caseyd0547037

3 Essential Tips on Digital Marketing for Dental Practices

vimal@cobiamarketing.com (Vimal Sampathkumar) — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 19:36:33 GMT

Congratulations on opening your first dental clinic or upgrading your existing one.

It’s now time to reap the benefits of your hard work and efforts over the last few years. You can now grow your practice and attract high-value clients to boost the value and image of your clinic.

However, just setting up a new clinic or upgrading your clinic may not do in these highly competitive times. The walk-ins may not be as expected even though your services are reasonably priced, and you offer service levels that are second to none.

One of the critical reasons for this may be a lack of awareness about your clinic and services at a local level or your competition spending much more than you in generating leads.

The critical question is how you can compete with them with lower budgets while striving for maximum results. The answer to this is pretty simple!

It’s time you looked at digital marketing for dental practices

3 Essential Tips on Digital Marketing for Dental Practices

As one of the best agencies in the dental marketing space, The Dental Connect has gained considerable experience and expertise in it. Based on our success over the years, we are pleased to share the 3 best digital marketing tips to improve your dental practice.

1. Invest in a good website

Your website is probably the first point of contact between you and your potential clients, so you need to make sure you create a formidable impression on them. An easy-to-navigate layout, soft colors, and well-researched information are some of the essential elements that your website should have.

Moreover, the appointment scheduling process should be simple and designed to help the patient easily manage it on his own, within 1 or 2 steps. A lengthy registration process may put the patient off and even lead to them navigating away from your website without registering for an appointment.

2. Build your website SEO from the ground-up

Don’t limit your website’s SEO to a few blogs and articles on your website. SEO is much more than this and needs careful planning and consideration for it to be effective. It is a long-term process, with the keywords you would like to be ranked for being consistently updated on your website.

All the pages on your website need to adhere to the SEO guidelines and have optimum loading times to build up your website's SEO ranking in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) results.

When it comes to building or updating your website's SEO, it is advisable to work with a professional SEO agency that has the required competence and can maintain your website ranking over many years and not just 2 to 3 weeks.

3. Work out a content marketing strategy

In today's competitive times, when hundreds of blogs are being published every minute, just creating and publishing a blog won’t do. You also need to ensure that it reaches the right audiences in a format that is easy for them to understand.

That is where a well-designed and researched content marketing strategy plays a significant role, so make sure you spend time developing one or, better still, hire an agency with the relevant experience.

Investing in digital marketing for dental practices is the way ahead

For a successful and high-growth dental practice to which you can attract high-value clients, it is essential that your brand is visible to the right audiences. Digital marketing can help you attain this goal in a highly effective, economical manner with minimum effort.

Get started today!

Dental SEO Services: 3 Facts You Need To Know

vimal@cobiamarketing.com (Vimal Sampathkumar) — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 19:29:07 GMT

SEO is an indispensable tool for digital marketers to improve the search engine rankings of the websites they manage or blogs they create.

It can be used across all industries irrespective of their size, business, and location to boost their rankings and stand out from the competition. One of the industries where it is making its formidable presence felt in recent times is dental services.

The primary reason for the same is the increasing number of dental clinics, the fierce competition among them to attract high-value clients, and most importantly, the need to be the preferred choice of patients when looking for local dental services through search engines.

What is SEO?

SEO is a combination of art and science, backed by experience and expertise to help your website achieve a top-of-the-page (nothing else will do) ranking when a user enters a query for specific keywords, say "dental clinics in Florida."

3 facts you need to know about dental SEO services

While there are a number of agencies that can help you with dental SEO services, there are specific facts that you need to be familiar with as a business owner to get the best out of them.

1. SEO is a long-term game plan

Don't fall for agencies that promise you overnight results.

The best SEO plans are those that are prepared for long-term, sustainable results and not just for a few days. It requires continuous monitoring of the primary keywords associated with your business and ensuring they are used frequently in all the content your business creates.

Your keywords also need to be refreshed and reviewed periodically to ensure they are relevant and what users are searching for when looking for a specific solution to their dental problems.

2. SEO needs a systematic, well-planned approach

SEO is not something you can implement after reading a few blogs or watching a couple of YouTube videos on it. Instead, it needs expertise that has been gained by successfully practicing it for a couple of years, just like the folks at The Dental Connect have done.

A good SEO plan takes into consideration all your business requirements and identifies the keywords that people can relate to your business.

It also requires developing a comprehensive content marketing strategy that considers all the different content formats such as blogs, e-books, videos, infographics, and even podcasts.

3. You need to use the pillar approach to boost your website's SEO

A pillar approach is described as a process in which one key or critical aspect of your business, which can be the main selling point, is identified. All the content you create is linked to this pillar page to build its credibility and ensure it ranks better in search engines.

For example, if your dental practice specializes in "Root Canal," the SEO team at The Dental Connect will first suggest creating an informative page on root canals. Next, it will then recommend the creation of different content formats based on topics related to root canals. The content created is then linked to the main "Root Canal" page to increase its credibility, authority, and appearance during search results.

The best way to attract high-value clients is to invest in dental SEO services.

Compared to paid online advertising and other traditional forms of advertising such as print, outdoor, television, and radio investing in SEO is more effective and designed to give results for a longer duration.

It also does not require the same amount of time, and energy one would need to spend on creating conventional advertising campaigns.

Moreover, with the right keywords and informative and engaging content, you can ensure high-value clients notice your practice. That helps collect genuine, qualified leads that can boost your practice substantially.

How To Hire The Best Dental Marketing Services in the USA

vimal@cobiamarketing.com (Vimal Sampathkumar) — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 19:18:45 GMT

Dental Marketing, especially in the USA, is not easy.

It requires a thorough understanding of the core concepts of marketing and the expertise to apply it effectively in the digital world. In addition, it needs a deeper understanding of local communities and what resonates with them.

As a dentist focused on growing your practice and providing the highest service levels to your patients, looking into all these aspects of dental marketing may just not be possible for you.

That’s why you need to hire the best dental marketing services in the USA.

How To Hire The Best Dental Marketing Services in the USA

As a dentist with limited dental marketing knowledge, how do you differentiate between the best and those that just don’t make the cut?

Are you familiar with the terms SERP, SEO, GBM, CTR, and PPC?

Probably not!

These terms are a part of the daily lexicon of every dental marketing services agency in the USA and refer to different digital marketing activities that are important to grow your brand's presence online.

So you see, it certainly isn’t easy to select the best dental marketing services in the USA. Here are a few tips to ensure that the agency you hire is the best among the lot.

1. Check their portfolio

Unlike other generic industries, dental marketing requires more specialization and in-depth knowledge of how dental clinics work and the clients they prefer targeting.

It requires the agency to be familiar with all the steps involved, right from acquiring a patient to the treatment and till they share a review of their experience with your clinic.

So make sure that the dental marketing agency you are considering has a strong portfolio of dental clinics they are working with or have successfully worked with in the past.

2. It should be a one-stop-shop

Unlike the medical field, which requires doctors to be specialized in specific areas, i.e., general medicine, dentistry, physiotherapy, etc., dental marketing services in the USA need to wear many hats to offer the entire gamut of services to their clients.

It wouldn’t make sense and take up more of your time if you need to interact with different agencies for the different aspects connected with dental marketing such as SEO, Content Marketing, Paid Ad’s, Local Business Listings, etc.

Make sure that the services they offer are clearly mentioned on their website or in their offer document to you to make a well-informed choice.

3. Have a professional, well-structured approach to your dental practice

Dental marketing is a long-term game plan that shows results when practiced diligently and consistently. It is not a one-time effort and requires careful nurturing at all stages.

An agency with a well-established background, proven credentials, and a strong team with experience in dental marketing is what is needed to get the results your practice needs.

It also requires a well-defined strategy to target high-value patients, which are the lifeline of any dental practice.

So make sure you go by the numbers and your gut instincts when considering an agency for dental marketing services in the USA.

Your practice needs a good dental services partner to grow

Given these competitive times and the growing number of dental clinics across all states, you need to work on an effective dental marketing plan to make your practice stand out from the competition and attract high-value clients.

That can only be possible by investing in the services of a well-experienced dental marketing services provider such as The Dental Connect, which has both the expertise and experience to back its claims of being a partner in your progress.

Why is Dental Marketing Important for Dental Clinics?

Thu, 07 Apr 2022 19:14:02 GMT

Word of mouth publicity or referrals is no longer something you can rely on to grow your dental practice. It is now imperative to reach out to customers when they are actively looking out for oral health services in today's highly competitive times.

A goal that dental marketing can actually help you achieve quite easily, cost-effectively, and efficiently, giving you the best value for your advertising dollar.

The Dental Connect, a dental marketing agency, shares deep insights into why dental marketing is essential for dental clinics.

What is dental marketing for dental clinics?

Dental marketing for dental clinics is an art that few dental marketing agencies, such as The Dental Connect, are able to perfect, given the scope of work and expertise it requires.

Dental marketing, simply put, is the effective use of online digital marketing tools to connect your brand with potential customers and fulfill the entire customer acquisition cycle from lead generation to collection and sharing of their feedback post their visit to your clinic.

It includes all forms of online activities and communication, such as Email, Local Business listing, SEO, Content Marketing, Social Media Channels, Videos, WhatsApp, etc. but is not limited to them, as the opportunities that exist in the digital marketing space are immense.

Why is Dental Marketing Important for Dental Clinics?

The post-pandemic scenario has increased awareness among people of health-related issues, including oral health. This is gradually leading to an increase in the number of people opting for preventive check-ups or getting their dental treatments done in time to prevent further complications.

To ascertain the best dental clinics, people are relying on online communication mediums such as search engines, social media channels, and customer review sites. As a result, dental clinics need to ensure that they have an updated, accurate and positive brand image online, which creates confidence in potential patients about their services and expertise.

Dental Marketing can help you in all this and much more

Dental marketing , a specialized field in digital marketing, covers all touch-points that potential patients may refer to while looking for the best dental clinic. While considering dental marketing, one vital factor to note is that not all digital marketing agencies are qualified or experienced in the same.

It takes years of learning and experimenting to gauge what connects with patients and how to build strong bonds with them.

Some of the significant advantages of dental marketing are:

Low cost: Compared to other advertising and marketing mediums, dental marketing is more economical and offers better value for your money.

Highly flexible: Campaigns can be created for specific localities & demographics. That is not possible when using traditional advertising mediums such as print, radio, and television.

Easy to monitor: You can easily gauge the effectiveness of your campaigns and boost those that show the most effective results.

Messaging can be customized: Dental marketing offers the ability to customize your campaigns for specific audiences based on their interests, education levels, income, and even particular choices. That helps you reach out to the specific audiences you are targeting for your clinic.

Strong local presence: Build a solid local presence using SEO and other dental marketing tools so that your clinic appears right on top in search results when potential local patients are looking for a dental service.

Use dental marketing to stay ahead

Given the increasing competition, it is also essential to ensure that your clinic stands out from the competition and is the first preference when people are considering dental services.

Dental marketing can easily help you achieve this objective and create a formidable presence in your community, thereby boosting your business.

Dental Marketing Services

Thu, 07 Apr 2022 19:04:45 GMT

If there’s one field that is seeing consistent growth and competition even during the pandemic era, it's dental services. This is because people working from home are getting increasingly conscious of their oral health due to odd hours, poor eating habits, snacking during work hours, etc.

But are you getting more walk-ins than before, or is your dental clinic growing at the same slow, steady pace as before?

If the answer is No, you definitely need to relook at your dental clinic marketing and figure out the best ways to supercharge your practice.

It’s time you connected with the best dental marketing agency in Florida, myDental Connect, which has proven expertise and experience in dental marketing.

Overview: Dental Digital Marketing Services

In a world that is getting increasingly dependent on online search engines to answer even their basic queries, there is a growing trend to check more details about a business or service when one needs them, especially when it comes to something as important as healthcare.

As such, customers who require dental services usually search for the same online and tend to connect with the business that is easily accessible, has positive reviews, and shares comprehensive information about its practice and services.

That is where partnering with a dental marketing company in the USA, such as myDentalConnect, plays a significant role in promoting your practice effectively. They help optimize your business and brand presence digitally so that your dental practice stands out in search results and becomes the preferred choice of people looking for dental services.

Advantages: Digital Marketing for Dental Practices

One of the most significant benefits of working with a digital marketing agency for Dentists is that they help enhance and grow your brand presence online. They help create a positive and friendly image of your clinic and create campaigns to reach qualified dental patients seeking treatment.

Advantages of working with an experienced Dental Marketing Company;

A time-bound dental marketing strategy to grow your business
Manage your online presence on social media channels.
Reply to queries and manage customer complaints
Collect positive reviews about your practice and share them online
Create and manage paid advertising campaigns
Share detailed analytics on the performance of your campaigns
Keep a watch on what’s trending and how it can be used to boost your business
Competition analysis and how to outrank them
Attract high-value patients to your practice
Create informative and engaging content that prospective patients will find helpful and share with others.

O ur 3-Step Approach To Attracting High-Value Clients

As a growing dental practice, you need to make substantial investments in building a successful practice. The best personnel, the latest equipment, and a well-designed clinic will go a long way in enhancing the image of your practice. Unfortunately, the same requires large-scale funding, which may not be possible with regular dental patients.

That is where The Dental Connect can play a pivotal role in growing your business by attracting more high-value clients to your practice. The experience and expertise we have gained over the years in helping other dental practices grow have given us the confidence that we can do the same for you.

We have pioneered a strategic 3-step approach for attracting high-value clients, which can be broken down as:

1. Invest in Dental Website Marketing

Your website is the first thing potential customers see, even before entering your clinic. Therefore, it needs to create a positive impression on all the visitors. Furthermore, it needs to convey a premium but friendly impression to encourage people to discover more about your services.

All the information on the website needs to be easily accessible and easy to read, with plenty of images to capture the viewer's attention.

Most importantly, it needs to have a simple one or two-click appointment request link so that people can connect with you quickly. Creating too many steps in scheduling or requesting an appointment may put off the site visitors and even lead to them leaving the process mid-way.

2 . Build positive reviews

People are majorly influenced by what others think about a product and service before making a purchase decision. The most significant example of this is restaurant reviews, which people carefully consider before making a reservation.

Similarly, when considering a dental service, the first thing people like to check is the reviews by past patients and their feedback on the services they experienced, the look and feel of the clinic, hygiene, and quality of the equipment used.

At myDentalConnect, we streamline the entire customer review process. As a result, we can collect positive reviews from all satisfied patients, while helping resolve issues that dissatisfied patients may have. This practice is essential to any Dental Digital Marketing Strategy.

Gradually as your positive ratings grow, so will the influx of high-value patients who usually like to work with only the best!

3 . Invest in content marketing

People, especially when it comes to medical issues, usually tend to read up every bit of information they can get about their problems. It helps them understand and relate better to the issues they face and how they can resolve them.

As a qualified and experienced oral health care professional, you are the best person to dispense information and advice about oral health issues. In addition, it will help create a professional and credible reputation about you and your clinic, which people who are looking for oral health solutions can connect with.

Content marketing is where we can play an essential role on your behalf since our team has the necessary experience in creating social media posts and long-form content that can be very helpful to your target audience. In addition, we are also SEO experts in optimizing your content so that it ranks well on search results.

Digital Marketing for Dentists is a specialized field

As an agency that has helped dentists succeed in growing their business and knowing what works, we advise you to make sure that you work with only the best dental marketing agency. One of the best ways to do the same would be to speak to their existing clients and check their references.

You also need to ensure that they offer the entire gamut of digital marketing services so that you don’t need to work with multiple agencies.

At myDentalConnect, we take pride in our work and offer all relevant services under one roof. So do schedule a free consultation with us to know more about our Dental Practice Marketing!

Effective and Proven Social Media Marketing Techniques For Dentists

Mon, 21 Feb 2022 21:52:52 GMT

As a dentist , if you are wondering how social media can be beneficial to your business, then you’ve come to the right place.

While word-of-mouth publicity and reputation were the biggest drivers of business for dentists in the 90s, the advent of the 21st century has bought in more competition in terms of the growing number of dentists and how people look for and connect with dentists.

Search engines, local business marketing, and social media channels are now the tools to watch out for when it comes to dental marketing. From these tools, the one that stands out as a means of direct communication and engaging with specific audiences is Social Media Marketing.

Dentists around the globe are using it to connect with new patients and strengthen their bonds with existing ones, which is why it makes immense sense to spend time and effort promoting your practice through social media.

But, just don’t take our word for it!

Let’s look at some numbers that prove it’s the right way ahead.

Approx. 82% of US Citizens have at least one social media account. In the age group 30 – 49, 81% of people use social media, while 73% do so in the age group 50 – 64. In addition, 54% of this audience uses social media to research products and services before buying or trying them.

These stats indicate that social media can be a very effective tool for dental marketing, provided it is implemented strategically and efficiently.

Among the various social media channels, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn are the most popular social media channels for both brands and consumers to connect with each other.

Social Media Marketing For Dentists

To get you going, our team of digital marketing experts share some of the ways you can grow your practice and attract high-value patients using social media marketing.

1. Increase your social media presence

2. Experiment with different content formats

3. Use Paid advertising

4. Build positive reviews

1. Increase your social media presence

With 75% of people admitting to purchasing a product or service they saw on social media, it’s time to scale up your presence on social media.

By the term scaling up, we are referring to both increasing the number of followers you have and being more regular and consistent with your posts.

However, increasing the number of page followers you have organically takes too much time and effort. As an alternative, you can opt for paid advertising to increase your follower count for at least 2 - 3 months.

People are more likely to start engaging with your content if they find it useful. As per research, people are more likely to conduct business with you if they see at least 2 to 3 posts about your product or service, get a comfortable, trustworthy feeling about it, and decide to follow your page.

That is why you need to create and share content regularly and consistently. However, do note that each social media platform is different, and the frequency at which you should post on each forum varies as per your target audience.

Social media experts suggest maintaining the following schedule.

Image Source: Pixabay

One of the other best organic ways to increase your social media presence is to engage continuously with all the people who respond to your posts. Given the fact that they have taken time out from their busy lives to respond to your content, the least you can do is thank them for it.

Being proactive in responding to comments and brand mentions shows that you genuinely care about people. That can help build goodwill for your brand in the long run.

Connect Now, For A Free Customized Dental Marketing Proposal

2. Experiment with different content formats

Just as there is no similar solution for all dental problems, so is it with social media. Given the diversity of the audience on social media, it may take you some time till you discover the content style that works best for you.

You can experiment with different content styles such as humor, entertaining, informative, or even testimonials to see what connects better with your audience.

Remember, there is no perfect formula for this, and it all depends on how your audience receives it and finds it useful. The social media experts at The Dental Connect recommend following a content style based on the social media platform.

The same piece of content can be repurposed and presented to appeal to the audience on that platform.

For example, if you have created a blog on “How to improve your oral health” and posted the same on your website, you could create different formats of the same content as per the social media platform.

On LinkedIn, you could share it as an infographic, on Facebook as a social media post with the blog link, a series of images on Instagram, and a short video on YouTube & TikTok.

You can also plan your content based on what works best on a particular platform. For ex, surveys are a big thing on LinkedIn, while short videos & reels are big on Instagram & TikTok. On the other hand, Facebook users like to engage with content that is entertaining, informative, and useful to them.

When it comes to content, an important fact to remember is that 49% of people say they share because they find it informative and valuable to others. Creating high-quality content gives you an opportunity to show off your experience and authority in the dental industry. It also helps make a positive impression on your patients about your skills and experience in dental procedures.

Social Media Marketing Tip: Getting your patients to post pictures of their visit to your clinic and tagging your clinic is a great way to increase awareness about your clinic on social media.

3. Use Paid Advertising

For dentists who specialize in a particular field of dentistry or would like to focus on patients from a specific town, nothing works better than paid advertising on social media channels.

Some of the benefits that paid advertising offers are;

You can customize your ads for specific audiences based on demographics, lifestyle, education levels, and even the smartphones they use. That is immensely beneficial when you want to target patients for any high-value services or run a generic oral health campaign.

Easily track results and make changes to your ad campaigns for better results. For example, well-designed social media ads usually have a CTR (Click-through-Rate) of 2%, with 3% being considered top-end. Therefore, any ad that performs below 2% should be reviewed and changed as required.

A good CTR % is essential because it results in a lower cost per lead. For example, an ad with a CTR of 1.50% may cost you $50 per lead, while a similar ad with a CTR of 3% would cost you just $25 per lead approximately. That can make a big difference to your overall advertising budget and the number of leads you can generate through your ad campaigns.

Social media channels even offer the option of downloading the leads generated by your ads into a (CMS) customer management system directly so that you can follow up and monitor all the leads generated more efficiently.

Compared to traditional advertising formats such as television, billboards, and radio, where it is difficult to monitor the ROI on ads, you can easily track these metrics on social media platforms. Moreover, there is hardly any or minimal wastage of your advertising resources since the ads are shown only to an audience you define.

Apart from these benefits, the biggest reason that you need to consider paid social media advertising is the fact that 49% of internet users say they are likely to purchase from brands they see advertised, as per a survey conducted by GWI. That’s quite a substantial number for your business to engage with and something you would definitely not like to miss out on.

4. Build positive reviews

Guess what! More than 90% of consumers are influenced to buy products & services based on the reviews they read online. That’s something you should capitalize upon.

Interestingly, 86% of consumers also decided not to buy a product or service after reading negative online reviews.

These facts make it essential to generate positive reviews from your customers. The more the number of positive reviews you get, the better the chances of a prospective patient picking your clinic over that of the competition.

At The Dental Connect, we believe that your best sales or marketing people aren’t your employees but your past and existing customers, who can help build your brand with their referrals and word-of-mouth publicity.

However, collecting reviews from customers is easier said than done, as people usually don’t have the time or want to make an effort to leave a review about your business, whether good or bad.

Some of the tips that you could consider implementing to get more and good reviews using social media marketing are:

Call out and respond to the people who have left a good or bad review

Being recognized for their efforts is an inherent desire among many people, be it for something as small and simple as leaving a review.

Responding to customer reviews and comments on social media channels, whether good or bad, shows that you pay attention to your customers and are open to feedback on improving your services. Many customers consider this to be a good trait among companies and are more likely to do business with such companies.

Address negative reviews proactively

When it comes to negative or one-star reviews, make sure you and your team take time out to understand the reason for the same. No business is perfect, and there could be problems at your end, due to which the patient was dissatisfied.

Addressing all the reviews you generate on social media channels proactively, and seeking a resolution instead of being defensive or offensive, can go a long way in generating more positive reviews for your business.

In fact, as per a survey conducted by Harvard Business Review, businesses that respond to negative reviews end up getting more better reviews over a period of time.

Make the first move

You don’t have to actually wait for a customer to review your services. Instead, you can turn the table around and give a positive review about your customer first and how fantastic the experience of working with them has been.

That will surely prompt your patient to respond and positively acknowledge your comments.

You could even present a special offer for customers to leave a review about your business within 7 to 15 days of using your services. Using a time-bound incentive program can work wonders in generating positive reviews from customers, as the experience of their recent visit to your clinic is still fresh in their minds.

Follow up good reviews with a referral request

Once you’ve got a patient, who has written a positive review about your practice, make sure you thank them and ask them for a referral. A happy and satisfied patient is more likely to refer your services to people within their network who may need dental services.

You can do the same via email marketing if you want your referral program to be more personalized and discreet.

Social Media Marketing is an indispensable tool for dentists

Social media marketing is one of the critical tools dentists can use to increase the presence of their business and grow it substantially in these post-pandemic times. Social media marketing can help you generate a regular flow of clients and help attract high-value patients for procedures such as dental implants, crowns, and clear aligners.

Being able to differentiate your business from the competition and highlight your achievements is the need of the hour and something that social media marketing can assist you with. Moreover, the flexibility and detailed tracking social media offers are invaluable to gauge your ROI.

Used effectively, it can also help you collect positive reviews and referrals, which are highly beneficial in the long run.

To create a brand image that patients find credible and trustworthy enough to work with, it’s time you spent more effort on your social media marketing efforts. Once you’ve built up a long-term relationship with your patients, you can look forward to more busy times ahead.

Dental Marketing Ideas: How To Attract New Patients In 2022

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 18:48:53 GMT

“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.”

Linus Pauling

This inspiring quote by Linus Pauling is relevant even today, given the growing competition among all industries, including dentistry.

With economies slowing due to the pandemic and people having access to limited resources, dental patients are becoming more selective in choosing the best dentist for their dental needs.

Factors such as branding, pricing, proximity to their home or workplace, and the dentist’s reputation are now playing a significant role in their decision to choose you.

In such a scenario, it’s essential to up your dental marketing strategy and portray a positive, impressive image of your dental practice while also making your business easier to access and for people to contact.

This comprehensive dental market guide will give you proven tactics to get more patients and increase production in 2022. written by experts, we aim to give you insight into what we’ve found after spending over $600,000 and thousands of hours doing dental marketing in 2021. Cheers!

Image Source: Pixabay

What is dental marketing?

Simply put, dental marketing refers to the digital marketing strategy of highlighting your dental practice to potential patients. It entails using diverse digital mediums such as social media, emails, websites, etc., so that they feel inclined to engage with your brand, i.e., clinic, on a professional basis.

A well-planned dental marketing strategy can also help turn the people you engage with through your communication into your brand advocates, though they may not be using your services.

The signs of an effective dental marketing strategy are maintaining a high ROI, having sufficient leads in the pipeline, and generating substantial positive reviews, which helps build high brand recall among potential patients.

Dental marketing can help you

Rank your website higher than your competitors in Google and other search engines
Generate more patient reviews on social media
Use content such as blogs, e-books, videos to increase website traffic and patient engagement with your practice
Create content that is informative and useful to your patients
Use the power of social media to reach out to more patients
Advertise your brand using Facebook, Instagram, Google Ads, etc.
Connect with potential patients in your neighborhood
Use Google My Business effectively to be found when patients are looking for you
Create brand advocates from existing patients and get more referrals
Grow your brand awareness

In short dental marketing can help you grow your practice substantially and reach customers that wouldn't otherwise consider your business. due to factors such as proximity or not ranking well on search engines.

Why do dentists need dental marketing? / Why is dental marketing essential!

Given the dynamics with which businesses and patient needs evolve, it’s crucial to align your practice and marketing efforts to better resonate with potential patients. In addition, the growing number of dental clinics adds to the hurdles of standing out in a crowded field.

With the internet being a great leveler and information reviews about dental practices being a part of the public domain, there is a growing need to ensure that patients receive factual, positive information about your business directly from you.

Dental marketing can help you achieve this and a lot more;

Dental marketing helps differentiate your brand from others! It sets you apart from the competition.
It helps build a bond between you and potential patients in the present or future.
More importantly, a well-conceived dental marketing plan will help you set the objectives you want to achieve for your practice in the coming years.
It helps you define your target market and the means to reach out to them with a cost-effective, high-returns strategy.
A good dental marketing plan acts as a road map for ensuring that all your marketing activities are aligned with your overall objectives and ensures that there is enough flexibility to adapt the marketing strategies as required.

What are the factors you need to consider while preparing a dental marketing campaign?

A dental practice is no different compared to other businesses and needs a well-conceived, designed plan that considers all your strengths and weaknesses. A SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) analysis would not be out of place while preparing your dental marketing plan.

While it is better that you focus on your practice and leave the intricacies of dental marketing to experts, you need to be aware of the basics of dental marketing that impact your practice as a business owner.

Factors that you should consider while preparing a dental marketing plan are;

The budget you are willing to spend on generating every lead / converting them into a patient
The ROI you are expecting
The time frame for your marketing activities
The KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) you would like to achieve, such as;

- Creating & distributing six blog posts a month

-Posting twice a week on social media

-Increasing your Instagram followers by 20% month-on-month

The social media channels you would like to use
The content marketing strategy
Who does what in the marketing plan

To create an effective plan, you must share the following information with your digital marketing agency

Important milestones for the business
Patient/Employee anecdotes
Facts regarding your dental practice
New clinics and dental procedures you are planning to launch
Future plans

To ace your dental marketing efforts, you need to be consistent and regular with everything you do. So give it your best and let the results flow.

How do you attract high-value patients?

While your clinic may have a regular flow of patients, for standard dental procedures such as check-ups, cleaning, etc., attracting high-value patients is often a challenge.

Getting patients to visit you for procedures such as implants, Invisalign, cosmetic changes, etc., requires much more effort and focus on your part.

It needs a well-designed sales funnel, with multiple touchpoints such as emails, blogs, paid advertising, local business marketing, and telephonic calls. These steps will help your team engage with the high-value patients and guide them further on your expertise so that they may consider the same.

Tips to attract high-value patients

The entire customer service experience, right from the first message or email you send to the patient to their query for more information and their visit to your clinic, must be handled by a well-trained team that has experience in managing a premium audience and knows how to cater to their demands.

The clinic should be designed to delight the patient right from when they step into the clinic. Ensuring priority appointments, minimum waiting time, consultation by experts, etc., can go a long way in making them feel special.

Using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software can make the entire patient contact and follow-up process smooth and efficient while ensuring that you don’t miss out on any leads captured through your marketing activities.

One of the ways you can specifically target high-value patients is by identifying the ideal patient persona. Knowing more details about the patients you want to attract to your clinic is half the battle won, as that will help you create a marketing campaign specifically aimed at them.

Questions such as 1) Are they car lovers, 2) Do they visit a mall regularly, 3) Are they brand conscious, 4) What is their job profile, and 5) Which clubs they belong to will help you create the ideal patient persona you should be targeting. Make sure that you specify the demographics while preparing the profile to finetune your marketing campaign accordingly.

Use re-targeting ads based on prospective patients' visits to websites that offer premium brands and products. For example, you could create ads on Facebook which can be shown to patients who love premium cars or watches. That will help you reach out to high-value patients easily without incurring high ad budgets.

SMART

One of the first things you need to consider while preparing a dental marketing strategy is deciding your objectives. You can either prepare them on your own or trust a digital marketing agency such as Cobia Marketing to do it for you!

Setting up SMART goals is an effective strategy for creating more specific and attainable results. More importantly, they provide benchmarks against which you can measure your progress. They can also help break up your objectives into smaller steps to help you remain motivated.

SMART is an acronym that stands for;

Specific:

It would be best to be very specific when setting your dental marketing objectives. For example, saying I need to grow the business won’t do, as you will have no numbers to measure the results.
Instead, be specific and use numbers to define them.
Setting specific objectives such as increasing the number of walk-ins by 2x, generating 10x leads using social media, or expanding the business volumes by 30% is an excellent way to start.
Some of the questions you can ask yourself while goal setting are Who, What, When, Where, Why & Which.

Measurable:

Once you’ve decided on your objectives, it’s essential to be able to measure them and track your progress. That will help you check whether you are successful or do you need to realign your marketing strategies.
Doing a monthly and quarterly review with your digital marketing agency is the best way to ensure that all your marketing efforts are in the right direction.

Achievable:

While setting your dental marketing goals, the expectations must be achievable and in line with business trends. You also need to consider the tools/skill sets you have and whether you would need to upgrade them to achieve your goal.
If you are currently achieving $75,000 this year and want to scale up to $4 million next year, you need to ensure that you have the systems and human resources in place, or you may end up demotivating your team.

Relevant:

The goal needs to be relevant to your existing practice. It should add value to your overall objectives.
For example, if you set up a goal to create and share more informative blogs, it can align with your overall goal of increasing patient traffic to your website.

Time-Bound:

One can only measure results when you can compare them against a specific period. For e.g., the number of walk-ins in the last three months compared to the previous year's same period.
Similarly, tracking numbers and results over a specific period can help motivate your team.
Setting a start and end time for your objectives also ensures that your team is aware of the timelines and works towards them. In addition, it helps create a sense of urgency.

The Dental Marketing Guide

Be consistent with your Google My Business Listing.

One of the best free marketing tools available online to boost your practice, Google My Business, helps your business be found just when patients are looking for it.

When people do a Google search for a local dentist, a map location is generated with all the dentists in the area. The map listing has the contact numbers, addresses, specialties, and patient reviews helping patients make a better and more informed choice.

Suppose you don’t have a GMB optimized listing or are not regular with your postings. In that case, your dental practice listing may rank several pages deep, making it difficult for potential patients to find your business.

Research conducted by our team has shown that being consistent and regular on GMB will help your business easily list among the top 3, which helps your business get almost double the patient calls it usually does.

Image Source: Pixabay

Maintain an active social media presence

With people spending an average of 2 hours and 27 minutes on social media channels daily, it’s time you dedicate more resources to your online presence.

As people scroll through updates from their network, they also watch out for anything that catches their attention and creates an impression on them. With an active social media profile, you can do just that!

Use your social media accounts to share details about your accreditations, specialties, online reviews, and success stories behind many a patient’s smiles that you helped achieve.

Sharing your blog post regularly on social media channels is also an excellent practice to increase the engagement rates on your social media profiles.

Invest in paid advertising on social media

You can also use paid advertising on platforms such as Facebook & Instagram to generate leads about patients looking for dental or oral health solutions almost immediately!

The best part about using paid social media advertising is that you can customize your campaigns to reach specific audiences and localities, making your campaigns more effective and economical.

With detailed analytics on your advertising spending and the ability to track every lead generated through paid social media advertising, you retain total control and flexibility on your advertising campaigns and have the ability to modify them as required.

With many dental clinics increasing their social media presence, the need to use paid advertising to boost your awareness and lead generation is right now!

While considering paid advertising, it is also worth looking at Google Ads, which help you target new patients based on specific keywords and demographics.

Image Source: Pixabay

Don’t underestimate the power of good SEO

While much is written about the importance of SEO and how it helps businesses improve their search rankings, not many dental clinics are able to implement it successfully.

The reason for the same is not a lack of awareness about SEO but more to do with the implementation techniques required to create an SEO-optimized website.

While SEO is a technical field and needs experts trained in SEO for effective results, it is not enough to just leave your website’s SEO to them. You, too, need to take an active part in ensuring it’s being implemented correctly and that you rank consistently on the top in search results.

Here are a few tips while selecting an SEO agency.

Understand the basics of SEO yourself. That will help you ask the right questions to the agency you plan to hire.
It’s not about rates. Just because the agency is expensive does not mean it is good. Instead, please take a closer look at their credentials and references.
Don’t get impressed by claims about increasing your web traffic by 10x or 20x instantly. SEO does not work that way. Instead, it’s a time-consuming, gradual process with long-term results and requires plenty of hard work and patience.

Image Source: Pixabay

Use your website more strategically.

A website is not just for showcasing your gallery or hosting a Contact Us form.

It’s much more than that!

Well-designed and interactive websites can act as lead magnets and help generate good quality leads for your dental practice to grow exponentially.

They are second to none as a medium to showcase your specialties. In addition, they can be an excellent patient education platform to help patients understand more about your practice and how your clinic can assist them.

Your patients can also use websites to schedule and reschedule their appointments at their convenience.

It is advisable to entrust your website design to an agency with considerable experience designing websites for the dental community. They have the know-how and knowledge to create a dental practice website with all the essential features to grow your practice and ensure a smooth communication flow between the patient and you.

Another critical factor, while considering an agency to design your website, is to ensure that the websites they create are mobile-optimized since most people now use their smartphones to access websites and know more about the business.

Ensure that the contact information on your website about your dental offices is constantly updated so that patients can contact you when they need you.

Content Marketing

One of the most influential and best dental marketing strategies that you can use to connect with your potential patients and grow your practice is content marketing.

Experts define content marketing as a part of inbound marketing, which includes planning, creating, distributing, sharing, and publishing content relevant to your patients via channels such as social media, blogs, websites, podcasts, apps, press releases, print publications, and more.

But we think it’s much more!

Good content is like storytelling. It needs to resonate with your audience and strike an emotional chord with them. Well-designed content should feel natural and be tailored for your audiences.

The ultimate goal of good content is to reach your target audience and increase brand awareness, sales, engagement, and loyalty.

At Cobia Marketing, we consider content marketing an essential part of your dental marketing plan. It aims to create and distribute valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience with the objective of driving profitable patient action.

Why do you need a content strategy?

There’re tons of content out there, vying for the audience’s attention. Some of it could be from your competitors, while some could be from supplementary brands or even irrelevant industries.

How does then your content stand out from the clutter and break-through to your audience?

That’s where a good content strategy plays an important role.

Crafting a good content strategy requires you to;

Identify your audiences pain points or lack of awareness
Use the correct content format (blog, video, infographics, etc.) to address the pain points or fill the unawareness gap
Creating the content in a manner that is easy to understand
Ensure the relevant content reaches the right audience

The three stages of content marketing

Like the sales funnel, content marketing has three different stages that can help convert a visitor to your website to a paying patient.

It’s a strategy that considers first educating/informing a potential patient about your presence and expertise, moves on to address specific queries/needs for information, and then helps the patient make a well-informed and guided decision.

Let's take a look at these three stages more in-depth;

Awareness:

The first stage in any buyer's journey, irrespective of the industry, is being aware of your brand. At this stage, they may just be curious about you and want to know more about you before they consider your services or even subscribe to your newsletter.

We don’t want to hard sell a patient at this stage, but just make him aware of your practice. The content needs to be more informative and should be engaging enough that they keep coming back to your website for more.

Consideration:

Once people regularly visit your website and have even opted to receive your newsletters, you can start working towards building the trust factor with them. But, again, this is a stage wherein they have a specific need and are evaluating their available options.

It is advisable to be consistent and regular with your content to build up your trust levels gradually. You can even consider offering a free e-book on specific procedures or how to better manage their oral health at this stage.

This is also the stage wherein they are becoming more aware of your brand and want to know more, so having plenty of positive ratings on your website could be beneficial.

Creating a clear and concise newsletter and sharing the same with your subscribers could also help build a positive image around you.

Decision:

While it is true that you cannot expect results overnight through content marketing, you can definitely be prepared for the moment when the patient is ready to make a decision.

Email marketing can play a significant role in this, especially if you include clear Call-To-Actions within the mail. For example, inviting people for a free consultation with your experts or mailing any queries they may have regarding your procedures is an excellent way to start, pushing patients from the consideration stage to a decision stage.

Social media paid advertising can also play a significant role in this, mainly if you use retargeted ads for people who have visited your website recently, say in the past six weeks. That is because any patients who have visited your website more than six weeks ago are more likely to have made a decision.

The #1 secret of content marketing

The #secret to converting more patients through content marketing is not producing sleek, expensive forms of content. Neither can videos be considered to be better than blogs or vice versa.

Each content format has a specific role to play in the patient retention cycle and is indispensable without each other.

However, what works is the amount of value and emotional appeal you add to your content. The narrative and information within the video or blog are what patients will connect to, inclining them to know more about you and work with you.

Make sure that your content is valuable from a prospective reader's perspective, and you are good to go.

To get you on the right path of creating content with high engagement rates, you must create a well-researched buyer persona and create content specifically aimed at them.

Trust the experts only when it comes to growing your dental practice

Focus on your practice, and leave the rest to the experts.

An experienced dental marketing agency will ensure that it covers all aspects of digital marketing to grow your business. They will prepare a detailed marketing strategy with timelines so that you know the exact results you can expect in the next few months.

Remember, dental marketing is no silver bullet and needs time to show effective results, so don’t trust anyone who promises overnight results.

Make sure that you ask them to include growing patient referrals as a part of the plan since that too can contribute substantially to your business. Given the increasing competition in the dental field and the scarcity of time many dentists have, it makes immense sense to trust your marketing efforts to a digital marketing agency.

We wish you the best in growing your dental practice. Do share your comments on this guide with us. Feel free to share it with others who may benefit from the tips highlighted here.

If you have any queries or would like to know more about growing your dental practice, please drop us a mail at info@cobiamarketing.com!

caseyd0547037

3 Essential Tips on Digital Marketing for Dental Practices

3 Essential Tips on Digital Marketing for Dental Practices

Investing in digital marketing for dental practices is the way ahead

Dental SEO Services: 3 Facts You Need To Know

What is SEO?

﻿

3 facts you need to know about dental SEO services

The best way to attract high-value clients is to invest in dental SEO services.

How To Hire The Best Dental Marketing Services in the USA

How To Hire The Best Dental Marketing Services in the USA

Your practice needs a good dental services partner to grow

Why is Dental Marketing Important for Dental Clinics?

What is dental marketing for dental clinics?

Why is Dental Marketing Important for Dental Clinics?

Dental Marketing can help you in all this and much more

Use dental marketing to stay ahead

Dental Marketing Services

Overview: Dental Digital Marketing Services

Advantages: Digital Marketing for Dental Practices

O ur 3-Step Approach To Attracting High-Value Clients

1. Invest in Dental Website Marketing

2 . Build positive reviews

3 . Invest in content marketing

Digital Marketing for Dentists is a specialized field

Effective and Proven Social Media Marketing Techniques For Dentists

Social Media Marketing For Dentists

1. Increase your social media presence

2. Experiment with different content formats

3. Use Paid Advertising

4. Build positive reviews

Address negative reviews proactively

Make the first move

Follow up good reviews with a referral request

Social Media Marketing is an indispensable tool for dentists

Dental Marketing Ideas: How To Attract New Patients In 2022

“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.”

What is dental marketing?

Why do dentists need dental marketing? / Why is dental marketing essential!

How do you attract high-value patients?

Tips to attract high-value patients

SMART

The Dental Marketing Guide

Be consistent with your Google My Business Listing.

Maintain an active social media presence

Invest in paid advertising on social media

Don’t underestimate the power of good SEO

Use your website more strategically.

Content Marketing

Why do you need a content strategy?

The three stages of content marketing

Awareness:

Consideration:

Decision:

The #1 secret of content marketing