How To Market A Dental

Practice

When developing a marketing campaign, start with your current and former patients.  It is generally much cheaper and easier to get a former patient to return to your office or to upsell an existing patient, than it is to entice a completely new patient.

Start With What You Already Have

5 ideas to help you make the most out of

your current and former patients

There are many programs out there that provide this service, but Solutionreach offers the most extensive and customizable outreach options.

Regular Calls

1)

Whether through electronic or traditional mail, a regular newsletter will keep your practice top of mind with patients. The optimal time to release newsletters, as shown by marketing studies, is every 3-4 weeks. 

Regular Newsletters2)

With a 400 percent return on investment, direct mail campaigns are the most cost effective marketing strategy when well executed. Direct mail campaigns are perfect for engaging current patients, reaching out to new patients, or re-connecting with patients with whom you have lost touch.

Direct Mail3)

Another way to reward regular patients and re-engage past patients is to offer discounts. These discounts can be offered either through coupons included in regular mailers, or through patient loyalty programs that reward patients who visit your practice regularly.

Discounts, Coupons, and Patient Loyalty Programs

4)

Patients at your office are a captive audience, which may be more receptive to hearing about additional procedures. For example, if a patient enters your practice looking for a cleaning, then it may be possible to also interest them in a whitening.

Advertise Yourself In Your Practice5)

My Smile TV (MSTV) is an internal television network designed for dentist waiting rooms. This network comes with pre-programmed content, but is fully customizable and allows for specific imported content to also be displayed. Furthermore, MSTV allows dentists to share content that they have developed for the program via the MSTV Network. More information about My Smile TV can be found here.

My Smile TV

Brochures for other services offered by your practice are also an effective tool for marketing additional services to current patients. These brochures should outline the pros and cons of the procedures you are trying to market. More information about how to put together a successful brochure can be found here.

Brochures

Once you have your current and former customers established, it’s time to focus on attracting new customers to your practice.  Before getting into the specific tools used for doing this, it’s important to think about the services you offer and how patients go about researching those services.

Online and Offline Tactics For Generating New Business

According to the market research firm, BIA/Kelsey, 97 percent of new patients use online media to research professional medical services. Therefore, it is essential that you have a strong online presence to attract new patients.

Online Marketing

Here are 5 steps to get

the most out of your online

advertising.

Before you can jump into online outreach, you must first ensure that you have a quality website to direct potential patients to. If you do not have a website, there are several services that offer free and easy to use website building and hosting services. Information about the most popular web building sites, including how to choose the site that is best for you, can be found here.

Step 1: Get Your Website Straight

•Online reviews play a critical role in a prospective patient’s decision to come to your practice.

•See Where You Are Already Listed. •Make Sure You Are Listed In The Primary Review Sites and Directories.

Step 2: Get Your Directory Listings and Online Reviews Straight

89 percent of consumers use some sort of search engine to assist them in making a purchase decision. The three most popular search engines, Google, Yahoo, and Bing, all allow you to pay to have your website show up when people search for terms related to your service.

Step 3: Run Pay Per Click Search Engine Ads

With all the different social media networks out there it’s easy to get overwhelmed. This is why we recommend choosing one, or at most, two networks to start with. Since 70% of the US population has a Facebook account and spend a significant amount of time there, this is where we recommend starting. More information on utilizing social media can be found here.

Step 4: Get On Social Media

The great thing about online advertising is that it does not require a lot of money to get started and success can be tracked with ease, compared to traditional advertising. That’s why we recommend focusing first on your existing patients and online advertising before moving on to more traditional methods.

Traditional Marketing

Here are 5 Steps To Make Sure You

Get The Most Out Of Your Traditional Media

Campaign

Direct mail is the most efficient form of traditional advertising. Cheap and easy to produce, direct mail can have a profound impact on your practice. More information on direct mail advertising can be found here.

Direct Mail & Flyers

Despite the fact that newspaper readership is on the decline, millions of homes across America still receive a daily newspaper. If your target patient pool is above the age of 35, then a newspaper marketing campaign can be a great way to reach potential new patients. This strategy is especially effective if you are located near a large metropolitan area with a widely read newspaper.

Newspaper Advertising

Television advertising can be a great tool for reaching a large number of new potential patients. However, TV ads can be expensive, especially if you are located near a large metropolitan area. It is important to constantly monitor your television advertising campaign to ensure that you are receiving a decent return on investment. More information about television advertising can be found here.

Television Advertising

The best way to start generating referrals is to start giving them yourself. By referring your patients to other practices, you increase the odds of those practices referring their patients to you. Providing a referral to another practice is the cheapest, easiest, and most effective way to advertise your practice to other practices.

Referrals

A marketing strategy that utilizes online, traditional, and referral marketing techniques is essential for growing your dental practice. Regardless of the tools you choose to use, it is important to always keep an eye on the return on your investment.

Conclusion

Another resource available for marketing your practice is ZocDoc. ZocDoc allows patients to view a list of local dentists in their insurance network, read reviews from other patients, view available appointment times, and schedule an appointment. More information about ZocDoc is available here.

Conclusion

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