How Does Dental Marketing Work?
We are a team formed by specialized dental marketing experts. In Search Business Group, we focus on providing marketing services tailored for dentists and orthodontists.
In our experience, these, dental and orthodontics, and even healthcare in general, are fields that need very particular strategies and branding to connect with their potential patients.
People seek very different things when they are shopping for carpets and when they are looking for a dental service. In the last case, they need to be understood and also learn about the treatments available, prices, other patients’ testimonies, and your experience as a doctor.
There is a special language you need to speak to talk to your patients, a certain look and template for your web design.
What Is Dental Marketing?
Although marketing is a discipline as wide as applicable to every trade or business in the world, the ideas behind a marketing plan should be customized to every field. This is because the target personas can change so much from one product to another.
There are products and services we all use, for instance, water supply services and healthcare services. And there are others more specific, with selected audiences, as can be the case for dental services.
As marketers for dental services, we prepare the way you show and broadcast your work as a dentist to meet your patient’s expectations. You are a doctor, and you know everything there is to know about dentures, crooked teeth, and dental treatments there is to know.
But you may not know your patient’s habits, such as the platforms they use to search for a product like yours, whether they like to read long or short pieces, or where to put the “contact” button on your website.
And it’s okay if you do not know all that because that is our job, that is what we have studied and prepared to do. You get to learn alongside us.
What Is Dental Marketing
Let’s say you are happy with the number of clients you manage. They come to you recommended by other patients, and you like the flow your business has. That’s alright.
Now, imagine you get to attract patients in your area who have not heard about you yet. They are not acquainted with your other clients, so they could only know about your work as a dentist through your website or social media accounts.
This is not only about online presence but about showing your services from the right angle. Dental marketing is about making your work look like your clients’ solution at a glance. They click or tap on your website, and what they see is convincing, reliable, and good.
Dental marketing is proven to get these results. These are techniques that would attract people who do not know about you, which means more patients for you to help and growth for your business.
Top Tips on Dental Marketing
Okay, all of the above sounds great, but how do we make it possible? How do dental marketing services work? It’s not magic but a lot of effort, creativity, and research. In this article, we want to introduce some of our practices briefly.
Update Business Listings
You took the time to upload your business on the Yellow Pages long ago when you started, but the job is far from done. Maybe you changed your location or landline, or now you can work one more shift on weekdays but close on Sundays.
You probably have changed a lot of things since you first opened your dental office since businesses grow and evolve constantly. Because this is normal, you need to keep your information updated not only on your website but in business listings too.
Your prospective patients can find you on these types of websites. People usually use these services to find local dentists and similar services. Sometimes they won’t check your page but go directly to visit your dental office; this is why it is so important that the information is correct.
However, most of the potential patients will want to check your website to learn more about your practice, so make sure all the links are working.
If you haven’t logged your office and webpage data into the business listing sites, you should do it soon, and we recommend updating more than one platform. Search which ones are the top in your area and start from there.
Optimize Google My Business Profile
Google My Business is key for helping your dental practice. Google Business Profile is kind of a tool Google offers that makes it a lot easier to find services near a specific geographic location.
It offers a brief overview of your office, your office hours, contact number, and website, along with photos, main services, and your address. Your profile on Google My Business will be connected through the various Google apps – Google Search, Google Maps, and Google Chrome apps.
You have to maintain this profile updated and also optimized. Remember, there are hundreds of competitors out there, and you need to improve your digital presence to show your actual value.
Something that is as important to Google as it is to your clients is getting as many reviews as you can. Ask your current patients to rate your business profile and leave a review of their experience with your dental services. This makes your name relevant and trustworthy.
Add recent photos of your dental office and your work and update the list of services (if you recently added new dental treatments, this should reflect on your online presence) and prices.
Also, do not forget the importance of keywords on search engines. Make active use of them.
Research Keywords for Dental Business
In digital and content marketing, keywords are crucial. They represent the essence of your trade and the face of your business. Your potential patients are not the only ones reading the content you post on your website; the algorithms are reading too.
When conducting keyword research, you will find that most of the words are an essential part of your day-to-day labors, such as dental treatment, braces, teeth, dental appliances, etc. It is just not possible for you to have a website and not mention those several times.
Volume is important, too, when it comes to keywords. A dentist’s work would be related to many words, so your pillars should be the clearest and most relevant ones. The wording you choose for your blog and contents should be a combination of the technical terms you know and the terms your prospective dental patients use.
You can rely on Google Search to get an idea of what is your clients’ slang. Type something like “dental office” or “dental services” and let Google complete the sentence. It will probably show more than one alternative, write down all of them and then select the ones closer to your dental work.
That is the easy way of starting with what we offer with our SEO dentist practices. But those few keywords you can find on Google can help you on your first steps in building your dental empire to design appealing titles and headlines.
Content Marketing
Content marketing would be the name of the marketing strategy containing SEO dental services. This is the wing of marketing that centers on using your website’s contents to market your brand.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a huge part in this type of strategy since the focus is on creating valuable and relevant content for your prospective dental patients. You have to talk about the dental appliances and dental treatments you offer, but also about the benefits and concerns of your readers.
Content marketing also includes the look of your content and the functioning of your page since it is the main platform to connect with your audience.
Social Media
Believe it or not, social media is something you should take seriously as a business. Platforms like Instagram can allow you to share the results of your dental work and reach a wider audience.
Have you ever seen someone post the name of their dentist on an Instagram story? Well, that works just as a recommendation as any verbal interaction face to face.
Social media is just another channel for your services to reach more potential clients and have a space on their feed (mind). Seeing a post about dental care on IG might remind someone of making that appointment they have been postponing, for example.
Content Writing
Writing is a big part of what content marketing takes. From creating blog pieces about dental care for your website to creating enticing copies for your social media and snippets for Google and other platforms.
This is the core of the digital product you will feed your audience. Since the pieces are directed to your patients, you will want to keep a tone more neutral rather than technical. Remember, you are a dentist; they are not.
However, it would be great to explain the treatment plans, alternatives, risks, benefits, and tricks that can be helpful for dental patients.
Branding for Dental Patients
As a dentist or healthcare professional, the primary feeling you should be giving in your dental practice and on your website is confidence. You have to show your confidence and expertise as a dental expert (orthodontist, periodontist, etc.), and you must make your patients feel confident as well.
Health is a delicate matter; people need to be assured that the treatment they get is reliable and accurate. The trust your patients put in you means everything.
Your brand should reflect this by managing to face different fronts: a well-design and organized website, clear and customer-oriented language, reviews and testimonies, and photos of your dental practice if possible.
All of this will help you on transmitting trust.
Webpage Essentials for Dental Experts
Following the same note, your dental website would benefit from having at least these basic sections:
- About the team: Dental patients want to know about their doctors. Whether their experience is in orthodontics or other fields, how much experience they have, and that sort of information. Tell them and maybe show some results of your dental work over the years.
- Service pages: In this section, you should talk about the treatments you practice and their variations (metal braces, clear aligners, lingual braces, whitening, etc.). Describe the procedures mentioning relevant facts like average treatment length, prices or insurance partners, and results.
- Blog post: Here, you can have an extended version of the service section, and you can also talk about dental hygiene, how to take care of braces or aligners, and do’s and don’ts when whitening your teeth. A space for creativity.
- Contact us: This is a page you definitely cannot miss. Your prospective patients will want to contact your team and ask questions that maybe you have answered already in another section, but the option to call or e-mail should still be available.
- Appointment scheduling: Perhaps some patients already know you and just want to go straight to set an appointment, or your website convinced them to visit your dental practice. The point is to make things easier for your customers.
How to Calculate ROI for My Dental Marketing Campaigns?
Okay, let’s break this into smaller pieces. ROI stands for the well-known term Return on Investment. The ROI is a tool to measure the performance of your dental marketing plans and dental SEO services. How much do you make in return for what you expend?
A dental marketing campaign is usually driven to attract more potential patients and create conversions. The ROI will serve the purpose of calculating in what percentage you are moving towards that goal.
There is a formula to calculate this because, in the end, we know it’s all about the numbers.
[(Number of leads x Lead to customer rate x Average sale price) – Cost for marketing] / Cost for marketing
It may seem too complex, but a marketing ROI formula is something a dental marketing agency should have no trouble solving. Explained here.
How Much Will Dental Marketing Cost
The cost of the plan you and your dental marketing agency decide on will depend on multiple aspects. If you want to stick to digital dental marketing only, or you want to work with a mix, or if you both decide to focus on content marketing and dentist SEO services.
Using paid ads or PPC campaigns will also affect the price since Google and search engines have their rates, and your agency will have to work from there.
Start Working On Your Dental Marketing Plan
Don’t miss the opportunity to work on new dental marketing strategies that can translate into an increase in new dental patients. Get to know our rates and what we have to offer to improve your website and your business.
Get to find and help more dental patients with us. We’ll make Google love you.
