Incremental Planning that Focuses on Marketing Fundamentals
When It Comes to a Dental Marketing Plan, Play the Long Game
So often dental practices charge off without a long-term dental marketing plan and decide one day to mail a postcard or launch a Facebook marketing campaign or hold a drawing to give away concert tickets. Although well intentioned, such haphazard marketing strategies often end up resembling small, rudderless boats, heading off in many directions but failing to arrive at the intended port. Without a fixed course, marketing results tend to spike, level off, and drop, leaving the practice, once again, in search of the next silver bullet idea.
Anyone who’s spent even a brief time in branding and marketing understands that creating positive brand awareness takes time, ingenuity, and considerable effort. There aren’t any shortcuts. The marketing “experts” who call your office promising a hundred percent increase in new patients the first month are selling snake oil. The truth is that today, in a digital world, successful branding is the result of careful planning and methodical implementation. In short, winning dental teams play the long game.
Eat Your Marketing Elephant One Bite at a Time
The saying really is true; the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. This vivid, elephant-eating advice continues to inspire people who face challenging situations because the central message is so clear and true: Success comes to those who break down large, seemingly insurmountable tasks. That is, instead of looking at the entire job and becoming mired in details, effective people set goals, focus on manageable “bites,” and experience the momentum that comes from a series of small victories.
Plan, Plan, Plan Your Dental Marketing
Without a plan, work quality degrades, and we tend to waste time, energy, and money. Moreover, long-term planning creates a more creative, thoughtful, and balanced dental marketing plan strategy because planning allows us to calibrate each day and week to reflect diverse content and marketing mediums. In this way, an overall marketing plan should resemble an investment portfolio. Just like it would be unwise to invest all your money in one stock, dental practices should avoid narrowing their marketing efforts to a limited number of techniques; there are just too many great ways to market your brand: local print marketing, internal marketing, social media, pay-per-click, exterior banners, automobile decals, local networking events….
Use Planning to Boost Dental Staff Morale
Planning your dental marketing also has a tremendous effect on morale, and it enables you to set team goals: How many likes and shares will you have by the end of the year? What videos will you produce and share? Can you double or triple the number of Instagram/Twitter followers you currently have? How much average traffic will your website experience daily? Most importantly, what will your new patient numbers look like? Never underestimate the power of achievement to encourage your staff. Ultimately, it’s not a paycheck that motivates the vast majority of employees—instead, it’s a sense of accomplishment that forms the foundation of job satisfaction.
5 Dental Marketing Plan Fundamentals
As you begin designing your long-term dental marketing plan, keep in mind that there isn’t one correct path to success, no one-size-fits-all approach; far too many factors exist, such as local demographic, budget, staff, practice mission statement, dental specialties, office location, etc. That said, it’s always a good idea to start with and focus on the fundamentals, which greatly impact online presence and, ultimately, new patient growth.
Content Really Is King of Your Dental Marketing Plan: Content on your website that drives web traffic tells Google that your website is relevant. This is why you should spend time developing original dental blog posts and videos. Together, quality content and the resulting web traffic do the most to signal relevance to search engines. The more original, key-word rich content that your practice creates, the better your page rank. Period. Video is also becoming more and more important to search engines, so it’s smart to fill your YouTube channel with polished videos that feature services, events, staff, etc.
Yes, Ask for Google Reviews: Sure there are other search engines and review platforms, but the most important is Google. What do people do when looking for an answer to any question? They Google it. You want your prospective patients to find a mountain of positive reviews when they discover your practice online. Keep in mind, however, that you should avoid asking all patients to leave Google reviews because some might just leave bad or mediocre reviews. Reach out to only those patients who are very happy with your services in order to keep your average rating high. During a busy day, it’s easy to forget about requesting Google reviews from patients; planning such requests at your morning huddle can help. The vast majority of patients are more than happy to support online efforts. It’s also important to keep in mind that there will be organic moments when a patient suddenly praises your dental team; this is an excellent time to ask for a Google review. If you question the impact of reviews, think about how many times customer comments affected your purchasing on Amazon. Most people have at least some level of dental anxiety, so they choose a dentist very carefully—the opinions of others can have a considerable impact on their decision to call your office.
Respond to Online Patient Reviews—Period
How Online Reviews Can Attract New Dental Patients The Largely Untapped Practice Builder If you don’t respond to online patient reviews, it’s like deciding not to cash in winning lottery tickets. There’s so much opportunity in both good and bad reviews—yes, even less-than-perfect reviews can strengthen your online practice brand
Develop Your Internal Dental Marketing Plan: Often overlooked are the ways you can market to existing patients. There are so many opportunities to provide information about your dental services during exams. Of course, there’s a fine line between presenting an option and upselling treatment. Avoid the latter. Present all options and answer questions. If patients trust your intentions, they will most likely accept the treatment you recommend. You can also post marketing material strategically throughout the office and inside your take-home hygiene bags. Social media is another great way to highlight your services to existing patients. Be ready to present information and reveal value. If you can demonstrate how your treatment positively affects health and/or aesthetics, the sale takes care of itself.
Make Time for Social Media: The fact is that managing social media is time consuming. Anyone who disagrees is probably posting a lot of recycled material and getting very little traffic. The truth is that despite all the opportunities that social media provides, it requires that dental practices spend a considerable amount of time developing creative and engaging posts. Today, many offices employ a social media manager at least part time, which is a really good idea because social media is becoming a more important part of dental practice marketing.
Engage Your Community and Network with Local Businesses: Dentistry will always be a local market. Your prospective patients live within 7 to 10 miles of your building, so connecting with leaders in your community and participating in local events can boost your brand exposure and develop leads; it can also be a great way to strengthen your dental team and build camaraderie. Instagram is a really effective way to network online and introduce your practice to other small business owners.
