Let's start with the most important part:
Why does a dental clinic need to implement marketing strategies?
- Standing out in an oversaturated market: Given that there are so many options, choosing a dental clinic is not an easy task for patients. Therefore, finding a way to distinguish yourself or stand out it is key when it comes to attracting your target audience to your business.
- Generating trust and credibility: People trust other people, but they don't necessarily trust brands. That's why we ask our friends for referrals, check online reviews and check social media sites before we choose a restaurant or other services. Also our potential patients carry out these searches in order to consider their options.
- Creating patient loyalty: The role of marketing is not just to attract patients. In fact, given how complicated this task can be, it is essential to establish a patient retention and loyalty-building strategy. You should even go a step further, and convince your patients to recommend your clinic when they are satisfied with our services.
Once you understand the importance of developing growth strategies for your clinic or dental business, it is crucial to identify which of the following options will best adapt to the available resources and needs:
Marketing strategies and trends for dental clinics
Digital presence:
Use of a Lead Magnet
One of the most effective techniques is to use of lead magnets. This strategy is based on offering your potential patients valuable information, a free service or product in exchange for their contact details.
How can you apply this?
Identify which services you can offer with a low-medium value and which can then be linked easily to other higher value services, according to your type of business. For example, free dental cleaning and a check-up can be a good “Lead Magnet” that you can then link to a whitening treatment or a specific patient need, such as implants or braces.
Therefore, you can not only attract new patients, but also reward your most loyal patients for choosing you.
This strategy will result in getting patients to come to your clinic, meet the team, see the facilities, experience the quality of service, etc.
Don't forget that you can reach your target audience online using this “Lead Magnet”, as described below, but also offline, as explained at the end of this blog.
Advertising on social media
Advertising on Facebook, Instagram and other platforms is essential to reach your target audience. Local segmentation is relevant to dental clinics, since it can target people near the clinic. To implement this:
- Clearly define your target audience, including demographic and geographic factors.
- You can segment by age, gender, interests
- You can segment by postcode, radius and exclude specific areas
- To impact patients who live in the area, you can also segment by those who have recently visited the clinic.
- Create visual content with clear messages. The initial strategy will be based on capturing new leads/potential patients through the selected lead magnet. An example could be: “Free dental cleaning + check-up”. Make your appointment now.
- Track your ads and adapt your strategy according to the results obtained and the phase of your strategy.
Remarketing ads
Remarketing on Facebook Ads is based on making another impact on users who visited your website through an ad or who watched the full video of the ad but did not then take any action, such as calling, sending an email or completing a form.
How can you implement this?
- Install the Facebook pixel on your website to track visitor behaviour.
- Create personalised audiences based on visitor behaviour, such as those who abandoned the shopping cart or visited specific pages. This indicates to Facebook the type of users you wish to make another impact on.
- When posting new content, you should take into consideration where the target audience is positioned on the patient funnel. You can use testimonials from your patients and provide more details about your service to convince potential patients.
Local SEO
Local SEO is essential to increase the visibility of your dental clinic in local search results. A common practice for potential patients will be to search for "Dental clinic" and "location". That is why your clinic must appear in such searches. Some tips to implement this:
- Optimise your Google My Business file with accurate and up-to-date information about your clinic.
- Ask local directories, magazines, newspapers and blogs to include a link to your website on their websites. This will improve your website's ranking.
- Ask satisfied patients to write a positive review. This will not only help you with SEO, but will also increase your credibility. You can offer incentives to patients for this, for example: “Share your experience at our clinic by writing a review and you will receive a 5% discount on all of our treatments”.
Offline presence
Experience at the clinic
It is important to remember that the patient's experience starts from the moment they enter the dental clinic, and that is why some factors, like waiting times, must be taken into account when designing the patient experience.
Although it is sometimes impossible to predict when a patient's treatment will take longer than expected, there are actions that can help ensure this does not have a negative impact:
- Implement a notification system that informs patients of delays in appointments via message.
- Offer free Wi-Fi, magazines or other amenities.
- Offer differentiating services: cafeteria, children's play area, free parking, etc.
POS marketing
All points of contact with your patients must be taken advantage of, which is why your dental clinic must become a space where you can share information of interest strategically:
- Offers: Place them somewhere visible to attract new patients in the area who are passing by your dental clinic. You can also communicate the chosen lead magnet here, continuing with the example, and put up a poster stating: “Come in and make an appointment to receive free dental cleaning and a full check-up”.
- Testimonials: You can put up posters with images of satisfied patients and their reviews, which will help increase credibility and trust. You can put these up in the waiting room.
- Services: If you have added new services to your clinic, such as dental whitening, invisible braces or others, it is important to inform your patients of this. A good location would be reception, so if patients have queries or want more information, your staff can respond immediately and even encourage patients to make an appointment for the treatment.
Participation in local events:
Taking part in or sponsoring local events is a well segmented strategy, as you will be making a direct impact on your target audience by geographic segmentation. In addition, showing interest in events that have a positive impact locally can improve your reputation.
Ads in local media:
Use local media, such as newspapers, magazines and radio, to advertise your dental clinic or business and reach local audiences.
Useful tools and technologies
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM): Use CRM software to manage the relationship with patients, schedule appointments and send reminders. This will help ensure fluid and personalised communication.
- Data analytics: Web analytics tools like Google Analytics provide valuable information about your website's performance. Use this data to identify areas for improvement and adapt your marketing strategy as needed.
- Marketing automation: Automation platforms such as Mailchimp or HubSpot can be used to create personalised and automated mailing campaigns. Automation can help you save time and improve efficiency, from appointment reminders to informative newsletters.
Benefits for dental product distributors
The marketing tips and strategies mentioned above not only apply to dental clinics, but can also benefit dental product distributors in various ways:
- Establishing relationships: By demonstrating your commitment to the success of dental clinics, you can strengthen the relationship with your customers and become a valuable long-term partner.
- Demand generation: By providing marketing resources and supporting your clients, you can help them increase their visibility and attract new patients. In turn, this may increase the demand for your products and services.
- Competitive differentiation: By offering advanced tools and knowledge on dental marketing, you can distinguish your services from those of other distributors and position yourself as a vital resource for dental clinics.
References:
- American Dental Association. (2020). Marketing Your Dental Practice.
- Dental Economics. (2021). 5 Dental Marketing Strategies That Work.
- Patel, N. (2020). The Ultimate Guide to Dental Marketing: Strategies That Work.
- Ward, E. (2021). 10 Dental Marketing Ideas That Will Bring You More Patients.
- Bollinger, L. (2019). Why Dental Marketing is Important and How to Do It Effectively.
- Manéz, R. (2023). 7 Estrategias de marketing para clínicas dentales efectivas. Source: https://rubenmanez.com/marketing-para-clinicas-dentales/
