5 Critical Ways to Start Marketing Your Dental Office

Marketing a dental office might be something you have struggled to do. Or, you’re trying some marketing tactics, but you’re not sure if it’s working. 

The marketing methods that work well for say, a restaurant or clothing boutique, won’t be as efficient for your dental office. The most critical aspect of your dental office is visibility. If a new family moves to town and needs to find a new dentist, it will be difficult for the family to find your office without any marketing in place. The family might have chosen your office if they were able to find you easily. So, how do you make yourself more visible? 

There are many ways to market, but let’s look at the five best ways to get started. If your dental office needs more business, but you are unsure where to start marketing, keep reading.

SEO 

What is SEO? SEO stands for search engine optimization. The search engine that you’ll want to focus on optimizing is Google because 86 percent of people go there instead of Bing or Yahoo. The most common way for people to discover new information is by doing a Google search. When a patient searches for a local dental office, you want your office to be the first one they see, and not on the second or third page of results. 

So, how do you increase your SEO? There isn’t a simple answer. Your SEO is based on several factors. One significant factor is how much your site’s content relates to what the user is seeking. Google’s goal is to help its users find the information that they are looking for, and our job is to help potential customers find your site. By improving your page’s rank, we can drive more traffic to your website and get you more new customers. But it doesn’t happen immediately. Moving your page higher on the search engine results page (SERP) takes time, so be prepared for an uphill battle. Google is ever-changing its SEO rules and patterns, so there will always be something to add or change. 

Direct Mail 

Direct mail might feel like it’s a thing of the past, but that is not the case for some industries. In our experience, direct mail is useful for businesses such as dental offices. People often look for dentists near their homes, so it’s an excellent way to reach the audience closest to your location. Potential new customers will be reminded that your office is local, and a postcard puts your name in front of them before their Google search. 

Dentist appointments are a pretty personal experience, so patients usually want to establish a level of trust or familiarity before making an appointment. Direct mail is a great way to make this connection and reach potential customers before they search online. 

Direct mail can come in several forms, such as self-mailers, letters, catalogs, brochures, and postcards. Here at the DofM, we can design and send out direct mail for your dental office. The goal is to have your direct mail stand out, so coloring and design are vital here. No matter if you have no direction for your direct mail or know what you want, we can work together and come up with something your potential clients like. 

Social Media 

If you have been curious about whether your dental office should have social media pages or not, the answer is yes! Social media can positively impact your business in more than one way. First, it shows the more personal and even the fun/silly side of your business. However, if your personality is more serious, a more informative social media profile isn’t bad. Our recommendation is to have a bit of both, but it is up to you. 

Additionally, having social media pages boosts your SEO. Potential clients will find your site and information more quickly, and you’ll begin to generate more business. 

Social media is another avenue for advertising, and Facebook is useful because you can target based on demographics and location. Ads are inexpensive, and studies show impressions from social media ads are increasing — meaning more eyes are seeing them. 

Dental offices often find social media valuable for communicating with patients. You can add a “book appointment” link to the page, send Facebook message reminders about appointments, and answer questions. Having social media profiles without interacting with others will not be extremely helpful, so be sure to commit time each week to yours. It’s OK to start small, with one or two platforms. 

A Quality Website 

If you want your dental office to grow, you need to have a quality website. In a dental survey, 30% of patients said their choice of dentist is greatly influenced by the quality of the practice’s website. If the site is confusing, unappealing, dated, or hard to navigate, the potential customer will move on and find something else. Organize your website clearly and concisely, so that is also visually appealing to the user. You might be unfamiliar with website design, and that is OK! You can leave this part to the experts. 

Your site should draw customers in, prove that you’re the best, encourage them to trust you, and tell them what to do next. If your site is missing any of these components, it’s time to reevaluate. If you have read this far and think your site might be ready for an upgrade, it probably is. “Old” in Internet terms is just a few years. Whether you want to update your current site or start entirely from scratch, we will make it happen. 

Content 

Our best recommendation for adding content on your site is to create a blog. Not only does it tremendously help with SEO, but it gives your business a voice. While social media may help with that, you don’t own the content you post on social media. Your website is yours. 

You can answer frequent questions on your blog, provide recommendations about topics such as dental care and procedures, or talk about anything else dentistry-related. As much as we would love to think users spend hours reading through your blog posts, that probably isn’t the case. When a user searches “How to pick out a toothpaste,” the potential client may find your blog entry. If he or she clicks on your blog post, your site is gaining traction, and your dental office’s name is much more likely to be fresh on the user’s mind the next time they go to make a dental appointment. 

Don’t worry if writing isn’t your thing. The DofM can construct your posts and produce ideas. It is always helpful to let your marketing team know what you have in mind for a blog entry, but we can always come up with something together if you’re not sure. 

Marketing your dental office is essential, and it isn’t easy to do alone. Hiring a marketing team can lift your stress so that you can focus on your job as a dentist, not a marketer. Contact us today if your dental office isn’t performing as well as you’d like, or you would like to see more positive growth.