Dental clinics have an enormous amount of potential when it comes to online marketing.
However, if you don’t have any experience in marketing for dentists, don’t worry!
Check out our amazing tips for social media marketing for dentists to send your ROI higher than the Empire State Building!
1. Standard SEO marketing
Most users land on pages that appear on the first page of their search results from Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Search engine optimization (SEO), in a nutshell, is about getting your website to appear on top when users search for dental businesses.
Once on-page SEO is done, you need to maintain your website’s SEO by updating backlinks, incorporating blogs, and adding more to social media.
2. Local SEO marketing
Local SEO marketing is a component of SEO. Whereas SEO helps your website rank higher in worldwide searches, local SEO helps your business rank higher in specific areas.
You need to list your business on different platforms for local SEO. Local SEO especially works for services rather than products.
Listing your dental clinic for local SEO is actually pretty simple. All you need to do is to make a business profile on the following platforms and fill them with the necessary information:
1. Google My Business
2. Bing
3. CitySearch
4. Yelp
3. Search engine marketing (SEM)
For those who are just starting their business and need leads, search engine marketing through Google’s own Google Smart Ads is an amazing tool.
SEO is a long process that can take 6-12 months to begin showing results, but that’s not the case with SEM. SEM starts showing results almost instantly.
SEM is basically ads on Google. You can post ads by city, zip code, or area in which your business is located.
Google ads tend to be on the expensive side, however, they are very popular among dentists as there is huge competition. There’s only one reason for this: Google ads are proven to work.
Ads for Google, while beneficial, have shown to be complicated. Tools that simplify the process to a few simple steps can make it easier for you to capitalize on the benefits of the ads.
4. Market yourself as a brand
Having basic things like a logo, a recognizable template for your social media posts, or a simple tagline can create a monumental difference.
Patients look for decency and trust in the marketing of a dentist before actually booking an appointment with one. Marketing your dental clinic as a brand would open a new world of possibilities.
A patient would prefer choosing a brand’s service over an unbranded dentist. A patient’s first preference would be to go to “Smile, the painless dental clinic” rather than “Dental Clinic”.
Branding gives your business a name, authenticity, recognition and if used properly, a head start.
5. Get patient reviews
A sign of successful marketing for dentists includes testimonials. What could be better than a great patient review on your website?
Testimonials and patient reviews are the best weapons you have in your arsenal. One good review can get you 10 more patients (but a bad one can lose you 20).
Potential patients generally go through reviews before deciding on a dental clinic, so a great review or two would definitely draw in more patients.
Make sure you ask your patients to drop a review on your Yelp after their appointment!
Some automated social media marketing tools pull your best reviews from Yelp, Facebook, and Google My Business to post directly onto all of your social media accounts. This feature allows your potential patients to see your reviews right away, which builds your credibility.
6. Write blogs for your website
An informative blog section on your website is useful for your patients. Writing about topics like how to brush efficiently, when to get a dental implant, and the best teeth whitening treatments would attract more patients to your website.
You can write blogs about your own experiences, about dental and oral health, or about how your dental clinic beats out local competitors.
Blogs are gaining more popularity as people seek blogs that give valuable information to the reader. Blogs with SEO are even better, as they will draw further traffic to your site when people search for content within the blog.
7. Keep polishing your website
An unmaintained website is the best way to lose potential patients. You should keep adding more to your website to reach your dental marketing goals.
Website maintenance includes adding backlinks every now and then, adding more blogs, changing your strategy according to the algorithm, and more.
However, your website is not the only area you should focus on. Social media marketing for dentists is another beneficial tool to utilize.
8. Social media marketing for dentists
Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic began, businesses, individuals, institutions, and even governments have taken their marketing to social media.
This is primarily because it’s cheap, fast, global, and above all, easy.
Marketing your dental clinic on Instagram or through local community pages on Facebook could be a great idea.
Social media helps you run ads within geographic preferences as well. Promotion on Instagram or Facebook with local hashtags could draw many patients to your dental clinic.
Many dentists don’t have the time to spend on social media, though, so automated social media marketing software has become very helpful in social media marketing for dentists.
9. Email marketing
Email marketing has three sides to it:
1. Bringing in new patients
2. Engaging old patients
3. Bringing back old patients
Suppose you gather a thousand emails from people subscribing to your website’s blogs. From there, you can market to these prospects.
Creating a weekly newsletter to send to their email can contribute to future revenue. There are many resources you can use for email marketing, including SmartMail.
10. Appointment booking app
One of the biggest problems in this sector is the dynamic behavior of patients. Many patients are late, don’t show up, or reschedule often.
To tackle this, apps like Eclipse and Veribook could make your life easier.
In addition, as apps are more in demand than websites these days, having an exclusive application for your dental clinic would definitely gain you points for authenticity.
Endnote
Having gathered multiple insights on SEO and social media marketing for dentists, you are now equipped with the tools you need to reach your dental marketing goals.
Visualize your dental clinic with a perfect website, an exciting content strategy, a robust social media structure, an engaging weekly email newsletter, and finally a blog series to keep your patients captivated.
While this can seem far off, it doesn’t have to be. Practina is an intuitive tool that can help you master social media marketing without any social media marketing experience.
Give it a try today for free to see how it can transform your business.
