Building a Roadmap to More New Dental Patients
In an online world, your dental practice brand is your most valuable asset; it’s critically important, therefore, to establish a clear dental branding strategy that builds and maintains your online presence. What should you do first? What are the most important aspects of dental marketing? Should you hire a large dental marketing company, work with a freelancer, or do it yourself? What are some of the general principles that work in an online world? Your dental marketing guide should focus on the essentials.
Make Space for Your Dental Marketing Campaign
A mistake that many dental practices make is thinking of marketing as something to be checked off a list—like every other job around the office, like cleaning up the operatories and taking the trash out. This perspective is undoubtedly better than no marketing, but it fails to capture the limitless potential of an online world.
How much space you provide to something often reflects its value. For example, if you prefer a smaller home and more yard, you value outdoor activities. If you buy a home with a large kitchen, you enjoy cooking and entertaining. If you require a large walk-in closet, you’re into clothing and fashion. The same concept can be applied to your dental marketing guide. Are your efforts made as a kind of afterthought? Do you post to social media whenever you remember? Are multiple people in charge of promoting your dental practice brand? Do you rarely meet to discuss an overall growth strategy? If this sounds like your office, you haven’t leaned into your marketing efforts yet. It’s time to get serious.
First, you need space to work, or at least a desk with all your marketing material. This is your exclusive dental marketing area. This is where you keep all your equipment (camera gear, video editing computer, promotional materials, etc.). Ideally, you should find a room and turn it into a studio because the dental practice of the future will be producing a lot of videos. You’ll need a green screen, some lights, and a professional microphone. Hang a whiteboard up as well. Make this your space for brainstorming, sharing, and cataloging ideas.
Hire a Part-Time Digital Marketing Expert
The smartest way to supercharge your marketing dollars and expand local brand awareness is by partnering with a qualified digital marketer. Your dental marketing guide should avoid large companies that make big promises and deliver only generic, recycled posts and substantial invoices. These companies stress individualized attention upfront and then disappear after a contract is signed. It’s always best to find a digital marketing professional who’s passionate about online promotion and ready to get consistent results. This person should have the qualifications below.
- Have a genuine interest in digital marketing and be able to articulate general principles for effective growth.
- Be a skilled and creative motion graphic artist/graphic designer.
- Possess a background in video production (cameras, mics, and lighting).
- Fluent in WordPress development/management and drag-and-drop website builder tools.
- Understand Google Analytics and proper SEO.
- Know how to use the various social media platforms.
- Possess excellent written communication skills and the ability to produce compelling error-free text.
- Able to track dental practice statistics and report data weekly.
Track Your Progress
Tracking your efforts is a critical part of your dental marketing guide. Not only do statistics direct your efforts, but they also provide encouragement. Many dentists allow their marketing to fizzle out because they don’t see growth. They don’t see a noticeable change, so they stop posting on social media and reduce their efforts to one tired ad and maybe a postcard. The truth is that most of these dentists just don’t see the effect of their work, and most don’t understand that building a successful dental practice brand takes time and consistency. Tracking progress allows your dental team to see improvement in the data. This progress inspires more effort, which produces even better results.
Dental Social Media Reports Build Online Presence and Attract New Patients
Why It’s Important to Track Your Online Marketing Efforts A Paradigm Shift—Making Social Media a Priority In most dental practices, social media eventually becomes an afterthought, an obligation begrudgingly checked off a list. Despite enthusiastic beginnings, these social channel endeavors easily slide into the chore category, diluted by the nature
Weekly reports should be like gathering patient vitals in a hospital and kept to one page. Your ultimate goal is traffic and engagement. Ultimately, marketing is about increasing the number of people interacting with your brand and enhancing the intensity of their interactions. With that in mind, you’ll need to track the following data:
- website traffic
- Google business page interactions (calls and website clicks)
- Google reviews
- ranking in Google Maps
- social media statistics (Facebook and Instagram)
- social media ad performance
- new patient numbers
Growth-Based Bonus Program
Building a dental brand is an all-hands-on-deck effort. Some growth will certainly occur even with moderate and haphazard marketing efforts. However, if your desire is a strong local presence with consistent growth, you’ll need the entire dental team onboard. Your dental marketing guide should reinforce a consistent message online, over the phone, and in the office. You want prospective patients to feel that what you display online is consistent with your mission and patient care. Investing your staff in the growth process is the best way to accomplish this. Just like a start-up company compensates with stock shares, you should develop a plan that compensates based on monthly growth.
When your team feels invested, they share the excitement every time a new family joins the practice. They feel like a partial owner of something special and promote the office outside of work. They understand that a win is a win for the entire team. How the bonus program works will vary, but generally, it’s calculated using a formula that balances current compensation and net practice growth for the month. If you can issue a separate check for this bonus, it’s even better. Anything you can do to highlight growth will strengthen your efforts.
