If you’re like most dentists, your main concern is getting patients in the door, not inventing new marketing methods. But how can you entice new patients to visit your dental practice?

There are several dental marketing options, both digital and physical, that can help you expand your practice. You may attract new patients by generating more interest and gaining attention.

What are ways you can promote your dental office? In this article, we cover 20 of the most popular dental marketing methods, the best practices for implementing them, and how to measure their effectiveness.

Getting started with your dental marketing strategy

Before you choose marketing concepts for your dental practice, it’s important to figure out which approach will work best for you. Here are three core marketing stages to get you started:

1. Set practice and acquisition goals

Begin by describing the aims of your business. This lets you to more precisely target and track your marketing efforts.

• What is the specific aim of your practice?
• Which of your services do you want to emphasize?
• What are your goals for your office? (Do you want to provide inexpensive cleansings, for example?)

Then figure out how many new patients you’d want to hire. Make sure your customer acquisition aim isn’t just “as many people as possible.” Set a realistic monthly objective for the number of new patients you wish to acquire. Remember, there may be other dental offices in your market and neighborhood, so be reasonable with your amount. Choose a target that you’re enthusiastic about achieving but not one that will deplete your energy or crush your spirit.

2. Build a customer profile

The type of patients you wish to target is the next stage in your dental marketing plan once you’ve established objectives for your practice. In general marketing, this is referred to as building a customer profile or buyer persona.

You may establish as many profiles as you like, but they should all be tailored to the unique demands of your clients.

Your customer profile should include basic information, such as your ideal client’s financial status, age, and job.

• Do you intend to appeal to a large number of patients by providing competitive, accessible pricing? If that’s the case, your ideal target consumers are most likely middle-class families and pensioners on a limited income.

Do you want to make a large portion of your money from cosmetic surgery? Do you intend on becoming a dentist so that you may serve middle-class patients? If that’s the case, professionals such as doctors, attorneys, and executives should be your main target.

Once you’ve decided what your patient profile should look like, you may reach out to them through relevant brandings on the channels they frequent most.

Don’t forget to look at what you can’t change, such as your location, when determining your ideal audience. If your clinic is in a residential neighborhood, it’s probably not a good idea to target businesspeople.

3. Test your dental marketing ideas

Now that you know what market you’re going after and what goals you want to meet, it’s time to figure out what to measure to see if your marketing strategy is actually working.

It’s not simply a one-time process, but it’s also a good idea to figure out what numbers you’ll be looking at before you begin.

Customer lifetime value (LTV)

What is the total cost of each patient in terms of time? Knowing your customer lifetime value will help you figure out how much money you can spend acquiring a new client.

This is often done as an average. If you discover a large number of individual buyer lifetime values, you can also segment clients into distinct customer profiles and compute an average consumer LTV for each group.

Remember that the more time a loyal client spends with your clinic, the greater their customer lifetime value is.

Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

What is the most effective marketing approach for you? Knowing how much it will cost to win a new customer is crucial. This is distinct from your operational costs (i.e., salaries, utilities). Customer acquisition expenses are what you spend on all marketing efforts made to get an individual dental patient through the door.

Even though you won’t be able to calculate the real CAC until after you’ve implemented marketing techniques for a while, it’s important to keep this expenditure in mind while putting your dental marketing plan into action.

Determine what works for your practice by measuring each dental marketing concept. Your typical client LTV should be at least 3x greater than your CAC spending (meaning, you’ll only pay a third of the customer’s LTV).

Tracking success of online and offline efforts

If you use internet marketing, you may track the traffic and reach of your website using Google Analytics or similar web analytics tools. You can also employ landing pages, conduct digital marketing campaigns that bring potential patients to those sites, and keep track of visitors on those specific landing pages.

It’s more difficult to track online marketing with promotional codes, but it’s not impossible. Learn how to keep tabs on offline marketing efforts in the sections below.

The best marketing ideas for dental offices that work

Let’s now look at some examples of how dental offices may use marketing to increase revenue and attract new patients. Here are 10 of the most effective dental marketing ideas for dentists to utilize in their marketing plans:

1. Build an online presence

Having a digital presence is essential for any firm to thrive, and your dental practice is no exception. Here’s a summary of the key elements needed to establish an online presence (we’ll go over some of them in greater depth later in the article).

Website: Consider your dental website as a virtual business card or your office’s main salesperson. Make sure it includes the following items: a location address, phone number, other contact information, and the various services you provide. The language in which you write your website content should also appeal to your target consumer. Dental patients are particular, therefore no matter how excellent your practice is, if your website doesn’t provide them with the information they need, you may be passed over.

Keep in mind that most individuals use their phones to look for information, so make sure your website is mobile-friendly.

Search engine optimization (SEO): The holy grail of internet marketing is often referred to as SEO. People searching for specific services are unlikely to look past the first few pages of Google results when seeking online. You’ll have a better chance of ranking highly on the first pages of a potential client’s search if you follow the best practices for SEO.

One key SEO advice is to enhance your website for the terms “dentist” and “dental office,” as well as your city, town, or region. For instance, “dental office Boston” or “Short Hills New Jersey dentist.” This is referred to as local SEO, and it will get you closer to those who have the greatest potential of becoming patients.

Social media profiles: We can’t overlook social media when it comes to promoting a business. Social media has time and time again shown to be an effective dental marketing tool. Dental professionals may now create brand recognition and interact with prospects 24 hours a day, seven days a week through social networks.

If you want to utilize social media to promote your dental practice, Facebook is a good place to start. It’s where the bulk of people are, and if you create interesting articles or take out social media advertisements, there’s a high possibility that you’ll show up on their feed. Plus, Facebook has a “Recommendations” function, so current patients may share your information with others right away.

Facebook can assist you in generating leads in a variety of ways. Here are some tips for using Facebook to promote your dental practice.

• Create engaging material. Users come to Facebook for enjoyment and conversation, not advertising. Consider how you can spice up your postings on Facebook. Use interesting photos, infographics, quotations, surveys, statistics, and even hold competitions to make the content more interesting.
• If you advertise on Facebook, provide something useful to your audience. Offering intriguing statistics, pictures, or dental advice might entice people to click through.

Aside from Facebook, concentrate on the social networks that your audience uses most. Social media may be a wonderful tool for increasing word of mouth and expanding your dental practice as long as you post engaging and useful material in an authentic way.

2. Get involved in your community

Simply being active and engaged in your community is a good dental marketing strategy. Giving back is a fantastic approach to extend beyond the usual dental service and win the confidence of the public. It also ensures that if someone in the neighborhood needs a dentist, they will call you first.

Here are some ways to get involved in your community:

• Sponsor a local sports team
• Sponsor a local fundraiser (i.e., a fun run, a bake sale)
• Offer educational sessions or career talks to elementary schools
• Organize a poetry, essay, or themed art contest in your school district
• Start a community referral program
• Perform local volunteer work

What significance does this approach have? The dental sector is based on trust. Many individuals will only entrust their dental care to someone they trust or with whom they have a positive reputation.

3. Generate customer referrals

Small businesses, such as dental clinics, benefit greatly from recommendations. However, determining and comprehending the origin of these referrals is frequently difficult.

An incentive-based referral program makes keeping track of your development a lot easier. While you may already be using a physical referral card, a digital referral program is even more effective and easier to measure. You can quickly set up a scheme with our Referral Rock platform, automatically monitor all your outcomes, and reward customers immediately when they successfully introduce a friend with us.

Go to our interview with Watkin Dental Associates on the benefits of referral marketing for dental offices. It may provide you some recommendations for dental referral programs.

Do you want to know more? Read our article on dental referral programs and our full playbook for creating an effective referral program to get started on your own.

4. Use email marketing

Getting your patient’s email address gives you a quick and easy method to assist your practice flourish. Simply make sure you’re sending the appropriate emails at the perfect moment.

To send appointment reminders, you may simply ask for a patient’s email addresses.

You may also invite people to join your email list, where they can find useful information such as a tutorial, video series, or webinar. A catchy title might be effective in enticing individuals to seek out your dental services, such as “3 Steps to Bright, White Teeth.” Then you can send a follow-up message asking for comments or giving them a discount on a cleaning or whitening service if they click through the ad.

The objective is to nudge current and potential patients about your practice if they’re already on your email list. Keep them engaged and up to date with a regular newsletter. Include items such as:

• Feel good snippets about your customers (with their permission)
• Dental hygiene tips
• An invite to your referral program
• Your participation in the community
• Contests and offers
• Any related office updates (i.e., new location, new services, new equipment)

Don’t be pushy with your clients. Only provide them with timely information and nothing more. If you send your emails too often, they may be ignored or even rejected by your patients.

5. Show off your results

Everyone talks about their services, but few people talk about their outcomes. If you display the benefits of your patients’ cheery, healthy mouths to others, they will be more inclined to try your services. Yes, dentists are well-known for cleaning teeth and filling cavities, but seeing the end result of these efforts might be especially convincing.

Create a “photobooth” for social media to increase the impact of this approach. Once a treatment is completed, offer to take photographs of patients and their clean teeth, and encourage them to share the snap on their social media profiles. Make sure you come up with a distinct hashtag for your business so they may use it in their comment. This is an excellent method to boost social proof.

6. Join an online community or group

There are social media groups and community forums where your clinic may get exposure in every city or town. Search for “forum” in your city or town, and Google will show you sites where you can connect with people from your neighborhood.

You may also look for local Facebook and LinkedIn groups to see whether there are any discussions going on. If you want to join, be sure to contribute and offer assistance. Putting your website in your signature or making indirect advertisements like this is OK, but helpful hints work better than explicit promotions in situations like these.

7. Partner with other businesses

You may have come across another firm that could profit from your services and target market. Why not establish a collaboration where you recommend potential consumers to one another? A partner program, frequently known as a partnership referral program, is formed when two or more businesses join forces (or collaborate) in order to achieve a common goal (such as expanding their business).

Partnering with other businesses and professionals to reach out to new patients is a fantastic method to develop new patients. The goal is to find someone you trust who isn’t a rival or competitor in order for the arrangement not to damage your reputation.

Here are some suggestions for companies to collaborate with on referrals:

• Orthodontists: If you don’t offer orthodontics yourself, a local orthodontist could be a wonderful business opportunity. After all, dental cleanings become even more essential when a patient is wearing braces. Furthermore, you’re likely to recommend orthodontists to several of your existing patients.
• Other non-competing dental practices: You may work with an oral surgeon, pediatric dentist, or other expert as long as they don’t compete with you. You and your colleague can agree to refer patients to one another as a method to expand your operations.
• Local realtors: Skilled realtors join forces with newcomers in the neighborhood outside of their own industry to help them learn more about what it takes to get started. Who is better equipped to show you how to break into a new market? In return, realtors may obtain discounts on services and other perks by referring others.

If you want to keep track of how your collaboration is going, our platform can also assist you evaluate the referrals you receive from partner programs.

8. Send out neighborhood welcome packs

Once you’ve obtained a list of fresh community members from a realtor, a neighborhood association, or another source, consider sending out “welcome to the neighborhood” cards to ensure that these new people are aware of your services. You may also include a coupon for their first cleaning or a little present with your business name as an addition.

If you’re situated in a community or home association that already sends out welcome packs, consider offering a discount and/or present from your practice. This is another great method to establish community and confidence with potential patients.

9. Do something press-worthy

The difficult part of marketing yourself as a dentist online is ensuring that your efforts are seen by the local market. If you can get local press, you will receive immediate, targeted attention to your business online and offline.

The most effective approach to get it done is through guerrilla marketing approaches. Guerilla marketing uses unusual, unexpected tactics to market a product or service. Local media will be more likely to feature you in an upcoming piece if you do something that stands out. Here are some guerilla marketing examples to inspire you.

10. Tap into content marketing

You’ve arrived at our blog, why not get people to your own blog? Make good content, such as dental tips and patient updates, part of your routine. (This also helps with the SEO of your website!)

You must stick to a schedule in order to integrate content marketing with your dental marketing plans. It’s also advisable to write about themes that are of interest to your audience. To learn more about blogging best practices, go the the Content Marketing Institute.

11. Turn marketing into a team effort

Instead of depending on just one person to spread the word, it’s a good idea to enlist the help of your entire team. It’s considerably simpler to reach potential consumers when more people are actively talking about your business.

Another benefit of enlisting your staff is that it helps you come up with new dental marketing ideas. This can be very useful when creating blog and social media postings. You may then have your whole dental team assist distribute your website material and social networking pages to a wider audience. Most of your staff is almost certainly on some sort of social networking site, making this an excellent method to reach out to hundreds of new people.

When bringing up ideas with your team, be sure to emphasize how beneficial it will be for the practice. Here are some things you can try to make team marketing simpler for everyone:

• Make some canned social messages so your team members may simply select one and share it.
• Send all new material to your team members, whether it’s an updated infographic or a new blog post. If you inform your team about the tools available to them, they’ll be more inclined to share.
• Encourage your team members to submit new material or ideas.

12. Make an offer customers can’t refuse

Offering a unique deal from the start might help people get through the door and encourage them to return. There are just a few things you can give for free or at a reduced price in the dental field. These are all you need to think about. Consider what you may offer and send it out to your target market. Make it more exciting by changing the deal every four months or so.

You may provide a complimentary service, such as cleaning or teeth whitening, to first-time patients. Both can be completed quickly and cheaply, with most people being prompted to select another service or return again.

You may also give existing individuals a discount on new services, such as $20 off an at-home cleaning system or 15% off Invisalign. This is a fantastic way to show your gratitude for their business and invite them to try some new treatments.

13. Create engaging videos

You don’t have to use YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram’s IGTV for your dental business. But there’s no denying how engaging video marketing can be. Why not utilize videos to offer fascinating material that makes dentistry more relatable and human? Here are a few video suggestions:

• Give a tour of your dental practice
• Share patient testimonials
• Answer patient questions
• Offer dental hygiene tips

These films can be shared on your website, social media accounts, and even in your email newsletters.

14. Keep your Google My Business page up to date

You may already have claimed your Google My Business Page if you’ve done so. If that’s the case, wonderful! This is a great method to enhance your local presence. Make sure to keep the listing current with your address, phone number, and email addresses. You may even add images to it.

The more polished your company’s profile is, the more respectable you appear to potential patients. It’s also a good idea to enable customer feedback on your Google Business Page. Customer recommendations are an excellent means to develop trust; therefore, we now turn our attention to dental marketing.

15. Get positive reviews

Enlist your current patients to recommend you to others. The majority of new patients will likely conduct research and read numerous reviews before choosing a dentist (or any other service for that matter). People will be more inclined to trust you if you have good online reviews, such as on sites like Yelp and Google.

It’s critical to ask for reviews at the right moment. After your appointment, you may send them a link (through a thank you email) or include a request for their feedback during checkout (through a POS kiosk or tablet).

16. Send a postcard

Yes, postcards have been around for a long time. However, that’s because they are simple to use and effective. Postcards and mailers are a low-cost alternative that enables direct delivery to potential clients.

Sending out a postcard coupon might be a more recent variation of this approach. Here’s an excellent example produced by Impact Mailers.

Send a postcard to the localities near your workplace. People move frequently, so your postcard may reach someone searching for a new dentist. You’ll be an easy option if they require any dental work since you’re in their neighborhood.

17. Retarget your previous visitors

Retargeting is a form of digital advertising that targets Google Ads only to people who have previously visited your website. This technique reminds visitors who you are and encourages them to return after they’ve left.

Retargeting is most powerful for people who are comparing you to rivals or hunting for a dentist but then distracted by another activity.

You can send a retargeting ad to someone who knows who you are and is already familiar with your brand. Retargeting makes it much simpler to convert them into a customer since they’re aware of you and your company. Using a retargeting advertisement, you may even offer them a substantial discount, effectively putting yourself ahead of the competition and “closing the deal.”

18. Establish yourself as an expert

At the end of the day, all people want is for someone to look out for them. Demonstrate your abilities and provide them with peace of mind by contributing articles to prominent publications or offering expert advice in alternative media such as podcasts and webinars. You’ll establish your reputation as a trustworthy expert while also gaining the confidence of both new and existing patients by becoming a go-to source in your field.

19. Include call to actions (CTAs) where you can

Make it simple for people to get in touch with and interact with you. You’re making things much easier for potential patients by including a call to action (CTA) on your website, blog page, or email. “book an appointment,” “ask about a service,” and “recommend a friend” are some good CTAs. Find out more about creating effective calls to action here.

20. Keep your branding consistent

The most important aspect of any marketing campaign is to have consistent branding. Having a strong brand ensures that your dental practice stands out and is consistent with your vision, objective, and values, no matter what dental marketing technique you use.

Conclusion

Dental marketing is vital for any dental practice that wants to succeed. By using one or more of the methods described above, you can increase both your patient base and your revenue.

Don’t forget that first and foremost, you need to provide high-quality care and services to your patients. Marketing will only get you so far—you need to be able to back up your claims!

Patients are more likely to refer you to their friends and family and give you good online reviews if they’re happy with the care they receive.