Looking for dental marketing ideas? Check out the top 10 dental marketing ideas from the one and only Dental Marketing Guy!
If you’re a dentist who lands on this page, you understand something about the future.
You understand that the dental market that our fathers toiled in is nothing like the dental market of today. Today’s dental market is saturated with advertisements. You might want to find out:
This article is designed to help dentists like you get a head-start in finding actionable dental marketing ideas which will allow you to grow yourself the dream practice that you’ve always wanted! While this list is not 100% comprehensive, I allow you to get a taste of the kinds of dental marketing ideas I offer my subscribers at my dental marketing company:
1. Keep up with technology.
There is a segment of your market which will actually judge your clinical skills, as well as your level of interest in providing a high standard of care, based on your technology. Some of those patients are known to leave dentists who do not keep up with the latest technology. Don’t be left behind!
You can prove to your patients that their convenience, comfort, and costs are on your mind. And you can do it, just by buying a new toy! How much fun is that!?
2. Use video.
Remember when the Internet was dial-up?
Those days are long behind us. Today, video is faster, cheaper, and more expected than ever. If there anything like the majority of the dental marketplace, your prospective dental patients spend vast amounts of time on YouTube. Promoting your practice and your team on video, you’re helping your prospective patients get to know you. They’ll come to like you, even before they’ve even that you over time, the learn to trust you just as if they had met you face-to-face.
In this digital age, you literally can be in all places at all times through dental videos.
Meeting your patients in their living room, coffee shop, or anywhere else they may be, videos on their desktop or mobile device or tablet. This is the future! The best part of all, is 99% of dentists will read this dental marketing idea, only to take zero action on the round. Of those that do take action, more than half of them will not hire a professional videographer. And among those who do hire a professional video production company, few of them will hire someone who specializes in dental video production.
Think about it this way, when a prospective patient goes to Google, they enter dentists and their city name. What do they see? They see a website, followed by another website, followed by another website. One dental website after another. Boring! What if, in the middle of all that, they come to your website? And on your website is a beautifully crafted professional video you and your team, in your office, displaying your company culture. You would be a categorically different dentist, just because you have a categorically different dental website.
By hiring someone whom specializes in dental video choreography, you can be categorically different from your peers!
3. Clean dental website design.
Do you have a website that is easy to navigate? As a dental marketing enthusiast, I can tell you that one of the most important aspects of dental marketing in today’s competitive landscape, is having a website which is easy to follow.
Through careful empirical research, the legal profession has found that juries have consistently judge the credibility of an expert witness based not on the air accolades for educational accomplishments. Not even on their experience or track record. Juries have been known to consistently measure the veracity of the statements of an expert witness based on one factor alone clarity. By being clear and easy to follow, expert witnesses are able to earn the confidence of juries.
What does this have to do with your dental marketing campaign? Like juries, your audience the prospective dental patients is made up of an audience that just wants a simple clear message. The home page of your website is often times the lobby by which people enter your practice. It’s where you have a chance to give them a once-in-a-lifetime first impression. It’s your time to shine!
So how do you shine?
It’s not by talking about your clinical skills. It’s not by talking about how you’re better than other dentists. In fact, contrary to what some people might believe, it’s not even by highlighting all of your differentiating factors. Some dentist with think it’s to highlight all your services. Even that is wrong. The way you stand out and build credibility is by having a clean website.
What do I mean by clean dental web design?
A clean dental website is one which is offering your prospective patients as few of choices as possible. You know what’s relevant to the audience, and you deliver it. Succinctly. You don’t waste time with endless features and hundreds of buttons to choose from. You promote one single strong message, maybe two or three at the most. You differentiate yourself, not by differentiating yourself at all! You make yourself look different by being cogent.
This all starts with a simple, clear unique value proposition on the home page of your website. To check out examples of websites which are clean please check out this dental website design page.
Segmentation of different messages is important. For instance, if you’re running Google Adwords for dental implants, you should serve up that ad with “dental implants” in the ad copy itself. The searcher shouldn’t be taken to your home page, unless your home page is completely dental implant centered. If you’re a general dentist who places dental implants or works with an oral surgeon who specializes in dental implants, you should have a page dedicated to the topics that dental implant patients care about. Often times, you can reduce your advertising budgets by simply providing relevant, useful content that is specific to the needs of that dental implant patient. You would do the same for all other dental services. Segmentation of your message would ideally get very specific to the patient.
For instance, a dental implant patient over 55 years old may have different concerns than a dental implant prospect who is under 18 years old, who needs a dental implant procedure as a result of a tragic collision. By promoting a message which is tailor made for your specific audience, you can accomplish the goal of being top of mind to that specific dental patient.
In this dental marketing idea video, we discuss the 3 questions your website needs to answer, whether it’s a dental implant page or your home page:
4. Boost referrals with remarkable patient experiences.
Few things are more important to your ideal prospect patients than their experience when they go into your office. Always remember that internal marketing, that is the ability of your patients to refer to your practice, is always going to be your highest return on investment for all types of marketing and dental advertising.
So how do you attract patients through word-of-mouth marketing?
Let’s look at the hallmarks of what a truly remarkable practice is and what you need to prioritize in order deliver an amazing patient experience:
5. Boost referrals by rewarding your best patients.
If you have patients who regularly refer to you, or if they refer one or two highly profitable restorative or cosmetic cases, this is not the time to pitch the purse strings. Be sure to offer a gift that is personal and unexpected.
Here are just a few ideas for how you can reward those patients you are most appreciative of: Marriage anniversary whitening is totally unexpected! It cost you very little to implement and won’t ever be forgotten. Sports fan memorabilia, unique to the likes of the patient. You can write a hand written note, and that may be even better to some of your patients.
6. Build relationships with your patients.
Most dentist reading this would say” oh my patients love me!” They probably do.
However, is the relationship you have with your patients strong enough that a free examination, whitening, and x-rays from the next direct mail piece no longer a temptation?
If you build a relationship with your ideal patient, that cannot be stolen or revoked any kind of dental advertising.
Speaking to your patients, and treating your patients, the way they want to be treated. This is at the keystone of what a truly great patient experience is all about. It’s not about whether you feel they need Invisalign. It’s about whether they want Invisalign. Through treatment planning, through the greeting your patients receive when they walked through your practice stores, through everything you do and don’t do. It’s all about building that relationship with your ideal patient.
How do you identify the best way to build a relationship with your ideal patient?
First of all, you need to identify who your ideal patient really is. Once you have the person in mind, meaning who they are and what kind of services they want, and what their likes and dislikes are, this is when you can head in the right direction. Be sure to identify who your target audience, first. From there it becomes very easy for with dental marketing. And building relationships with your ideal patient, that’s what dental marketing is all about.
This can be applied in any aspect of dental marketing, including dental implant marketing.
From the what you write on your dental website, to how you treat people in your practice, to what your logo even looks like! It’s all geared toward that ideal patient. Think of it this way, before you sit down to write an email, what’s the first thing you do? The first thing you do is address the person by name. This is because who your writing to is more important than what you’re writing. Who your writing to is the keystone of an email. And it’s also the keystone of any dental marketing campaign know who you’re talking to, first. Then, know why you’re writing to them. This means also understanding why it matters to that person. Why does your email actually matter to this prospective reader? If you can identify what values this person has, and what you can provide this person, that’s when your email will be directed towards the right person in the right way.
From there, what you write is a secondary concern.
That’s how it works with email, that’s how it works in everyday conversations, that’s how it works with patients who you have in the chair. It’s how everything works in life. First you have to know who you’re talking to, then why you’re talking to them what you talk about is the third and last thing in the equation. In fact many people tell me that when they apply this principle to their dental marketing campaign, they have no trouble coming up with what to say. They have no trouble figuring out how to treat patients. Treatment planning is so much smoother. Case acceptance rises patients refer to you more you become the dentist who cannot be a commodity. Corporate dentistry has no stronghold over them if you can identify who you’re talking to and why it matters to them.
I’m willing to bet dimes to donuts that you’ll be able to come up with the best message possible.
7. Build relationships with your competitors.
You may think this sounds crazy, but I actually love my competitors.
I love my competitors because they sharpen me. Iron sharpens iron. Your competitors force you to adapt. They force you to innovate. They force you to segment your target market. They force you to bundle services. They force you to promote a better, healthier, more life-enhancing dental practice. If not for them, every dental office would be run like a government bureaucracy.
Building relationships with your competitors has its advantages.
You can cover another dentist’s shift. You can speak well of another dentist who has a focus different from yours. You can refer to some of your competitors, when it’s the right fit. For instance, a tough dental implant procedure might be best referred to an oral surgeon.
When it comes to SEO, having friends in your neighborhood makes a lot of sense.
For instance gaining links from your competitors websites can be hugely beneficial. You can do this by collaborating with your competitors to do a joint offer, or some sort of co-promotion where you play off to each other’s strengths, in order to give the dental patient the best solution possible. You see this all the time with specialists and general practitioners. General dentists refer to specialists, and specialists always have the right to refer to a general dentist, if it makes sense. But it’s not just limited between general dentists and dental specialists. You can earn links from all sorts of places, and you can sometimes do that more effectively by teaming up with one of your competitors. For instance, what if you cope promoted a charity event, which both of you then reached out to your separate networks of friends. One of you earns a link from the local Chamber of Commerce, while another one of you promotes on Facebook to their many dental patients.
The combinations are endless!
This may seem unlikely to some, but you can check out other articles on my dental marketing blog to see specific tips on how you can actually links by teaming up with your competitors.
Keep in mind also, that your competitors are always local. Imagine earning a link from someone who does dental implants in Florida. But you’re a general dentist in San Luis Obispo California. If you position yourself correctly, you absolutely can earn links, what Google officially considers an endorsement or referral, from all sorts of authoritative sources. One example of an authoritative source in the dental field, is dental town.com. Another is dental economics. For dental entrepreneur. These are places where you can earn links from by providing value to and in the case of these three different organizations, none of them are really your competitor. So in every case, if you can earn links from your competitors, the rest of the links you earn are typically much easier when working with non-competitors.
8. Use photography.
Photography cannot be undermined. It’s much easier to execute, that’s on your I feel patients. In this interview on the dental marketing guy show that I did with Dr. Chip Payet, I explained that no dentist would ever place an image of another person on his face when dealing with the patient in your own practice. It’s just silly to not show your face, but instead the face of a smiling family from who-knows-where. We want your ideal patient to know, like, and trust you. This means using custom, professional photography to showcase you, your team, and your office.
Why not give your prospective patients a tour of your office, before they even walk through the front door? They’ll feel a sense of familiarity of your practice from the very first visit. They’ll be more likely to show up, more likely to trust your expert recommendations, and more likely to accept treatment, as a result.
9. Hire a professional to help you with phone training.
Your front desk position is the most important position in your dental practice. Your phone is the most important piece of equipment in your dental practice. It is the aorta of your office. Inbound new patient calls are the lifeblood of your business. Respect that position!
You can gain all sorts of new patients through things like search engine optimization, social media advertising, direct mail, and of course good old-fashioned word of mouth marketing. But none of that really matters clamp off those leads simply by not answering the phone one out of four times. In this episode of the dental marketing guy show, one 800 dentist founder and chief spokesman Fred Joyal joins us and tells us that many of the dental offices he speaks with are missing one out of four calls. What a travesty to lose 25% of the returns on your marketing investment!
By hiring a professional to do your phone training for your staff, you can remove reasons to doubt the training’s effectiveness. Go with someone with a track record of success. For examples of dental marketing consultants, or dental coaches who specialize in improving your phone training, check out some of the guests on the dental marketing guy show
not all coaches are the same!
Be sure to work with someone that has a system which actually works for your style, your personality, what your staff prefers, and what you wish to build in your practice. It has to mesh with your goals, your budget, and your company culture. There are many different ways to approach this. You can use a video training series. You can use a virtual coach. You can use an in office consultant. You can use someone who has a strict but proven system. Whatever it is you hope to achieve in your dental practice, the recommendation I would make is that you should assess more than one option.
Be sure to check on the style of the dental marketing consultant, just as much as their reputation.
References from dental practices which are completely different from yours, have limited value. By assessing some of the guests on the dental marketing guy show your able to gauge the personalities and styles, and philosophies towards marketing. All of these different dental coaches and marketing professionals, all the different people in the dental industry who are there to make sure you find success, they show you who they are on the show they talk about what makes them different which brings us to our final point in how you can stand out from the crowd.
10. Be different.
For most practices, the way that you become different is by being yourself.
Your personality, as it is displayed in the content on your website and social media platforms, that’s how you stand out. However, there are additional ways to stand out. While no one can fake being you, many dentists and larger dental groups, and even corporate dentistry, can use economies of scale to out hustle you in ways that are not on personality alone.
There are three basic ways to stand out, which have nothing to do with video or photography or talking via copywriting about who you are as a person, as a dentist, as a dental office, and as a member of your community all three ways are objective. All three ways, have to do with what actually makes you different other than you yourself.
1. Market Segmentation.
You can focus on a specific part of your market. Do you want to focus your marketing exclusively on dental implants, for instance? This would be an effective way to capture the attention of a certain demographic who might have dental needs. For more information on how to do this, check out this interview I did with Dr. Eric Jones of JonesSmiles.com. Doctor Jones used his knowledge of both dental implants and where mature audiences congregate to deliver the right message to the right segment of the market.
2. Innovation.
Just as we mentioned in the beginning of this article, technology is a form of innovation. You can increase convenience for your patients, you can decrease costs, you better through the use of technology however technology isn’t everything. Innovation also takes the form of being a continuing education junkie, as Dr. John Nosti would explain in this interview. However, even if you do an extraordinary amount of continuing education, keeping it to yourself as you. Be sure to tell through the content on your website and other places online. If people don’t know about your level of continuing education, I can tell you I know a lot of people personally who have no idea that dentists legally required a certain minimum amount doing education. They would be even more surprised should they learn that you actually exceed by a dramatic amount continuing education at your required to have by law.
This is the sort of innovation that can really impress upon your ideal patient is your dedicated clinical mastery.
You may have the right to remain silent, when it comes to your continuing education, but should you read that right you will quickly find that there is a new patients or just wait to find slight those dental avoiders, those dental procrastinators, those people may just need to hear that you’re willing to go above and beyond what other dentists are willing to do. And that may be all that it takes! Education goes hand-in-hand with innovation. Just make sure people know about. And of course this goes for offering new services, such as adding dental implants your list of services. If you don’t tell your patients about your dedication to CE, they just won’t know about it.
3. Bundling.
Much like continuing education, there are ways you can bundle services and products with what you already offer. This can be particularly helpful for dental practices in towns and big cities where there so how do you stand out among the crowd where there is a dental office the way you can do this is by offering things that they are not. You bundle services. You bundle products. You have things that go beyond an amalgam filling.
Bundling is about under-promising and over-delivering.
For instance, while every dentist on your street is offering an amalgam filling, how many of them are offering a quick break during the procedure? How many of them are offering Chapstick for patient? How many of them are bundling arm and neck massages? Sure, the amalgam filling is the same everywhere they go but you’re the only one bundling these things that add value.
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You have to find the right ideas fit your practice this article is simply an overview of some general ideas.
I hope you found this helpful in your search to find dental marketing ideas this list is by no means comprehensive, and if you’d like to find out more, please check out some interviews on the dental marketing guy show find a time of actionable dental marketing ideas on the show if you are a dentist serious about finding more actionable dental marketing ideas, feel free to contact me for more information at my dental marketing agency.
