All businesses need a steady influx of new customers, including dental practices. As a dentist, you need to take a unique approach to marketing because the practice of dentistry requires building a level of credibility and trust with people you don’t yet know.
After all, most people aren’t too keen on picking just anyone to clean their teeth or perform oral surgery. Below are three dental advertising techniques to focus on in the new year that can help your patient list grow.
Dental Postcard Mailing
If you think direct mail advertising is a thing of the past, consider these statistics from Dentistry Today. A 2016 research study indicated that only 22 percent of email recipients opened messages from a doctor or dentist. In contrast, 60 percent of people who receive a postcard from a local dentist follow through by visiting the website or calling for more information.
You can obtain a list of addresses near your dental practice from the United States Postal Service. When you send out the postcards, be sure to include a strong call to action or incentive to increase your return on investment. There are a number of companies that offer done-for-you dental postcard marketing campaigns, and they frequently will give you the best bang for your buck so you can spend your time doing dentistry.
Pay Per Click Advertising Campaigns
You won’t get visitors to your website, calls, or new patients if your site doesn’t rank for the most popular terms people use when searching for a new dentist. Working with a marketing company that understands and specializes in the field of dentistry is your first step in attracting the type of traffic you need.
Your marketing specialist will conduct keyword research to identify the best words and phrases and then start your search engine marketing (SEM) and pay per click (PPC) campaigns. The higher you are willing to bid, the higher your dental website will return on the search engine results page (SERP) when potential patients search for a dentist in your local area.
Create a Strong Social Media Presence
People expect the businesses they interact with to be online, even their local dentist office. If your practice does not yet have a Facebook page, make it a priority to create one. This is the perfect opportunity to show of the skills of your dentists and the personality of your dental practice. Just keep in mind that a Facebook page is more about connecting with your patients and less about advertising. Some things to consider posting include highlighting a different staff person each month and providing a step-by-step guide for specific dental procedures.
Facebook gives you plenty of opportunities to advertise your practice without annoying current and future patients. For example, you can pay to boost posts so more people see them. You can also create advertising campaigns on Facebook to display ads to people in your target demographic.
While you should not expect instant results with these three marketing practices, you will see your hard work and patience rewarded soon enough. Lastly, it’s important to measure the effectiveness as you go along and to adjust as necessary for even better results.