Marketing Your Dental Practice: 12 Essential Tips

Running a dental practice and successfully treating patients is an impressive feat, but to stay ahead of the competition, you also need to pursue marketing strategies actively. The American Dental Association reports that there are 198,517 dentists in the USA; it’s essential to differentiate your practice so that prospects seeking service can find you quickly. Here are twelve critical steps for promoting your business.

Get Your Dental Practice Listed!

Today’s standard for online marketing mandates that dental practices appear prominently when potential customers search for services in their area. To this end, list your business information on the following directories:

• DentalCenter
• Free Clinic Directory
• ClinicSearch
• The Dentist Hub
• Optometrist Directory
• Dentists Directory
• Dentist In Town
• health scores
• Dentpedia CA Additionally, list your practice on Google My Business, Yelp, Local Chamber of Commerce, and Yellow Pages with the business name and contact information (NAP), products/services offered, hours of operation, website URL, email address, category description, and a brief biography about the practice or owners. Furthermore, include any pertinent details about the location, such as images of the storefront/interior or handicap access information and parking arrangements if applicable.

Logo and Messaging

To make your dental practice stand out among the numerous other practitioners in the USA, you need to be conspicuous – and an innovative, memorable logo coupled with a captivating slogan is an effective way of doing just that. Unfortunately, as a dentist, you may not have enough time to design your logo.

Fortunately, services such as Upwork and Fiverr allow you to employ freelance graphic designers to realize the logo of your dreams. Make sure it accurately relates to your business while portraying its defining qualities.

Alternatively, if you want to create your logo independently, Canva offers pre-made templates which are easy to use. Graphic Springs also provides a guided process for generating symbols from scratch. This is an excellent way of conveying an essential concept to freelancers or graphic design teams.

Use Click-to-Call Ads

As a dental practitioner, you must generate calls that result in appointment bookings. This seemingly daunting task can become more accessible than ever by using click-to-call ads on Google AdWords or Facebook – and integrating these into existing ad campaigns!

Click-to-call ads appear when searches are more accessible on particular topics. They allow customers to contact you quickly and easily by clicking a number or button on the ad. Utilize this method and watch as your customer outreach increases exponentially!

Run Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads offer incredible opportunities for targeted marketing campaigns and can prove invaluable when marketing your dental practice. These ads come in many forms (images, videos, text) with several customizable options available: try using carousel ads where customers can scroll through multiple photos in one advertisement!

Before creating any ad copy, make sure you stick to the established format: Linking back to your Facebook business page; including body text; incorporating multimedia content; including inviting call-to-actions (CTAs). Follow these steps carefully and witness an influx of new customers eager for timeslots with you!

What Makes Facebook Ads Stand Out

Facebook Ads are one of the best ways to promote your dental practice. Not only do you have access to a wide variety of features to customize and optimize your campaigns, but you can also target your ideal audience based on several parameters. These include:

Demographic Information

Demographic information such as age, gender, and location can help you focus on specific segments within your target audience. This enables you to create ads that are more likely to be effective in reaching this particular group. Additionally, it can help you save money by ensuring that your ads are only served to those most likely to become customers. To gain further insight into what Facebook targeting can do for your business, look at this infographic by Wordstream.

Interests

You can reach users who match specific interests related to your dental practice, like fitness, health consciousness, and books about dentistry or oral hygiene. With this targeting option, you can improve engagement with potential customers looking for services like yours.

Behaviour & Intent

Facebook Ads allows you to serve users ads based on why they’re using the platform in the first place. You can use this detail to craft messaging that speaks directly to their motivations and needs–– ultimately increasing the chances of converting them into paying customers.

Users Who’ve Interacted With Your Business

You may also opt for re-targeting users who have already interacted with your business before––via likes or shares––and serve them tailored content that drives them back toward making conversions, such as booking appointments or purchasing products from your dental practice’s website.

Get Listed On Google My Business (GMB)

Having an up-to-date listing with Google My Business is an absolute must if you want your practice to rank better on Google searches and appear in the local-three pack––the three businesses that show up closest geographically when someone searches for a service like yours on Google maps or search engine results pages (SERPs). Additional benefits include tracking performance through insights, creating posts on the GMB platform, adding images of your business location, and accumulating reviews that improve star ratings and ranking better on organic searches! Refer here if you need help quickly setting up a GMB account for your business!

Build Your Business Reviews

Building online business reviews can give prospective customers a positive impression of your practice and help you rank higher in searches. Plus, it’s a bonus when you appear on voice search results. To generate positive reviews, consider these strategies: Incentivize Review Generation.

Offer incentives like discounts or free products to get more customers to leave reviews for your business. You can ask them directly – studies show that simply prompting people to review can be successful. Make sure you provide clear instructions on how they can leave a review for your business. We have an easy-to-use review handout generator that produces step-by-step instructions tailored to the sites you want customers to use. Automate Review Management

Automating the process saves time and ensures customer feedback is addressed promptly. Responding to reviews is often time-consuming and tedious, so automate this process whenever possible with tools such as Synup. We have pre-made templates available which can help you respond even faster.

Optimize Your Website for Local Mobile and Voice Search

It’s not enough for your website to be searchable – it needs to be optimized for both voice and regular searches, as well as mobile devices. In December 2017, Google announced that its algorithms would start taking into account the mobile version of content during 2018 when ranking sites for searches, understanding structured data and displaying snippets from the visible text. Here are a few things you can do:

• Ensure your title tag accurately reflects page content and contains relevant keywords targeted toward local SEO efforts;
• Use a responsive website design, so it fits any device;
• Improve page loading speed below three seconds;
• Adjust design elements to account for “fat-finger” usability;

Voice optimization requires additional work in addition to what has already been discussed above:

• Have a Google My Business account;
• Highlight customer ratings;
• Incorporate long tail keywords into the copy that mimics natural speech patterns;
• Implement local schema markup on site;
• Focus optimization efforts toward “near me” searches. For more information on optimizing websites for local mobile and voice searches.

Geofencing

Geofencing is a powerful tool for engaging potential customers near your clinic. Through GPS or RFID technology, you can create a virtual boundary and send SMSs or mobile notifications to target audiences that have previously given their contact information, downloaded your app, and more. You can then craft messaging to promote offers or services to attract attention to your dental clinic.

You may also use Snapchat Geofilters – custom templates of Snapchat filters used by businesses – as an option. To learn further on how to use this feature for your own business, click here. (insert link)

Leverage Urgency and FOMO in Your Marketing Plans

Create marketing plans that leverage urgency and fear of missing out (FOMO) for maximum effect. People need regular reminders about the importance of oral hygiene, plus they may require products or services that help reduce the cost of dental health care. By running Facebook ads with limited-time coupons (e.g., 10% off for one hour only), you can increase engagement rates from potential customers.

In addition, incorporate content strategies such as ads and other media styles from which you explain the consequences of being unaware of proper oral health – through its messaging and visuals – to drive people towards taking action and seeking a solution as your clinic provides.

Add Your Business to Instagram

As Instagram continues to be a powerful platform for engaging with customers, now is the perfect time to join in the fun! It boasts an impressive 96.8 million active users in the USA alone, making it easy for you to make personal connections with them through photos, videos, stories, and more. If you don’t already possess a business account on Instagram, our Instagram guide(insert link) will help you start setting up your account quickly & easily if you’ve already established a Facebook business page. For local targeting efforts when using Instagram: utilize popular & relevant hashtags; schedule posts during optimal times; utilize humor & personality; explore options available through Ads Manager.’

Build Referral Programs

Referral programs are a great way to get more business and build relationships with customers in the healthcare and medical industry. To maximize your referral efforts, here are two essential tips to keep in mind:

• Incentivize your customers for any referrals they bring in.
• Make sure the process of referring is as easy and hassle-free as possible.

Sponsor a Charity or a Community Event

It sponsors or hosts health camps, local flea markets, and conferences concerning healthcare that can effectively promote and market your dental practice. Not only will it give you visibility and access to potential customers locally, but it’s also a great way to leave a positive lasting impression on members of your community. In times of crisis, donating money, food, or clothes can be an impactful gesture that remembers long after the event has passed.

Create a Repository of the Best Keywords for Your Ads and Content

Creating a keyword repository for your clinic is essential for successful SEO campaigns. It allows you to narrow down search keywords so that when people look for services like yours online, they’re more likely to find you than competing businesses offering similar services. To generate this list of keywords, try running a basic Google search or Ubersuggest to get an idea of keyword competition and search volume. Once you’ve obtained these details, export them in a .csv format, so they’re organized and ready to use!