In order to grow your dental practice, it’s essential to put a comprehensive dental digital marketing plan in place. After all, this is how potential patients are going to find you. We’ve put together seven digital marketing tips for your dental practice to help you get started. Attracting new patients doesn’t have to be as hard as pulling teeth!
1 Optimise your Google My Business profile
Every business should have a Google My Business (GMB) profile, particularly dental practices that are specifically looking to attract patients in the local area. It’s a guaranteed way to drive search traffic to your website. Additionally, if your GMB profile is fully optimised and you have a strong Google Review rating, potential patients who live locally are more likely to click-to-call without even needing to visit your website.
More than 5% of views on a GMB page result in a goal conversion (e.g. a link click or a website visit). The majority of businesses have an average of around 1,000 search views per month, so a well optimised GMB profile could bring you in 50 conversions per month! Take a look at our tips for optimising your GMB profile here.
2 As always, don’t forget about SEO
No dental practice digital marketing strategy is complete without SEO. The majority of people look for a dentist on Google, so you want to ensure that you are highly visible in relevant searches. Build a robust keyword strategy and make sure that on site technical SEO fixes are regularly carried out.
3 Start a blog
Not only are blogs great for enhancing SEO, they also help you to establish your business as an authoritative and expert voice on all things related to dentistry and the services you offer. Think about things your patients frequently ask you about or would like to know more about, and create a content calendar that consists of relevant blog topics. The content should be engaging, educational and unique. You should also ensure that each blog post is focused around one of your target keywords for SEO purposes.
4 Ask patients for reviews
An essential part of any dental practice’s marketing strategy is to position your business and brand as trustworthy and reliable. Potential patients need to know that they can trust you to fulfil their medical and cosmetic dentistry requirements to a high standard.
Put yourself in their shoes: you are searching for a dentist or GP in your local area. You want to see proof that the practice you are considering provides a professional, high quality service and that the staff care about their patients. You wouldn’t sign up to a practice that has poor reviews or no reviews at all. So put together a strategy for asking patients for feedback. This could be asking in person after appointments, or sending an automated SMS or email.
5 Invest in a great website
Your website is a 24 hour shop front for your dental practice. Potential patients are far more likely to trust you if you have a professional, sleek website that is fast and easy to navigate, as they will subconsciously associate this with your business as a whole. If your website is slow and outdated, this will automatically put visitors off. In fact, research has shown that as little as a one second delay in website loading speed leads to a decrease in conversion rate by 7%. People don’t want to wait around for their dental care!
6 Have a social media presence
Social media is an excellent opportunity to show your following that dentistry doesn’t have to be boring. You should have a mixture of educational, informative posts and more fun, entertaining posts to provide a personal touch. Showcase the people and personalities that work for your business. If you offer cosmetic dental services, why not see if some of your patients would like to show off their new smiles?
Another tactic is to use short form video content, which is currently the most consumed type of social media content. Have a look at the Dentists of TikTok for inspiration!
7 Use email marketing
If you have access to email marketing software such as MailChimp or HubSpot, you can set up automated email campaigns for your patient lists. Once the campaign has been set up, you won’t need to do anything else.Your patients will automatically receive an email when they are due for a check-up or a hygienist appointment.
Personally, my dentist sends me passive aggressive, all-caps emails when I am overdue for a check-up. I’m sure your patients would appreciate it if you used a less terrifying tone in your emails, but it certainly grabbed my attention! You can also create bespoke campaigns to provide patients with updates on offers and new services.
