Digital Marketing for Dentists - How to Get More Patients Online
As a dentist, you’ve dedicated your life to providing top-notch dental care to your patients. But what good is all that expertise if no one knows about it?
A strong online presence is key to attracting new patients and growing your dental practice. How do you stand out in an ocean of dental websites and social media profiles?
In this blog, we’ll show you the secrets to creating a digital dental marketing strategy that will get you the patients you deserve.
From search engine optimization to content marketing to social media advertising, we’ve got all the tips and tricks you need to take your dental practice to the next level.
But first, why do dentists need marketing?
The Importance of Digital Marketing For Dentists
As a dental clinic, you understand the challenges of running a successful practice. However, it takes more than just expertise, advanced equipment, and experience to attract new patients and boost your revenue.
In today’s digital age, having a strong online presence is important for dentists to stand out and connect with their target audience.
The internet offers a world of opportunities for dental clinics to grow and get more leads. By harnessing the power of digital marketing for dentists, you can establish a solid online reputation, build brand awareness, and connect with patients.
But don’t take our word for it. Here are some dental statistics that highlight the importance of digital marketing for dentists:
- 5.3 billion people use the internet globally, which continues to grow yearly. (Source: Statista
- 81% of patients will still check out a doctor online despite being given a strong referral from their primary care doctor. (Source: inc.com)
- The average person spends nearly 2 hours and 27 minutes on social media daily. (Source: Oberlo)
- 75% of people never scroll past the first page of Google, which is why you need to rank on the first page. (Source: Hubspot)
- Around 72% of patients say they read online reviews as the first step to finding a new doctor, including a dentist. (Source: Software Advice)
- Email marketing has an average ROI of 3800%, making it a powerful tool for reaching patients. (Source: Hubspot)
These facts make it crystal clear that digital marketing is essential for dentists who want to reach more patients and grow their practice in 2024.
By creating a strong online presence and leveraging the power of dental marketing, dentists can attract more patients, build their brand, and increase their bottom line.
You’re missing out on a major opportunity if you haven’t embraced digital marketing. But it’s still not too late to get started with your dental marketing for your practice growth.
5 Benefits Of Digital Marketing For Dental Practice
Digital marketing helps dental clinics achieve success online. Dentists can grow their practice and attract more patients with effective digital marketing strategies.
A few of the proven benefits of digital marketing for dental clinics include the following:
Competitive Analysis
Dental marketing goes beyond just advertising your services online. It provides a comprehensive approach to help your dental practice thrive in a competitive market.
Digital marketing lets you analyze your competitors as you research and plan your dental marketing strategy. It helps you provide valuable insights into the strategies and tactics your competitors are using to succeed.
You can identify areas where your competitors are excelling and where they may fall short. This information can help you target your marketing efforts to fill gaps in the market and offer unique value to your patients.
By understanding the competitive landscape, you can make informed decisions about your marketing budget, targeting, messaging, and much more.
Increased visibility
Digital marketing can help increase your dental practice’s online visibility, allowing potential patients to find you more easily. By leveraging various digital marketing tools and strategies, such as SEO, you can ensure that your practice is easily discoverable by potential patients.
This increased visibility can help you build brand awareness, reach a wider audience, and drive traffic to your website.
Increased patient engagement
Digital marketing allows dental practices to connect with patients in new and innovative ways.
With social media, email marketing, and online reviews, you can build a more engaged patient base and foster long-lasting relationships with your patients.
Improved online reputation
Digital marketing can help dentists improve their online reputation in several ways:
- Social media presence: By using social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, dentists can build a strong online presence and showcase their services to a large and diverse audience.
- Online reviews and ratings: Digital marketing can help dentists get and manage their online reviews and ratings. More positive reviews enhance the dentist’s credibility and trust with potential patients.
- Content marketing: By creating high-quality, engaging, and informative content, such as blog posts and videos, dentists can demonstrate their expertise and commitment to patient satisfaction.
- Reputation management: Digital marketing can help dentists monitor their online reputation, quickly identifying and addressing negative comments or feedback. This helps dentists to maintain a positive online reputation and to attract more patients.
Cost-effective
Compared to traditional marketing methods like print, radio, and television advertising, digital marketing is often more cost-effective. It allows practices to target their desired audience precisely, resulting in higher conversions and a higher return on investment (ROI).
You can control the cost of digital marketing by adjusting the budget for various tactics. That means that even small businesses can afford to reach many potential customers.
Measurable results
With digital marketing, you can track your progress and measure the success of your campaigns. It allows you to make data-driven decisions and continually improve your marketing strategy.
Businesses can track and measure their results in real-time, allowing for quick adjustments to optimize their campaigns for better results.
8 Successful Digital Marketing Strategies For Dental Clinics
- Optimize GMB profile
- Local SEO
- Content marketing
- Video Marketing
- Online Advertising
- Email marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Text Marketing
Optimize GMB profile
Optimizing your Google Business Profile (GBP) profile, previously known as Google My Business (GMB), is an essential dental marketing strategy. It helps dentists increase their online visibility and search engine rank and attract new patients.
Your Google Business Profile (GBP) should include accurate and up-to-date information about your practice, including your business name, address, phone number, website, and hours of operation.
Encourage your current patients to leave reviews on your GMB profile, as positive reviews can increase your visibility and credibility in search results.
Read more about how to optimize your Google Business Profile for dentists in our comprehensive guide.
Local SEO
Optimizing your dental website for local searches is the most effective dental marketing strategy for small businesses. You can increase your local dental SEO rankings by targeting locally targeted keywords. This will increase the likelihood of potential patients finding and booking appointments with you.
Identify the local keywords you want to rank for and create website content around those keywords. For instance, if you are a dentist based in New Jersey, targeting keywords like “dentist NJ,” “dental office NJ,” or “emergency dental services in New Jersey” can help improve your local SEO.
Improve your local seo in our dental marketing strategies guide.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is creating and sharing valuable, relevant, consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. As a dentist, content marketing can be an effective strategy to educate and engage with your target audience.
Post various types of content, such as blog posts, videos, infographics, e-books, and social media posts.
By consistently delivering valuable and educational content, dentists can attract and retain a loyal following, position themselves as experts in their field, and ultimately drive more traffic and leads to their website.
Additionally, content marketing can help improve your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) and overall online visibility, making it easier for potential patients to find your practice.
Video Marketing
Video is a highly effective dental marketing tool that allows you to connect with potential patients and give them a glimpse of your practice.
Video in marketing is highly effective, with 67% of marketers reporting that sharing marketing videos on social media platforms has the highest return on investment (ROI).
In addition, 87% of businesses report that video has effectively generated leads, and 81% of marketers believe that video has a direct and positive impact on sales.
Dental practices can utilize video in a variety of ways, including
- introducing new patients to your practice,
- showcasing your work through before-and-after videos
- patient testimonials and reviews,
- answering frequently asked questions,
- offering educational dental tips and advice,
- giving virtual office tours to help minimize patient anxiety
Online Advertising
Pay-per-click (PPC) and social media marketing (SMM) are effective ways to advertise your dental practice. PPC is a form of online advertising where you pay a fee each time someone clicks on one of your ads.
It is a great way to drive targeted traffic to your website and get more exposure for your practice. Some popular PPC platforms for dentists include Google AdWords and Bing Ads.
On the other hand, SMM involves leveraging social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to promote your practice and reach a wider audience.
You can use social media to share dental tips, showcase your services, and engage with your followers. You can build a loyal following and attract new patients by consistently posting high-quality content.
PPC and SMM are powerful tools to help you grow your dental practice. However, it’s important to understand how to use these strategies to get the best results.
Work with a marketing professional with experience in dental reputation management and marketing to maximize your ROI.
Email Marketing
Keep your patients engaged and informed with a targeted email marketing strategy. Build your email list by inviting in-office patients and website visitors to join your newsletter.
Offer a regular dose of dental health advice, exclusive promotions and services, appointment reminders, and more through your dental emails.
For maximum impact, segment your email list based on patient demographics like age and location. This way, you can send highly relevant emails that resonate with each group.
Remember to keep your emails short, sweet, and to the point, as lengthy or unengaging emails run the risk of being overlooked or discarded.
Be Active on Social Media
An active presence on social media can boost your practice’s image as caring and innovative, as 97% of people prefer dentists who use social media.
Unfortunately, many companies fail in their social media efforts by missing key engagement opportunities.
The biggest slip in social media marketing is neglecting to foster interaction with your audience. Instead, focus on creating content that invites conversation, and be sure to respond promptly to any questions or comments.
Targeting your desired patient base is easy with social media advertising options like Facebook and Instagram Ads. These allow you to reach potential patients based on specific criteria such as location, interests, and age group.
Studies show that 69.3% of dentists stated that social media boosts their knowledge and communication skills with patients.
Also, you can enhance your online presence by joining industry conversations using relevant hashtags. To stay connected to the world of dentistry, use hashtags in your posts such as:
#dental #dentist #dentistry #smile #teeth #dentista #odontologia #dentalcare #tooth #dentalclinic #dentalhygienist #orthodontics #oralhealth #dentalimplants #dentalhygiene #dentalphotography #teethwhitening #cosmeticdentistry #dentalassistant #odonto #veneers #dentalstudent #dentistryworld #health #di #dentaltechnician #smilemakeover #dentallab #doctor #braces
Text Marketing
Ensure a successful dental practice with seamless patient communication. When the front desk is swamped with appointments and procedures, providing a top-notch patient experience can be challenging.
Enter text marketing - a cost-efficient and effective solution. Automatically send appointment reminders and exclusive deals and promptly respond to patient inquiries. Say goodbye to manual follow-up and save valuable time and resources.
Keep your patients happy, informed, and coming back for more with timely communication. Text marketing solutions like DemandHub ensure your texts are fully compliant with (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) HIPAA regulations.
Read our complete guide on how to grow your dental practice with 26 effective dental marketing strategies in 2024.
How can DemandHub help you increase your online presence?
If you want to take your dental marketing to the next level, a customer experience platform like DemandHub can help.
DemandHub is a powerful, all-in-one customer satisfaction platform that helps you manage your reputation, get more reviews, attract new patients, and grow your practice 10X.
DemandHub is the solution to your digital marketing problems. It will improve your digital footprint and ensure that potential patients always see the best side of your practice.
With our benchmarking feature, you will see how you stack up against other dental practices in your area. We also offer dental marketing tools and resources to help you improve your ratings and get more positive reviews.
With DemandHub’s modern messaging capabilities, you can start a two-way conversation with your patients. Send messages with review links directly to patients and enable them to post a review in 30 seconds or less — all with just a few clicks.
Get an easy and effective way to market your dental practice digitally and grow your business by 10X.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Digital Marketing for Dentists
What is the role of digital marketing in dental practices?
Digital marketing plays a significant role in attracting new patients, retaining existing ones, and establishing a solid online presence. It includes various strategies, such as search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, and online advertising.
How does a dental practice benefit from digital marketing?
Dental practices benefit from digital marketing in many ways. It boosts their online visibility to potential patients, enhances patient communication and engagement, and builds trust through patient reviews. Plus, it helps track marketing efforts to understand what’s working and what’s not.
What are some best practices for digital marketing in dentistry?
Some best practices for digital marketing in dentistry include optimizing the dental practice website for search engines, maintaining an active presence on relevant social media platforms, and creating engaging and informative content. You can also use email or text marketing for appointment reminders, follow-ups, and encouraging patients to leave online reviews.
What is digital marketing in dentistry?
Digital marketing in dentistry involves using online strategies and tools to promote a dental practice. SEO, pay-per-click advertising, social media marketing, content marketing, email marketing, and online reputation management are all digital marketing tools.
Why is digital marketing important for dentists?
Digital marketing is essential for dentists because it helps them attract new patients, retain existing ones, and build their reputation. As more people turn to the internet to find and choose healthcare providers, having a robust online presence becomes fundamental for any dental practice.
How to market dental clinics online?
To market a dental clinic online, you can start by building a professional, user-friendly website optimized for search engines. Regularly update your site with helpful and engaging content. Maintain active social media profiles, manage your online reputation through reviews, and use online ads to target local audiences.
What are examples of digital dentistry?
Digital dentistry involves the use of digital or computer-based technologies in the field of dentistry. Examples include digital radiographs, dental lasers, CAD/CAM systems for designing and fabricating dental restorations, digital intraoral scanners, and computer-guided implant surgery.
Why do dentists need marketing?
Dentists need marketing to attract new patients, retain existing ones, and establish a positive reputation in the community. Marketing helps dentists differentiate themselves from the competition. It also allows them to showcase their services and expertise and connect with potential patients. Without marketing, even the most skilled dentists could remain unnoticed in today’s competitive healthcare environment.
