Dental Office Marketing Strategies

Good dental marketing starts with good word of mouth. Having a dedicated, well-trained staff will make all the difference in getting consistently good reviews and referrals. A clear-cut marketing strategy will help you utilize tools beyond just word of mouth to advertise and develop visibility to new, prospective patients. Using all of the tools listed in this marketing strategy will help give you an edge over your competition and take your office to the next level!

Your Practice’s Website

Start with a well-designed website. Your office website should have visitor appeal that targets your specific audience. The website should clearly list your address, hours of operation, and contact information.

Hiring a professional to design your website can help ensure you have the most optimized and responsive web design, making it easy to navigate and view on all devices. It is incredibly important to recognize consumer trends towards smartphones and tablets.

Having a website that is easily navigated on mobile devices can give you an edge over out-of-date competitor websites.

An engaging and informative website is a key first step in good marketing strategy and search engine optimization is the next step in helping make sure your prospective patients are seeing your website!

The Importance of Patient Reviews

Encouraging patients to leave reviews on review platforms like Yelp or Google is also a key step. Good reviews help instill trust and confidence to prospective patients and anyone that may be researching your office. Encourage all of your patients to leave reviews. Good verbal and written reviews can also be showcased on your website as positive testimonials from real patients.

Obtaining good, genuine reviews provides more than just good word of mouth, as well. Reviews are becoming more important to search engines as a ranking signal. Their value is tremendous and only ever increasing.

Offering referral incentives or bonus systems is also a great way to motivate staff and patients to tell others about your services. You can look at what other dental offices are offering to get an idea of what might work best for your office and your area.

By providing incentives such as service discounts or prizes, your existing patients will be more encouraged to tell their friends and family to take advantage of your special offer.

Social Media for Word-of-Mouth

Get on social media! Social Media Marketing is a relatively new but proven business strategy that will help extend your reach to gain more patients and website traffic. Social media marketing for dentists, specifically, can be extremely effective.

Posting engaging content regularly will help put your business and your message in front of prospective patients and engage with them online. You should make sure your office has a presence on all of the major social platforms and that it is both, optimized and active.

Don’t forget, these are also great platforms to build stronger relationships with your existing patients, run exclusive promotions, and share relevant news about your office and/or industry.

Stay current. Posting relevant news and breakthroughs about your industry show that you are proactive and moving with the times. Posting this kind of unique and trending content on your website and social media platforms will also help extend your reach as people will be more likely to read, “like,” and share it.

Off-site Optimization

Get listed! In the healthcare and dental industry, it is important to be listed on related directories. These directories are often the go-to for prospective patients looking for a new dentist in their area. It is important that you make these listings so that you are listed along with your competitors so that you are easy to find for people who may be new to your service area or are looking to compare such services. This is your opportunity to stand out from all the rest!

Pay-Per-Click Marketing

Pay-per-click advertisements. PPC is a part of search engine advertising, allowing you to bid for ad placements when someone searches a keyword in a set list of keywords related to your industry. Google Adwords is the most popular here and appears in Google’s search engine. Many people today use Google search as their starting point for obtaining information, having your ad placed with the appropriate search can potentially put your office front and center!

It is important to do your research. You should know what other offices are doing in your area to help make sure you stand out. You should also be researching your patients, to make sure you are hitting your target audience.

A Successful Dental Marketing Campaign

Network and be active in your community! Showing support in your community reflects well on your office and will help instill trust with community members. This is also a great way to build stronger relationships with your existing patients and can be great for sharing and engagement on your social media platforms.

Utilizing all of these tools will take you beyond simple word of mouth and extend your reach further than ever before! For more information, read our previous article in this series: How to Get New Patients for a Dental Practice, and also The Importance of Internet Marketing for Medical Professionals.