How To Improve Your Dental Practice Marketing

Marketing has changed over a year into something drastically different. Dentists, in particular, will have realized how useful digital marketing has become in 2021. The combination of social media marketing alongside SEO and paid search results has seen a massive spike in consumers coming into dental practices around the US.

The pandemic hasn’t slowed the industry significantly since dental offices remain the most health-conscious of medical practices around. In fact, NBC News noted that few of them contracted the virus after reopening. Safety is a crucial concern. Still, without consumers realizing that a dental practice is so safe, they’re likely to remain home unless they’re faced with an emergency. Here’s how you can improve your dental practice’s marketing to generate real results.

Don’t Do Reactive Marketing

Some professionals get worried when they notice their patient numbers dropping. As a result, they put extra money into marketing by paying for a solution that guarantees that they can get their patient numbers back. Sadly, these quick-fix solutions aren’t worth the amount a dentist pays for them more often than not.

Instead, dental practitioners should spend some time researching what they’re doing and compare it to their more popular competitors. If, after this research, the dentist believes that a particular solution might work for their practice, then they should spend the money for it. Anything else is a shot in the dark and likely to be a waste of the practice’s marketing budget for little to no return.

Don’t Overreach Your Marketing Budget

It can be challenging to pinpoint the amount of funds a business should spend on marketing. The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) suggests that small businesses should be looking at between 5% and 10% of their budget to go towards marketing. However, determining how much you’re spending is distinctly different from figuring out where to spend it.

A business should determine where its clients are most likely to be and use that medium as its marketing engine. For example, a dentist may use Twitter or Instagram for their social media marketing but rely on the local paper for print ads. Knowing the most effective method of connecting with customers allows a dentistry practice to utilize its marketing budget better.

Use Metrics to Figure Out What to Improve

Both online and offline marketing methods don’t start at their most efficient. It’s up to a business to plan, test, and change its tactics to better connect with clients. By using metrics such as the geographic distribution of customers and the amount of money it takes to acquire a new customer instead of retaining an existing one, the business can streamline its marketing budget.

With the right thought process and procedures, a company could leverage its current clients as a sales funnel to drum up more customers. This iterative process looks at what the business is currently doing and sets goals based on what the practitioner wants their business to do.

Build Marketing Into the Practice

Dental practices can be small outfits like the offices of Dr. Hal N. Arnold, but even in the smallest office, every team member should be on board with the marketing push. From a receptionist upselling to assistants helping clients in the waiting room, it all counts. Once you start including all your staff into the marketing push, it tends to take on a life of its own.

You’d find individuals performing duties outside their regular office hours as part of their personal connection to the practice. There’s less reactive marketing and more proactive marketing. When you get to this level, your office starts standing out and might even generate publicity in the local and regional news.

For such a team effort to work, each employee should feel included, and the approach should be less corporate and more genuine. In the twenty-first century, authenticity is what drives marketing.