Using the Internet Effectively and Efficiently to Attract New Patients to Your Dental Practice in 2013

The upside of internet marketing for dental practices is that many of the internet marketing tools your practice should be utilizing can be used at little to no cost beyond the investment of time – your time or time of one or more of your staff – to create content and use social networks and email marketing for patient engagement.

The downside is that doing so can, in fact, require the commitment of a significant amount of time – and it’s easy to spend a significant amount of time “doing” internet marketing on behalf of your dental practice that doesn’t produce a corresponding return on this investment.

The good news is that there are internet marketing tools for dental practices which are proven – not only in helping dental practices to grow, but in helping small businesses of all kinds to grow and thrive, even in the current economy. 

And there’s more good news when it comes to using the internet effectively and efficiently to attract new patients to your dental practice:

• Many of your local competitors aren’t yet using the internet as part of their marketing strategy
• Many of your local competitors who are using internet marketing aren’t doing so very effectively or consistently
• Using “best practices” for internet marketing, email marketing, blogging, social networks (and other content marketing techniques and tools), even if you feel like you’re late to the game when it comes to marketing your dental practice using your website, email marketing, blog and social networks – it’s possible for your dental practice to make up ground quickly

Here are the four cornerstones of an effective, efficient internet marketing strategy for dental practices:

1.   A website for your dental practices that adheres to best practices for content marketing and SEO:

• Use keywords and key phrases sufficiently, uniquely for each page and avoiding keyword stuffing (which might actually hurt your position in search rankings).  You can use Google’s adwords tools to find out what phrases real people are using every month to search for dentists in your local area .
• Write your content optimized for search engines but first and foremost, optimized for reading by real people.  Think about the types of problems, concerns or needs that bring prospective new patients to your website and write content for your website that speaks more to their needs and interests than to your own.
• Write all internet content from the perspective of “what’s in it for me” for the patient.
• Include links to your social networks and blog so that patients have more ways to engage with your dental practice.
• Don’t just let it sit!  Make frequent updates and additions to your website designed to create more indexed web pages and attract more local search traffic.

2.  Use social networks to engage prospects, give people reasons and make it extremely easy for them to refer friends and family to your dental practice. 

• Share patient reviews, raves and online 5-star ratings
• Speak to common concerns, questions or problems
• Share recommendations and educate
• Give your dental practice a more personal “face” through personal interaction on social networks
• Share links back to content on your dental practice website and blog

3.  Set up a blog for your dental practice inside or outside of your website and update it at least once each week with:

• Patient FAQ, common concerns or questions (and answers)
• Patient promises and customer service guarantees
• Staff and/or patient picks for local restaurants, family outings, date night destinations, entertainment, recreation, etc. (all of these local references will also help get your blog and website found in more local online searches)
• Congratulations for the achievements of local schools, civic leaders, outstanding citizen accomplishments, etc.
• Links back to your main dental practice website (inbound links to your dental practice website will also help boost its SEO)

4.   Communicate with all of your dental practice’s patients and prospective patients on a consistent and regular basis via email newsletter, which might feature: 

• FAQ questions and answers – especially when it comes to common problems people might be embarrassed to talk about (or forget to bring up) at appointments
• Last minute openings on the books
• Information about insurance or payment options
• Tips for keeping teeth and gums healthier
• Product recommendations (such as electronic tooth brush, flossers, etc.)
• Nutruition which contributes to better oral health
• Connections between overall health and dental health
• Human interest items relative to your staff, city or patients

However you decide to utilize these cornerstones of internet marketing for dental practices, do it! Get in the game. The more quickly you do, the more quickly you will see results, move your dental practice up in search results and increase word of mouth referrals as well.

RELATED ARTICLES

• Word of Mouth: The 2013 Marketing Calendar for Dental Practices, Dentists and Dental Office Managers (ddspracticemarketing.wordpress.com)

***

Elizabeth Kraus is the Author of Word of Mouth: The 2013 Marketing Calendar for Dental Practices and 365 Days of Marketing.  Find out more about internet marketing strategies for dental practices on her website, social networks or blog.