In recent years, consumer behaviour has changed a lot, especially after the normalisation of the Internet. While there was a time when marketing was all about putting banners on the street, printing ads in newspapers etc, today, the landscape has changed. And the same goes for the profession of dentists.
Once upon a time, a dentist had to be a dentist, but as the world has evolved and competition has risen, they have to be a good marketer as well. Otherwise, they may not receive the footfall they want. Simply put, your dental practice’s visibility now depends on how well you are marketing it. But being a dentist, if you don’t know how marketing works, here’s a blog to help you with dental marketing.
Understanding Dental Marketing
The phrase dental marketing, if broken down in its simplest form stands for marketing of the dental practice. Just like marketing is done for any other business, dental marketing is done for a dental practice, where the focus remains on creating a well-established online presence which can attract patients to the Physical dental practice. But now there are two questions, why focus on online presence and how is it done? Let’s answer both.
In the UK, more than 33 thousand dental practices are making the competition tough for you to survive on your own. The fact that people prefer searching dentists online before making an appointment makes your dental website and online presence no less than the front desk of your practice. So, this is what dental marketing is and why it is important. Now, let’s answer how it is done. While doing dental marketing has. Multiple ways, we being the experts will tell you how to do smart dental marketing.
Covering Local to Social: Smart Dental Marketing Framework
What comes to your mind when you think of smart dental marketing? Well, smart dental marketing refers to an omnichannel approach where you don’t focus on one but all the channels from where you can expect your patients to come. So, it includes search results, dental websites, email, and social media. So, here is your guide to smart dental marketing which covers all these channels thoroughly.
Enabling Presence for Locals
First focus on those who are there in your neighborhood. Not only the ten houses next to you in each direction but anyone who can reach your dental practice. To do so, there are two main tasks to crack.
- Create Your Google My Business Profile: Search “dentists near me” and the profile you get on top are GMB profiles of dentists who have already claimed and maintained their profiles. Do the same with yours. Claim your business and optimise it with proper contact information like address and phone number.
- Do Local SEO: Now, what’s local SEO? When you search for “dentists near me”, everything that comes on the page is optimised with local SEO. It refers to creating content for your GMB and website with local keywords, those with phrases like near me, in London, in Oxford or wherever you are located.
Build an Attractive Online Dental Practice
What do you want your dentistry’s reception to look like? Attractive, right? As we discussed earlier, your online presence is no less than a reception for your dentistry. So, build it attractive.
- Create a Dental Website: Get yourself a dental website to list all your services/treatments with details. Add landing pages for all services where a patient can experience your dental practice even if he has never been there.
- Create Trustworthy and Helpful Content: Google wants you to be helpful and trustworthy which is why it has frameworks like EEAT and YMYL. So, while creating content like blogs, you must put in your experience to bring originality to your content. To become trustworthy, you need UGC or user-generated content. Add testimonials to your site and ask for reviews for your GMB to showcase your expertise in your work.
- Do keyword Research: When it comes to blogs and website content, a keen eye on ranking keywords is crucial. As they will help you to keep up with the potential patients’ search terminology and intent. Do detailed keyword research and integrate them naturally into your content. While doing the keyword research, you must look for these three things, i.e. the search intent, to get the content right, search volume, to pick the right keywords and keyword difficulty, to know how hard it is to rank on a particular keyword. However, if it’s too technical for you, simply hire a dental SEO company.
Crack the Social Media Game
Social media is something that is often left behind in dental marketing. But if you want to do smart marketing, it’s a must-have. But what does social media help you with? There are two things, first, it helps you retain the patients which in the dental business is very crucial. By simply asking your patients to follow you on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, you can keep them updated with your services and any seasonal sales you are coming with. Secondly, it’s a great reminder tool. See, almost no one books an appointment on their first Google search because dental problems mostly aren’t an emergency. So, with paid social media marketing you can target those who searched for dental practices or came on your website. Now, how to maintain your social media pages?
- Create Content About Your Services: Create posts and reels for your services. Explain the problems that one could face due to not getting timely treatment, explain the benefits of a treatment etc.
- Create SMM Campaign: Create paid campaigns to target your potential patients on social media or remind them to get their treatment done.
Measuring the Outcomes
While all these strategies are proven, it’s important to measure their outcome for your practice. Measuring outcomes allows you to identify the pros and cons along with the tweaks that might be needed to get a better performance. This is what personalisation in dental marketing is all about. The parameters that you can use to measure your online growth are:
- Organic Traffic: The number of people who come to your website through organic and unpaid results of Google search.
- Conversion Rate: The percentage of people who are turning into your patients like those who book an appointment or do any other action you want them to do.
- Active Followers: Look at the followers you gained over some time and how many of them are interacting with your content.
Conclusion
With these ways, you can create a dental marketing strategy which will help you to become a patient magnet. But if it seems like too much for you as your expertise may not lie in this domain, you can get help from a dental marketing company like Head45 Dental. We are a dedicated dental marketing company with services covering 360° of marketing for dental practices.