts and more.
Discounts and affordable prices are not the only things that qualify as value proposition though.
Top quality procedures that use the latest in dental technology can also be included.
In the end, the improved brand and value is more than a welcome addition to your dental marketing strategies.
6. Feature-Benefit Selling Works
Feature-benefit selling works hand in hand with your value proposition, especially when you’re creating content for it.
This is a technique where the seller is going to tie every feature with a benefit that consumers believe is desirable.
A good example is that of a dental practice offering the latest dental implant procedures.
The value proposition there is the latest technology that few or no one else is offering at the moment.
The benefit that people can take advantage of is the procedure giving them quality results at an affordable cost.
This is one of the dental marketing strategies that plays upon step 1 learning your audience.
If you know what their goals and pain points are, you can build upon them to make your practice more valuable than your competitors.
7. Keywords Are Key
Choosing the right keywords matter, even for your dental marketing strategies.
What are keywords you ask?
Keywords are words that people search into Google, and your practice can either pay to rank for them (with PPC) or…
…organically rank for them (with SEO).
When we say “rank” we mean show up in the top list of results when someone searches that keyword on Google.
Remember when we said more than 50% of potential dental patients go online if they want to find a new dental care service provider?
This is where that becomes important again.
You want to make sure your website is showing up as one of the top Google results when people search “family dentist near me” etc.
If you’re paying to rank for keywords with PPC, you’ll want to make sure you’re spending your money wisely.
You don’t want to rank for keywords that aren’t relevant.
For instance, if you only service Atlanta, Georgia, make sure you’re not paying Google to show up when someone in Texas searches “dentist near me.”
An experienced digital marketing agency can also help you do keyword research.
Build a solid keyword strategy, and optimize your keywords regularly to make sure your practice is getting the most bang for your buck.
Social media has become such a powerful marketing tool for all industries these days, including for dentists!
Over 40% of people say they actually rely on the information they find on social media before making a decision regarding their dentist.
The same goes for 22% of parents regarding finding a dentist for their child!
This tells us you definitely want to include social media in your dental marketing strategies.
Some points to ponder for your social media marketing plan:
-
Patients expect consistent messaging and meaningful cooperation across all of your marketing platforms, including social media.
-
The content on your social media needs to give value to the reader to keep them engaged and following you.
-
Facebook continues on its run as the top social media network on the planet.
It has more than 2 billion people using it every month, so you’ll want to make sure your practice has an established Facebook business page!
Social media should help depict your practice in a professional yet personable light that helps push potential customer into closed customers.
9. Build a Professional, Mobile Friendly Website
Did you know that there’s a 70% chance that your first interaction with a patient will be on your website?
That’s how important a website is in this day and age.
It’s like your gateway for revenue. And that’s exactly why you need to make sure you’ll have a great first impression.
And align with this, you shouldn’t also forget optimizing your website for mobile usage.
All of the other dental marketing strategies and platforms that we’ve talked about so far have been great.
But in the rush to prioritize them, one must not forget the importance of mobile marketing.
Again, it would be helpful to look at the facts. More than half of smartphone users browsed about healthcare-related topics on their phones.
The potential for reaching more clients is certainly very great through mobile marketing!
So your next move should be to make sure that your website is optimized for mobile, in order for mobile users to have a great experience.
A great user experience is what’s going to convince people to come back.
If your website looks outdated or isn’t compatible on their smartphones, you’re going to lose them to the competition.
Here are important points to consider:
- Google has a free online tool to help assess just how mobile-friendly your dental practice website is.
- Ensure that your website is mobile-friendly in which both the content and markup is the same across mobile and desktop.
10. Videos Almost Always Outperform Static Images
Video is the future!
Video content marketing is probably one of the best ways available to connect with your potential customers.
It has a wider reach than all of the other types of content.
This year, 2019, it is expected that more than 80% of all of online traffic is going to be made up of video content.
That number alone should be more than enough to convince you to add this to your list of dental marketing strategies.
So how do you take advantage of that?
- Videos need to be kept in line with your brand’s voice and strategy.
- Test and experiment with various subject matter and length of your videos.
- Add video to your content and website offers to help boost SEO.
- Try to make videos that are memorable. without losing sight of what your brand is all about.
- Look at how much video content you use at present. If it seems lacking, then produce and upload more.
Conclusion
Looking at any of these dental marketing strategies shows that there are many tools you can utilize to be successful.
Use any or all of these dental marketing strategies properly and you’ll have just as much reason as your patients to flash those pearly whites more often!