85% of Americans understand that their oral health is very important to their overall health. Unfortunately, 42% don’t get to the dentist as often as they wish they could.
These statistics are good to know if you’re a dentist because it’s not that patients don’t want to make an appointment. And that’s half the battle.
But that doesn’t mean you don’t need to invest in dental office marketing. Especially since in 2015, there were 195,722 dentists in the US. Depending on where you’re located, you may have some stiff competition.
Dentist marketing doesn’t have to be difficult. Nor does it have to break your budget.
Keep reading to learn a few ways to improve your dental advertising efforts.
Start Your Dental Office Marketing by Focusing on Your Current Patients
Dental patient marketing should always begin with your current patients. People get busy and often ignore or forget to take proper care of themselves.
One quick and easy way to ensure your current patients keep coming back is to send them reminders. And with today’s technology, it’s easier than ever.
You can send them a postcard, call them on the phone or even invest in an automated system that sends out an email or text when it comes time for a patient to come in for their annual, semi-annual or quarterly cleaning.
Claim and Update Your Google Business Listing
This is one of the easiest dental office marketing ideas to implement. And it’s free.
If you haven’t already, go ahead and claim your Google Business Listing. Make sure you fill it out properly. You should include the following information:
- Description of business
- Hours of operation
- Address/service area
- Main phone number
- Business categories
- Review section
Go one step further and add photographs as well.
Additional Information to Consider Adding
Pictures of you, your staff, and your building will help potential customers feel comfortable taking the next step.
You can also even add events and your latest blog article to your Google Business Listing to help direct more traffic to you.
Hire an Expert to Design Your Site
Do yourself and your practice a favor by hiring a web design expert to design and build your site. They can build a site that looks professional, is mobile-ready, and also contains SEO for dentists (search engine optimization).
Also, what you don’t know can hurt you. Search engines such as Google penalize sites for things like broken links, overstuffing keywords, and missing sitemap data. Most dentists have no idea what these things are, let alone how to fix them.
Make It Easy for Your Patients
You’ll save time if you put certain pieces of information on your website. There are many things patients can do online without having to call up your office these days such as:
- Scheduling appointments
- Paying bills
- Renewing prescriptions
- Learn about financing options
You should also build a profile for each dentist and each member of your team. This will help people feel though they know all of you even before they’ve scheduled their first appointment.
Get Involved Locally
Dental advertising doesn’t have to be online. And some of it should be personal.
Take time to get out and meet the people in your community. This will give those who are wary of dentists a way to get to know you outside of the office and you can begin to build trust with them.
You can easily do this by sponsoring a team, giving to charity or teaching a local class. Word-of-mouth marketing is still highly effective.
Create a Social Media Profile
Another way to spread your dental practice marketing further is to create a social media profile. Choose which sites your target market is most likely to spend time on.
Create a profile that is on-brand with the rest of your marketing tools such as your website. Then start connecting with people on social media.
Share tips, photos, and videos to help entertain, inform, and educate your patients. Answer their questions and join online community forums.
Write a Blog
Dental patient marketing should be done with the patient in mind. And most patients don’t know a lot about dentistry.
And what they don’t know could frighten them enough to not make an appointment, even when they should. You can prevent that from happening by writing a blog that provides the vital information they need to know about.
Educate Your Patients to Build Up Trust
Share tips on how to properly care for teeth. Write a blog that shares information on what a dental emergency is.
The more educated your patients are, the more likely it is that they will like, trust, and schedule appointments with you. Also, use keywords to help search engines find you more easily.
Get Reviews and Testimonials
91% of people between the ages of 18-34 trust online reviews as much as they do a personal recommendation. And the more information you have written about your practice online, the more search engines are likely to push your website to the top of search engine results.
Testimonials on your website can help patients feel more comfortable. But reviews off your site are even more important because they’re more trustworthy.
And all you have to do to get them is to ask. Have your team ask your patients to write a referral on Google, other search engines or on social media sites. You can also place a sign in your office asking them to kindly post a review.
How to Handle Negative Reviews
If you do receive a negative review, do not just let it go. Instead, wait until you are feeling calm and then respond to the person who left the review.
Do not shame or blame. You should express concern and find a way to resolve it.
Other patients are looking for you to take responsibility and make improvements, if necessary. While you might get a bad review for unreasonable reasons, you should at least address them saying you hear what they are saying and are sorry they felt they had a negative experience.
Get and Use the Right Templates
One way to make the most out of dental office marketing is to use templates and forms to make it easier for your patients. Visit our site to see which forms are best for your practice.
