Laurence is a copywriter and trained journalist. His passion is creating insightful and educational content for dental professionals of every level. Outside of work, he enjoys watching sport, quizzing and spending time with his family.
If one thing’s for sure, the digital age we now live in has revolutionised the way we see the world. From being glued to the little devices in our pockets, to the big monitors we work on, to watching our favourite shows on TV, we are bombarded with advertisements.
The power of the internet is stronger than ever before. We’d like to share some innovative marketing strategies to help promote your dental practice online, including a unique approach that doesn’t require the internet.
Social Media
The use of social media has skyrocketed in recent years with more and more accounts being created every day. What was initially seen as quite alien is now dominating the way we discover the latest news. With the majority of your patients using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, it would be foolish to not attempt to reach out to the millions of people who could be seeing your social media posts.
Begin building up your page by uploading pictures and status updates that you believe hold valuable information for your target audience. This could be anything from the variety of treatments you offer, to “before” and “after” pictures, to letting people know when you’re open over the Christmas period.
After building a solid page packed with images and content, you can really capture your target market’s attention with paid adverts. Ever searched for something online, then by what seems a coincidence you come across a related Facebook advert? This could be you. Setting up these adverts is quite easy, and you can set a daily budget that you’re comfortable with to ensure you don’t overspend. Platforms such as Facebook all you to target specific groups of people, for example by age, interests, income or keywords.
Community Outreach
Why not reach out to the community? This could be something as simple as sponsoring a local children’s football team to capture the attention of the parents who attend.
Have your company logo embroidered on the kit and immediately have your brand in the homes of numerous families in the local area.
Why not throw in some free children’s toothbrushes with a small postcard offering a discounted hygiene appointment?
Getting involved in the community doesn’t only stop at football clubs; any local events you think might gain you exposure can be an opportunity to spend a little to get a lot back.
Paid Search Advertising
Google Ads are paid advertisements that appear on Google every time someone searches. By selecting keywords that are relevant to your business, you can advertise to your target market at exactly the right time, plus you only pay for the advert when someone clicks through to your website.
Google Ads also has a feature that allows you to create a ‘remarketing list’. Here you can target people that you already know something about, for example people who have clicked on one of your adverts previously, but didn’t then go on to make an online appointment. By uploading email addresses to a database, Google can even serve ads to specific customers, such as appointment reminders or follow up product adverts that relate to recent purchases.
Want to take it to the next level? These ads can also appear in Gmail, YouTube and thousands of other websites.
Google Maps Ads
The days of traditional maps seems to be numbered thanks to the digital devices we carry with us pretty much everywhere we go. The simplicity and reliability of Google Maps means that we’re never truly lost. This brings great opportunity for businesses to list themselves with Google Maps and appear for anyone browsing what is nearby.
By setting up a free account on Google My Business, when customers in your area search Google for the word “dentist” or “dentist near me” an image of your practice will appear in the search results, along with your address, customer reviews and contact details.
Email Marketing
There’s huge scope for dentists to take advantage of email marketing. If you’re looking for new ways to target a wider audience, adding a form on your website could be the first step to building a database of email addresses. Asking every patient for their email address is good practice. As an incentive, why not offer to save paper by emailing receipts to your patients? Once you’ve built your list, the possibilities of email content are endless. You could send patients regular practice updates about new treatments on offer, opening times, dental industry news, personalised information on appointment bookings or appointment reminders.
You could also try ‘we haven’t seen you in a while’ type of emails. This is another form of remarketing. You know the patient has seen you before, you know when you will expect to see them again, so if you don’t hear from them you could send them a nudge to encourage them to book an appointment, perhaps with some kind of incentive included such as a discount on a course of whitening.
Tools such as Mailchimp have a free version that makes sending emails easy, and you don’t have to be an expert designer either as you can “drag and drop” images and text into pre-built email templates. Mailchimp will even take care of “unsubscribes” for you, to ensure that you’re compliant with data protection regulations.
Conclusion
When it comes to marketing, we’d advise practices not to be scared to try new things. The digital world is offering a host of new opportunities to reach your patients, and the above strategies can all be tried for little or no cost. And if you need any help with your dental supplies, we have nearly four decades of experience working with dentists across the UK.
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