How To Succeed At Dental Marketing
At its simplest, dental marketing means presenting your practice as the solution to a patient’s problem. If you get dental marketing strategies right, your new patient numbers will exponentially increase.
So where do you start?
The 5 Steps To Dental Marketing Success
We get it, you need new patients and you're ready to start using dental marketing strategies to attract them NOW. But if you jump into marketing without a plan that works for your practice, all you'll do is waste your time and resources and end up frustrated with the process and your lack of results.
There are 5 basic steps to ensure your dental marketing strategies are successful. It all starts with taking the time to plan before you hit the ground running with a dental marketing strategy.
- Identify your ideal patient
- Clearly differentiate your practice
- Consider working with professionals
- Treat dental marketing as a partnership
- Embrace comprehensive dental marketing strategies
We break each of these steps down in detail in our new downloadable guide How To Succeed At Dental Marketing and are offering it for free if you click here.
How To Identify Your Ideal Dental Patient
Most dentists come to us wanting to attract more of a specific type of patient to their practice. Whether it's more dental implant cases, cosmetic dentistry patients or simply patients who can pay for a high quality of dentistry without relying on insurance, every dentist has that ideal patient in mind.
So who is your ideal patient?
The key is to identify what your ideal patient looks like and THEN build dental marketing strategies around attracting those specific patients. For example, If you want to attract more Invisalign patients then you likely would need to consider targeting specific patients using Facebook ads, Instagram ads and more.
However, if you're looking for more emergency dental appointments then you might need to consider a different kind of strategy, relying more on Google Ads and special offers on your practice's website.
Think of dental marketing strategies this way: you wouldn’t place a crown on a patient’s damaged tooth without first removing the decay and preparing it, so why would you jump into dental marketing without first deciding who you want to attract to your practice?
If you skip this first, crucial step of identifying your ideal patient, your dental marketing strategies (no matter how "good" they are) will fail.
Differentiation = Success
I don't have to tell you how competitive dentistry has become. There are new dentists graduating every year and a new dental practice popping up on every corner. Many of the dentists who partner with us are concerned about one thing: how to make sure they attract patients in their area before their competitors do.
Our most successful clients have one thing in common: they know what makes their practice different than their competitors and they work hard to use dental marketing strategies to make the most of that differentiation.
If you aren't sure where to start when it comes to making your practice stand out from the crowd, consider the following list of differentiators:
- A unique new patient experience
- Offering all dental services under one roof
- Opening early or staying open late to accommodate working professionals
- Emergency same-day appointments
- Financing options (CareCredit, LendingClub, In-House Membership)
- Free consultation specials for services you want to attract (implants, Invisalign, dentures, etc.)
Without taking the time to consider what makes your practice attractive to your ideal patients, any dental marketing strategies you attempt will fail to get you the results you want.
Showcasing what makes your practice different is also important because if potential patients can’t tell the difference between the handful of dentists in their town, then they’re going to use the one detail that makes sense to them: price.
When you start trying to compete with other dental practices on price alone, nobody wins because there will always be a dentist willing to offer a service at a cheaper price.
Ready to set your practice up for dental marketing success?
Download our 100% FREE new guide: How To Succeed At Dental Marketing today!