The dentist is not everyone’s favourite place. However, given the need for healthy teeth and oral hygiene, visiting the dentist is a must.
Dental practices need to do what they can to get patients to walk through the door and onto the chair to ensure your business runs successfully. That’s how good marketing plays an important role in the business. Here are the best marketing tips dental practices can implement.
5 Marketing Ideas for Dental Clinics
While patient retention is an important area to look into, that’s all dependant on your customer service skills and abilities as a dentist to address your client’s concerns. What we’re here to address is how to get new patients. Regardless, while many competitors will pop up in your area, here are the ways to stand out among the rest.
- Sponsoring Events in Your Community
Sponsoring or even connecting with local charities or initiatives in your community is a great way to expand your outreach as a dental practice. You can do this through banners. For example, if you’re sponsoring a local soccer team, they’ll display your dental practice banner in the stadiums and more. This ensures you have greater exposure. Additionally, it also builds your credibility.
When people see that you’re connected to a high-profile event, they’re more inclined to trust your business more. Consider creating banners and commercial ads with your phone number or something that stands out.
Most importantly, keep it local. More than likely, people who live in the surrounding area will be more inclined to visit your dental clinic than those who live farther away. As such, don’t waste your resources on big television ads – just focus on the local scale and you’ll see a greater return. - Use Business Texting to Connect with Patients
In 2021, technology and social media have helped businesses across the world get the exposure they need. Business texting is a new and more modern way to connect with your patients. Emails receive a far lower open rate than texts – text messages receive around a 98% open rate.
This means texting is a more efficient method of communicating with your clients. Whether you want to advertise a sale, promote a message or tell your patients about new dental equipment that you’ve upgraded to, business texting is the way to do it.
When you sign up with Text My Main Number, we make the process easy for you. You have the option of creating message groups to tailor your messages, send surveys out to patients and more with our platform. You can use business texting to do appointment reminders as well. The process gets 10x easier when you sign up with us.
- Ask Patients to Leave Reviews and Spread the Word
Nowadays, everyone relies on Google reviews or some kind of online review system to understand the quality of a dental practice or a restaurant. All in all, people trust the reviews they see. Real patients sharing their real experiences will show others the quality of your practice. As such, make sure you provide the best services around.
Additionally, reviews also help with SEO (search engine optimization). When you Google dentists in a location, tons of results pop up but only certain ones reach the top of the search results. The more reviews you have (namely more positive reviews), the more likely Google will favour your site over others.
Ask your patients to leave a review after their appointment or create a sign by the door of your office. The more they can leave honest reviews and spread the word about your practice, the better. - Create a Referral Program
Referral programs are a great way to get your current clients engaged and to reel in new patients to your clinic. Firstly, you need to uphold a high standard as a practice for patients to refer to your clinic. Secondly, this referral program will continuously bring in new patients to your business.
This doesn’t always have to follow the traditional reduction in prices. You can choose to reward your patients with an entry into a contest or to win gift cards as an example. You can even create a gift basket and use that as a contest prize.
Additionally, you can also work with other local businesses to support their platform as well. You can partner with local grocery stores or cafes to offer exciting and fun treats if they make a referral to your clinic. The benefits of a referral program are endless, so take advantage of it as soon as you can! - Up your Social Media Presence
Social media and dental practices don’t seem like they’ll go hand in hand, but think again. Dental practices can use the widespread use of platforms like Instagram, Facebook and even Tik Tok to endorse their business. So get those creative juices flowing and think about ways to hit your target audience on these platforms.
For example, a few dental practices have used Tik Tok as an educational platform – they run their viewers through how a cavity forms or spills all the news related to veneers. Alternatively, people use Facebook and Instagram to post fun updates about the dental practice or any interesting happening inside the clinic.
You might want to work with a social media manager to launch off your project or you can get a freelancer to do the work for you. Either way, putting yourself on these platforms will increase your audience and will more than likely reel in more patients.
General Marketing Tips
- Keep it authentic
You always want to remain authentic, no matter the medium you choose for your marketing. Even with your practice, highlight some of your values to your audience. - Know your audience
With dental practices, knowing your audience means knowing your demographic in your location. Are there a lot of families residing in your area? Are there more elderly people? Tailor your marketing to your demographic so your message resonates more with your audience. While everyone should be visiting their dentists, remember that people have fears about going to a dental clinic as well.
The increased competition means you need to pay more attention to how you market your business. And with the advantages of technology, there are many creative approaches to take. Besides marketing, make sure to invest in your patients – your hospitality and customer service will keep them coming back every time.
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