Promoting Your Dental Practice in a Cyber World
Why Large Dental Marketing Companies Look Appealing
As a dentist, you’re no doubt approached by marketing companies, promising crowds of new patients. The sales pitch usually includes the following: 1) We discovered a flaw in your online presence, and it’s keeping you from growing your practice. 2) Your competition has more new patients because you’re missing some secret information; we have this information and will share it with you for $1499 a month. 3) If you don’t address your online issues, patients won’t be able to find you. 4) Our clients are really growing their practices.
Dentists are busy taking care of patients, so it’s easy to understand why many decide to go with a subscription-based marketing service. It’s the same reason why people buy travel packages and prepared meal kits. It’s just easier to click a button, pay a fee, and be done with marketing. Dentists are not unlike all people who look for the easiest way to get a job done, and large dental marketing companies offer just such a solution. For a monthly fee, they will promote your dental practice, and you don’t lift a finger. But are such services effective? Do they really deliver new patients?
How Successful Dental Practices Market Their Brands
In short, marketing a dental practice from a distance will fail. It may be easy to hire a marketing service, but it will not deliver in today’s hyper-competitive digital marketplace. To build a thriving practice in a cyber world you need to set your practice apart with unique content, personalized content that draws a clear distinction between your dental team and all others in town. Every dentist is certified; most dentists accept insurance, so why should people make an appointment with your office? And the answer to that question can’t be articulated with a quick, simple, cookie-cutter marketing approach. This is where large dental marketing companies fall short; they don’t provide the type of customization necessary to create contrast, and contrast is the key to attracting new patients and growing your practice.
Before You Sign a Marketing Contract
- Dental marketing companies boast when pitching their service, but are they willing to provide a guarantee in the contract, an opt-out if your practice doesn’t see a jump in new patient growth. Such a guarantee would be telling indeed and let you know just how confident they are. I’m guessing that if you ask such a question, most salespeople will quickly jump from “we are the best” to “results may vary.” If you decide to go with a large marketing company, I suggest you at least avoid any long contracts. Your practice should be able to cancel the service if it’s not working.
- Be sure to ask any prospective marketing company about the content they intend to post on your website and social channels. Will it appear on other sites and social media accounts? Search engine algorithms are getting more and more sophisticated every year, and they don’t look favorably on plagiarized content. If a marketing company uses a blog post or social post with many different practices, it could negatively affect your Google ranking. As someone who monitors many dental practices, I can tell which ones are using the same marketing company because they post the exact same content at the exact same time. This does not have a positive effect on your SEO.
- Is the marketing company going to produce custom content, especially custom video? Video is quickly becoming the most popular and engaging form of content, and a consistent stream of quality video can boost engagement and attract the attention of your local community. Most importantly, professional videos create contrast with other dentists, and contrast generates new patient calls.
- If this service covers social media, how much engagement can you expect? In other words, will the marketing company consistently like and comment on local posts from other small businesses in town, to build relationships? Posting content is important, but the true power of social media is in the resulting relationships that are formed. Local businesses can actually become like ambassadors for your practice. If you impress them with your passion for dentistry and commitment to quality content, they will mention you when someone needs dental services. Working on those relationships daily is an important part of growing an online presence.
What Really Works to Attract New Patients
My advice to dental practices looking to grow: focus on content, custom video content. Invest in some recording gear, set up a small studio, learn how to make videos, or hire a part-time content creator who can spotlight all your great work to the local community. Yes, equipment isn’t cheap, and hiring another person is an added expense, but this cost is often far less than pricey marketing companies that can’t deliver. Plus, the future of dentistry is only going to get more competitive and more dependent on creative video content that turns heads, so by focusing on custom content now, your dental team is investing in the future.
