Marketing is crucial for businesses in every industry. The right marketing approach can help bring new people through your door. It also helps strengthen bonds with existing clients. When done right, marketing provides the foundation for success.

Dental practices face unique challenges when it comes to dental patient marketing. Most people do not enjoy visiting the dentist. Dental patient marketing must focus on making patients feel comfortable.

While most dental practices understand the importance of marketing, not many know the right way to go about doing it. Unfortunately, those that do not have an effective marketing plan in place may fail to attract the number of patients they require to grow and stay in business.

Work With an Experienced Dental Marketing Firm

Everyone needs to visit the dentist. Even patients that avoid regular checkups eventually require dental care. However, many patients find it extremely difficult to locate a good dentist. If you ask around I’m sure you’ll hear numerous horror stories about fake cavities and/or charges for services not received. This is part of the reason why it’s so hard for dentists to attract new patients.

Making patients feel relaxed about going to the dentist is an important part of dental patient marketing. Dentists need to let patients know they can trust their practice to perform the dental work they need in a comfortable and pain free environment.

Working with an experienced marketing firm puts you in the best possible position to put both your patients and potential patients at ease. Conversion Pipeline has years of experience working with dental practices to provide quality marketing services. Our specialties include web design, content marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization, paid advertising and email marketing.

Get Involved With the Community

One of the most effective ways to attract new clients is by getting involved with the local community. Attending community events or sponsoring a local sports team helps bring awareness to your business. Patients are more likely to visit your practice if they know your name. Remaining active in your community helps build trust and recognition. While patients might not need your services immediately, it’s far more likely they’ll remember you when they do.

Connect on Social Media

Social media provides numerous opportunities to connect with new patients. Having a regular presence on social media also allows you to keep in touch with existing patients. This strengthens bonds and increases the likelihood patients will keep coming back. It also improves the chance they’ll refer you to their friends and family.

Social media makes it possible to share content and updates about your practice including specials and new offerings. This is the type of content your followers will share, attracting new patients to your practice. Another important feature available through social media is the ability to leave reviews. Anyone that visits your social media page will have the opportunity to see these reviews.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization helps users find your practice online. This is important to every business, as numerous studies show that most people will not visit a business without viewing their website first. However, it doesn’t do you any good if someone in California finds your Virginia-based dental practice online. For best results, you need to focus on local SEO.

If your practice is in Virginia, you want your business to rank well in the search engine when someone searches for “Fairfax Dentist”. Local SEO is also becoming more important as more people use voice command to search. When properly optimized, your practice should come up first in the search results when someone uses voice command to search for a dentist “near me”.

Website Design

As mentioned above, most dental patients will visit a website before they make an appointment. This is why it’s so important that you have a well-constructed, easy to navigate, professionally designed website.

The images on your website should make people feel comfortable and at ease with your practice. Visitors to your website should be able to find what they’re looking for quickly, with little effort on their part. They should have access to your contact information and the services you offer. Including a section about your team with pictures can increase customer trust.

Content Marketing

Providing patients and potential patients with quality content can help attract new patients and increase trust. For best results, provide articles or blogs about topics that interest your patients. This might be an answer to a commonly asked question or information about an exciting new service you offer. Make sure you provide easy to read content free from spelling or grammatical errors.

Pay Per Click Ad Campaigns

With pay per click ad campaigns your ad appears to users searching for certain keywords. Using location based keywords can make this type of marketing more effective. For example, a Virginia-based dental practice might use “Ashburn, VA dental practice” or “Ashburn dentist near me” to ensure the right people see their ad.

Postcards & Mailers

In addition to digital marketing, dental practices can benefit from more traditional forms of marketing as well. Since dental practices know their audience is local and because everyone requires dental care, sending postcards or other mailers is an excellent way to attract new patients.

Sending discounts for additional services like cosmetic dentistry or orthodontics can encourage existing patients to explore new services.

Diversify Your Keywords

While most Northern Virginia-based dental practices would love to come up first when users search for “best Northern Virginia dentist”, this isn’t always possible. There are numerous dental practices in Virginia, each trying to come up as number one in the search engines. When researching keywords, think about the services that make your practice unique. Consider other options such as “Northern Virginia cosmetic dentist”, or “Northern Virginia Invisalign dentist”.

Dental patient marketing is about connecting with patients in new and meaningful ways. For best results you’ll want to use a combination of strategies. Working with an experienced dental marketing firm can help. Conversion Pipeline works directly with you to develop an effective marketing strategy. Please contact us for more information.