Ultimate Digital Marketing Guide for Dentists

With the recent changes in the evolution of COVID times, the medical profession has constantly experienced improvements and innovation. This includes dental practices also. The list of issues facing dental practices is far and wide-ranging; from social acceptance to technology to digitalization. The challenge is constantly to be in line with innovation and change which leads the dentists to experience an extreme change in the profession.

In the past year, due to COVID restrictions, reaching a dental professional has been an ever so difficult task. Patients were the main source of infection for dentists which is why masks were so compulsory, even while visiting a therapist. Since, while fixing a tooth, the patient’s mouth needs to be open during the procedure. Dentists were exposed to the virus directly.

All of this has to lead the dentists to keep their practices always clean and disinfected, more than ever. In addition to the change tools, wear more protective gear, and space out appointments. This leads to a lower number of patients which also leads to issues like lower income and higher expenses.

Even if a dentist has gone through all the financial issues and managed to open a private practice, a major challenge to overcome is to find new patients. Even though everyone needs a dentist, it can be hard to attract new patients, especially if the practice is new and yet has to prove its reliability and work quality.

Why is Digital Marketing Important for Dental Practices?

If the dental services aren’t digitized already, it is very much necessary that it happens. This allows dentists to connect with patients on search engines and social sites and on their website in addition to Email. Entirely relying on the old traditional marketing methods like direct mail and radio spots keeps you from reaching the current and prospective patients.

Our Ultimate dental marketing strategies

Digital enhancement is the best way to promote your practice right now. Upgrading the dental marketing techniques will help the dental surgeon reach the prospective clientele in a more specific and easier way.

Fully Functional Dental website - A fully functioning website will be a step ahead in digitalizing the practice. This will help in allowing the patient to book an appointment, cancel an appointment, check services offered, online bill payment facilities, online chat assistance, and information about the dentist and his practices.

Targeting long-tail keywords - Long-tail keywords are a part of digitizing the practice. These are detailed words and phrases related directly to the specific service provided along with the location. Because people are searching for these terms, they help drive valuable traffic to the website.

For example, the search phrase could be as easy as “Root canals in [your city]” or “how much do dental implants cost in [your city].”

Enhance the local SEO – One of the many excellent ways to increase traffic to the website is by ensuring that the dental practice office shows up in front of the audience on search engine result pages (SERPs). This can be done by local SEO.

Optimized GMB profile – Create an optimized GMB profile after an enhanced local SEO. This helps locals discover your dental practice. A healthcare professional should want his practice to appear to these searchers to reach a better patient network.

Google Reviews – The patients share their experiences and opinions about the practice, be it good or bad. Patients directly go to the GMB listing or the Facebook page and leave comments about their experience. Other potential patients rely on these reviews which leads to an increase in reputation management.

Content marketing – A part of the methodology is to create content that attracts the patients to the website. Use strong keywords in the blog content of the web pages. The content marketing on the website will be used by people to look for the practice in the right location. Simplify the messages into different criteria and approaches. They include – Blogs, Videos, Infographics, case studies, social media content, and EBooks.

Social Media Marketing –

Facebook Marketing - Facebook is one of the broadest social media networks for dentists. Facebook marketing for dentists will help build deep and trusting relationships with the patient network. A few things that can help are -

• Sharing pictures of happy clients
• Add new articles and link them
• Run promo ads
• Share videos on Facebook

Instagram Marketing – Instagram marketing is one of the best marketing tools to demonstrate the visual side of your practice. A dentist can –

• Reposting pictures of the patient’s in your office
• Showing the before and after treatment images (with patient permission)
• Photos of events
• Competitions and quiz

YouTube Marketing - Marketing on YouTube focuses on the video content. This helps the dentist to rely on visual content which is more trustworthy in terms of reliability. The trust-building range of content a dentist can share on YouTube can include –

• Clinic tour
• Question and answer session
• Patient testimonials
• Procedure demonstration
• Oral hygiene tips

Video Marketing – Video marketing is a very powerful tool when it comes to digital marketing. It affects the consumers purchasing decisions by impacting how they view and interact with brands. When potential customers watch these videos, they will learn more about the dental practice. This will nudge them to convert into patients.

Paid Marketing – Advertising varies depending on the goal that you want to achieve. A dental service can opt for native advertising, display advertising, search engine marketing, social media advertising, and Pay-Per-Click marketing. These strategies are spread over the internet and help you build a strong network.

• 1. Local awareness ads for Facebook – Be specific about the targeted customer and in a specific area. It is a great way to reach a local audience.
• 2. Click-to-call ads on Google and Facebook – The ultimate goal of a dental practice being digitized should be to book an appointment easily. Facebook provides click-to-call ads for mobiles and laptops making it easy.
• 3. Mobile call-only ads – Healthcare information in this generation is reached via phones. Call-only campaigns through Google ads help the customer to call the dentist’s office directly.
• 4. Email Marketing – Email marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing strategies among others. Sending valuable information including billing invoices, sending appointment reminders, follow-ups and occasion-related offers to newsletter subscribers become easy when you stay connected via email marketing.

Conclusion:

Digitalizing dental practices will help you to see results over the long term. These marketing ideas for dentists are rewarding and will determine the successful future of your dental practice. All this considering that the dental practice provides quality service as it strongly affects the consumer's mind. A prior good reputation in the local market will help build a strong digital presence as well. But if you are new to the market, digitalizing most information will help with gaining a strong patient network.

Have more doubts about how digitizing will help a dental practice gain more patient network in or after COVID times? Contact us at 1300 187 355 our website.