In today’s competitive healthcare landscape, dental practices like yours must leverage diverse marketing channels to gain the attention of larger audiences, attract new patients, retain current ones, and ultimately grow their patient base.
It can be difficult to increase the number of patients your practice sees, especially in the early years, without effective marketing solutions.
In order to grow, it’s critical to formulate a marketing plan that reaches the right audience and compels potential patients to become returning patients.
Here are some of the more essential marketing channels and strategies every dental practice owner should incorporate to unlock their growth potential:
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Optimizing your website for search engines ensures prospective patients find your practice when searching for dental services online.
Effective SEO includes:
Local SEO That Targets Your City or Region
Nearly 99% of your patients will be local, so it’s vital to target local users online through your SEO efforts. By optimizing for local search, you ensure your practice appears prominently when potential patients search terms like “dentist near me” or “best dentist in [your city].”
Effective local SEO strategies include:
- Creating and maintaining a Google Business Profile with accurate and consistent practice information.
- Listing your practice in relevant online directories and ensuring information consistency.
- Using localized keywords within your website content, meta descriptions, titles, and headers.
- Encouraging and actively managing patient reviews on platforms such as Google and Yelp.
Keyword-Optimized Content Creation
When people search for a new dental practice in their area, they are likely searching for “dentist near me” or “best dental practice in [city].” Your web content must incorporate the keywords that you know your audience would likely use to find a practice like yours.
You’ll want to perform keyword research and strategically craft your copy to incorporate those keywords effectively into your on-page content.
2. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
Platforms like Google Ads help drive immediate traffic. Through Google Ads, you can maximize visibility and appointments by targeting specific keywords related to the dental services you perform and the services people are most likely searching for.
Examples of PPC advertising include:
- Search Ads: Paid advertisements that appear at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) on Google, Bing, and others.
- Display Ads: Banner ads that appear on websites that are a part of the Google Display Network or Microsoft Display Network.
- Remarketing Ads: Ads that appear in front of users who visit your website but do not reach out via phone call, form submission, or other trackable form of communication.
- Video Ads: Commercial ads that appear before, during, or after a video, most commonly on YouTube videos.
- Social Media Ads: Ads that appear on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
3. Social Media Marketing
It’s rare to meet someone who is not active on at least one social platform. Your audience is on social media, so focusing on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn can help build your practice’s community and engage potential patients.
When it comes to social media marketing, specifically page management, it’s essential to maintain a healthy balance of “business” posts and more “human” posts. While it’s beneficial to upload posts that talk about the importance of dental hygiene, it’s also beneficial to post about the team behind the scenes—the dentist(s), dental hygienist(s), office manager(s), and everyone else involved in making your practice tick. Give your team members a shoutout every now and then through birthday celebrations, work anniversaries, personal achievements, and more. You can also use this space to share patient reviews and testimonials.
4. Email Marketing
When you maintain regular communication with your audience, you’re ensuring several things:
- Your practice remains front of mind for your patients.
- Your patients remain informed about your services and capabilities.
- Your audience is aware of any promotions or specials you may be offering.
- Your name will come to patients’ minds should they have the opportunity to suggest a local practice to a friend, family member, or acquaintance.
Regular newsletters emailed monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, or however frequently help keep your current patient base engaged, informed, and reminded of their appointments. In addition to services and offers, you can also use emails to provide educational content.
5. Blogging
Maintaining a regularly updated blog is a fantastic way to build your SEO and gain traction on Google or Bing. On the surface, blog articles are designed to share information about the topics at hand with your visitors. But more valuable than that, blog articles boost your likelihood of being seen in relevant searches users are conducting to find dental practices like yours.
Your blogs should feature high-quality, well-written content that is relevant to the topic, rich in topic-related keywords, and designed to boost your E-E-A-T signals, or the signals that point to your experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
Google greatly values websites with high E-E-A-T signals because such signals tell Google that the content is reliable, trustworthy, and useful. If it presents a website with quality E-E-A-T signals to a user, chances are that the user will be satisfied with the results they receive and thus satisfied with their experience on Google. In fact, E-E-A-T signals play a significant role in whether your content is used as a source for the AI Overview (AIO), which is becoming increasingly important as the AIO continues to change the way users interact with Google and organic results.
6. Online Reviews and Reputation Management
People rely heavily on reviews left by others who have experienced your practice. After all, word-of-mouth marketing is still one of the most effective forms of marketing out there. When you gather positive patient reviews, whether they come from Google, Yelp, Healthgrades, Facebook, or any other platform or directory, it can significantly impact how prospective patients feel about giving your practice a try. Positive reviews are likely to put potential patients at ease and encourage them to schedule an appointment. Actively encourage your current patient base to leave a review on Google, Facebook, or any other platform.
Handling Negative Reviews
Should you receive a negative review, how you handle it can also influence audiences positively or negatively. It’s essential to respond to all reviews, both positive and negative. However, your response to a negative review tends to carry more weight than your response to a positive one.
Receiving a negative review can feel awful, but it’s not the end of the world, and it can even be used to your advantage. Responding politely, empathetically, and with a solution, even if it’s an implied one, shows others that you listen and are willing to work out a resolution.
Here’s an example of what we mean: let’s say someone leaves a review that states, “This practice is terrible. The office manager is rude, and the dentist doesn’t listen.” It’s crucial to provide a graceful and solution-focused response as soon as possible—something like, “We are sorry to hear you had a negative experience with our practice. It’s our goal to ensure every patient feels welcome, heard, and respected throughout their appointment. Will you please reach out to email@email with more details about your visit?”
This response shows the reviewer and other users that you acknowledge their review, operate with the intention for everyone to have a positive experience, and want to understand more about this particular instance to reach a resolution. Together, this kind of response can encourage prospective patients to turn to you because it’s clear that you care.
7. Video Marketing
Video marketing is one of the most engaging forms of marketing, especially on social media. In fact, take a look at some of these stats:
- 91% of average consumers have watched explainer videos on either social media or a website to learn about a product or service.
- 87% of consumers report having purchased a product after watching a demo video.
- Collectively, 50% of users’ time on Facebook is spent watching video content.
- Instagram reels engage users 22% more than standard videos uploaded as posts.
The benefits of incorporating video marketing into the overall strategy for your dental practice are massive, as highly engaging videos can:
- Demystify procedures
- Help with patient education
- Showcase patient testimonials
- Introduce your practice team
It’s all about attracting new patients and keeping the ones you currently have, right? Let video marketing help you achieve both goals. Platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are excellent avenues to reach current and broader audiences.
8. Direct Mail Marketing
Sending targeted flyers, postcards, or brochures to households in your service area is still highly effective at capturing the attention of potential patients.
Direct mail marketing can often help enhance brand recall and name recognition, particularly when combined with digital strategies that target the same audience. The more exposed people are to your practice’s name and logo, the more likely they are to recall it when they need a new dentist in the area or need to suggest a dental practice to a friend or family member.
Direct mail doesn’t have to be all about brand recognition, though. Using postcards or flyers, you can highlight special promotions, offer new patient discounts, or provide practice updates (i.e., introducing a new dentist or a new office location in the area).
9. Referral Programs
As we’ve mentioned before, word of mouth is still one of the most effective forms of marketing. People trust the people they know, and a genuine referral from a friend, family member, or acquaintance can mean a new patient for you.
Encourage satisfied patients to refer their friends and family to your practice. You can even offer incentives such as discounts, gift cards, or other rewards to help increase the number of referrals made.
10. Partnerships and Local Networking
Another way to get your name out into the community is to collaborate with other local businesses and community organizations in the area. Collaboration and networking help boost your visibility and credibility within your community. It also widens your circle of connections, which is always beneficial to nurture.
Sponsor local events, charities, or schools to build goodwill. In the process, you’ll have the opportunity to get your name out there and attract local patients.
You have a lot of marketing channel options to spread your message and attract new patients. Let M&R Marketing help you choose the most optimal path for your practice. 478-621-4491
From digital marketing solutions to traditional advertising services, the pros at M&R have the strategies you need to boost your brand and grow your dental practice.
Talk with one of our business development managers today and discover your most effective marketing strategy: 478-621-4491
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- Your Dental Marketing Matters: Here’s Why
- Brand Building: Set Your Dental Practice Apart From the Rest
- Marketing Metrics Your Dental Practice Should Track
- How M&R Marketing Has Served Dental Practices Like Yours
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