8 Brilliant Dental Marketing Ideas to Grow Your Practice

Most people hate going to the dentist. It’s not that they hate the actual person, it’s just the fact that getting your teeth worked on is uncomfortable. And if you move to a new city or state, finding a dentist that makes you the least uncomfortable is hard.

And then those poor moving-around-folks start hearing all kinds of horrifying stories about being overcharged, getting fake cavities filled, even insurance fraud. Finding a trustworthy dentist is hard too.

What are you, the pain-free, trust-worthy dentist, supposed to do to find these people and show them you’re awesome? Here are some genius ideas on how to get them to your office and grow your practice.

Facebook Options

1. Local Awareness Facebook Ads

Look, we know you want to get the word out about your dental practice, but being specific about who you market to is important. In most cases, you don’t want to be showing ads for your practice outside of a 30-mile radius—if you are in Illinois and someone in Florida is seeing your ad, that doesn’t do anyone any good (except Facebook who collects your money)

These kinds of ads are a fantastic way to reach your local audience. Now you can use the new map card to share details that are locally relevant about your dental business. For example the address, distance to the business, hours of operation, and a “Get directions” link. Your Call-to-Action can even be a “Call Us” button, an easy prompt for them to make an appointment.

2. Click to Call Ads

Dental marketing has one goal – to get patients and prospects to book an appointment. They need to pick up their phones and call your office. Facebook Click-to-Call ads and work not only on desktop but tablets and mobiles as well. That’s great because most of us would rather just tap a button and have our phone dial, then try to remember 7 to 10 digits and type them in ourselves. Click-to-Call ads are available in Google Ads as well.

3. Facebook Demographic Targeting

Although the ways to target have been dwindling as of late, Facebook still has a huge amount of demographic targeting available. Use this to your advantage. General targeting can target potential customers by language, relationship status, employment, income, and interests. But start thinking outside the box. Research has shown that women make 90% of all dental buying decisions. Make sure you’re getting in front of the crowd by targeting ads to women who recently bought children’s clothes and live in your area.

4. Facebook Messaging Ad Type

The lasted trend on Facebook is using Messaging Ads, this allows customers to use Messenger to communicate with businesses. Advertisers will be able to use “Send Message” as a Call-To-Action on their ads, which would then take the prospect to messenger. Talk about easy!

5. Video Advertising

The healthcare industry is using video more and more. It gives you a chance to show your friendly office and a little personality. Don’t miss the boat! Video with real people from your practice helps to develop a personal connection with your patients. This leads to trust, recommendations, and even more appointments!

Google Options

6. Emergency Keywords

If you haven’t done this yourself (count yourself lucky!) you probably know someone who has. It’s 2 AM and you’re googling “emergency wisdom tooth extraction Jacksonville”. The first two results don’t provide a “Call” option, but the third does. Which do you think is going to get the most calls?

Bidding on keywords like “emergency” or “urgent”, tagged onto other phrases, is an easy way to get patients with immediate needs. The return on investment for those keywords is awesome! But if you do this, make sure that your practice wants emergency cases, is capable of handling these and provides an easy way to contact you… or you may get bad reviews on Google…

7. Google Maps Ads

Advertisements on Google maps could literally bring a potential patient right to your dental practice. When “orthodontist” is entered into the search bar, results are shown on the map and on the search results list. On mobile, these ads also include directions and “Call” options.

8. Remarketing Ads

Remarketing is simple, it helps you reach people who have visited your by showing them specific ads focused on bringing them back and turning them into potential patients. In your dental practice, if you collect email addresses, you can leverage these through Customer Match on Google Ads and Facebook! All you need to do is to upload the email addresses and create a remarketing audience. Then you would create an ad that would entice patients to visit your practice again—maybe a reminder for a cleaning, or discount on teeth whitening.

BONUS - Monitor Your Reviews

We started this article talking about how people depend on other people's opinions when searching for a dentist or orthodontist.

A good number of platforms have a review system that allows patients to express their opinions on the practice and doctor freely, turning them into brand ambassadors without even knowing it. A few statistics on online reviews and their impact on a practice:

*88% of patient trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations (Source: Bright local consumer survey)

*Dentists with positive reviews get up to 200% more patients than dentists with no reviews (Source: Web republic)

*92% of patient will want to consult a dentist if they have at least a 4-star rating (Source: Cornell University)

*1 - 3 bad online reviews are enough to deter the majority 67% of patients from booking an appointment (Source: light speed research)

So it’s really important to set up a system to ask for those reviews, but then monitor them as well! You want to handle any negative reviews promptly and with class.

ARE YOU LOOKING TO GROW YOUR PRACTICE?

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