Learn how to get more patients with digital marketing for dental clinics with these strategies and tactics to grow your practice.
Like most businesses, dental practices used to rely on traditional marketing methods such as word-of-mouth, referrals, yellow pages, direct mail marketing, and billboards to get new patients.
However, times are changing and these methods are becoming a thing of the past. Today, it is not what dentists say about themselves, their practice, their team, or the technology that gets them business. It’s what current and potential patients are saying about them and their dental clinic digital marketing campaign. Digital marketing for dentists can help your business grow and widen your audience.
The millennial generation is getting to a point in their lives where they’re going out to find their own dentists, doctors, and insurance providers. They are no longer reacting to traditional marketing methods but, instead, they are searching for companies that have high positive reviews and stay connected with their customers online. Therefore, having online marketing for dentists and a digital marketing strategy in place is critical in attracting new dental patients.
Paid digital advertising is broken down into three separate pay-per-click (PPC) groups: paid search (Google Ads), paid display, and paid social.
PPC advertising is a type of internet marketing that allows people to display ads for their products or services to potential clients that search for relevant topics. As the name pay-per-click suggests, it means that dentists and other advertisers are only charged when someone clicks on their ad. PPC is a great opportunity for dentists to get their practice out there and in front of potential clients who may not know about their practice.
Paid Search Advertising (Google Ads)
Google Ads (formally Google AdWords) are ads that are shown in the top and bottom of the search engine results on platforms like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Your ads are shown to individuals when they search using keywords related to your ad.
When creating your keywords for your ads, it is important to know that, although potential clients search for generic keywords such as “dental care” or “dental services,” they also search for specific services, from “teeth cleaning services near me” or “cavity fillings in [my location].” These are known as long-tailed keywords, which are three and four keywords that make up a phrase that is related to your industry even if not directly mentioning it.
They often have a lower search volume but the individuals that are searching these terms have a better chance of converting to a customer because of the precise targeting.
When writing your ad copy for your dental internet marketing ads, it is important to make your ad stand out and get people to click on your ads. To do so, your message within the ad should focus on the benefits that your dental office can provide for the customer. Your ad should create a strong, clear, and concise call-to-action (CTA) for the potential customer. Ultimately, your ad copy should mirror the potential customer’s end goal
Dentists should also take advantage of using extensions in their ads. Extensions are additional snippets of relevant information that extend your ad and provide greater visibility and prominence on the search results page which can increase your click-through rate and improve your quality score.
For example, as seen in the image above, the text within the red blocks are extensions. The first red block is outlining site link extensions. These are links listed directly below your ad copy that will link individuals to additional pages of your website. These links can increase conversion rates by providing users with several relevant links to additional landing pages that can increase their chances of converting; Contact Us, About Us, Our Services, schedule an appointment, etc.
The highlighted text beneath these is known as structured snippet extensions. They highlight specific services or products that dentists may offer. For example, root canal treatments, teeth whitening, dental implants, or invisible braces.
I go more in-depth with this blog post How To Use Google Ads for Dentists to Attract more Patients
Search Engine Optimization for Dental Clinics
If dentists want their customers to find their practices online, search engine optimization is critical. It is important to note that seeing results from a proper dental SEO strategy requires commitment and patience.
One of the most important aspects of your local Dental Clinic SEO strategy is keywords. Choosing the right keywords will allow Google to understand what your website is about and rank you in their search results for those related terms.
There are several available SEO tools that will assist dentists in finding the most suitable keywords for their website; Google’s Keyword Planner, Moz Keyword Explorer, and UberSuggest.
If your dental practice operates within a specific area, focus on geo-location keywords like “St. John’s Dental Office” or “Dentist in St. John’s.”
It is also important to note that once you have chosen your keywords, dentists must place them in the right sections. These include the title of the specific page, in the URL, in the meta tags, & descriptions, and within the alt text of an image.
Local SEO For Dentists
Local SEO, a branch of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), is simply optimizing your online dentist’s website to increase the number of patients from a local area. More and more people like to visit their local dentist than before due to comfort and familiarity. As compared with national or international chains, dental clinics that foster being close to the community are usually considered better by most clients due to the concern and care they give to patients during treatment.
Promote yourself as a local dentist who is invested in the well-being of their patients and they will establish trust with you. Utilizing digital marketing is one great way to accomplish this.
Here are some local SEO strategies for Dentists you or your digital marketing team can implement to rank higher in search engines.
- List Your Dental Practice on Google My Business
- Leverage Google Post on Google My Business
- Create Localized Landing Pages
- Build Links within your Local Community
- Develop and Implement a Local Review Strategy
Social Media Marketing
Paid social ads are ads that appear on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Each one of these platforms provides precise targeting capability that gives dentists complete control over who will see their ads. Besides the general user demographics such as age, gender, and location. There are other targeting options (that may be less relevant to dentists) such as interests, behaviours, relationship status, income, and much more.
Paid social ads allow dentists to give their practice a voice and build new relationships with their target audience. It allows dentists to reach out to potential customers and provide them with up-to-date, relevant information regarding your practice.
This can include unique services or procedures that your practice may offer, your track record and industry experience, customer reviews, client experiences, and even introducing your team and the office culture. This creates trust and builds brand awareness around your dental practice which would increase the possibility that your dental practice will be top-of-mind for people when they are looking to schedule a dentist appointment.
Analytics and Reporting
Effectively tracking and analyzing your dental practice’s digital marketing efforts is crucial for determining campaign success and making data-driven decisions. By leveraging analytics tools such as Google Analytics, social media analytics, and advertising platform analytics, you can optimize your marketing strategies and allocate your budget more efficiently. Establish clear, measurable goals, and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) such as website traffic, conversion rate, cost per lead, patient acquisition cost, and patient lifetime value to evaluate the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Regularly analyze your dental practice’s campaign performance data to identify areas for improvement, such as adjusting keyword strategy, tweaking ad copy or targeting, testing different content types and posting times on social media, or improving your website’s user experience. Develop a consistent reporting schedule to evaluate your digital marketing efforts and share these reports with your team to make data-driven decisions for future initiatives. Incorporating analytics and reporting into your dental practice’s digital marketing strategy helps make more informed decisions, optimize campaigns, and drive better results for your practice.
Having a proper dental clinic marketing strategy in place can increase the number of patients and overall bookings at your dental practice. Instead of spending money on traditional practices, get ahead of your competitors and start a digital media strategy and get your dental clinic content marketing running today.
Marketing is one of the departments in your dental clinic that can function either in-house or be outsourced to an independent marketing agency. While marketing can be time-consuming and complex, it is an integral part of maintaining relationships with patients and attracting new ones, and it shouldn’t be left to chance.
You have a couple of options when it comes to moving forward with your digital marketing strategy for dentists. One option (which is also the more common approach) is having a team member handle certain marketing activities. The other is hiring a dental marketing agency or consultant that specializes in healthcare marketing, which can be a beneficial choice if your practice lacks budget or experience in this realm.
If you would like to explore either of these options before you invest in a digital dental marketing strategy for your dental clinic, I would be more than happy to be your guide. You or a team member Schedule Free “Digital Marketing For Dental Clinics” Discovery Call with me using the form below or reach out via one of the social networks below:
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