To attract new patients, you first need a solid foundation – both in-practice and online – otherwise many people you’d expect to become patients will fall through the net.
Why? Because if the basics aren’t covered, it puts people off and causes them to wonder what else might not be as it should.
In-practice a solid foundation is about getting “the basics:” right:
Online a solid foundation means:
Once those things are in place, you’re ready start marketing to bring in new patients!
If people don’t know about you they can’t become patients, so, with your foundation in place, it’s time to make sure people know about you.
The most effective and affordable way to bring in a steady stream of new patients is by getting featured in the “maps” section on page 1 of Google.
This process is typically referred to as “local SEO” and you can do this by getting your Google My Business (GMB) profile optimised.
Once you’re in the GMB “3-Pack (so-called because only 3 businesses are profiled) you’ll typically appear on page 1 for pretty much every treatment and service you offer (this is why we recommend this option first).
Ranking in the GMB results is quite fast: usually taking somewhere between a few weeks to a few months depending on competition levels and how well optimised your profile is to start with.
Local SEO/Google My Business profile optimisation is one of our main areas of expertise so if you have any questions or would like to know more, please get in touch.
The fastest way to generate more leads and enquiries is to use paid advertising.
Google and Facebook are the most common platforms to use for dentists but Instagram, Twitter and YouTube also offer advertising.
This kind of advertising works great for higher-end treatments like Invisalign but we’ve also run successful campaigns on Facebook and Google for other services such as emergency dental enquiries, sedation, teeth whitening and to bring in NHS patients.
You can also use videos commercials to promote particular services (they also position you as a leading practice and make you look great!)
The benefit of this type of paid advertising is it’s extremely affordable to promote videos vs other types of ad content. In fact, you can get a commercial like the one featured here and run a campaign that reaches thousands of people for £150…
If you need some help getting started with paid ads or would like the process managed for you, please get in touch.
After Local SEO/Google My Business/Maps ranking, the next thing we recommend is to use SEO get your website up at the top of page 1 of Google.
Why? Because the lion’s share of traffic goes to the top few results.
The number one position on Google actually gets more traffic than both the #2 and #3 spots combined, and 13.5 times more than the #10 result.
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So, just being on page 1 is not enough. If you aren’t on there you’ll automatically miss 92% of the chances to engage with people searching for your services (that’s the percentage of people who stop searching after looking at page 1).
And if you’re in the #2 spot and would like to double your leads, all you need to do is move up 1 spot!
And there’s no need to stop there: it’s possible to take at least 3 of the top 10 spots using videos, blogging, Facebook posts, etc.
If you’d like to find out if SEO could help you grow your business, please get in touch.
Videos are easily the most-consumed type of content on the internet (largely due to the fact that people are laxy and would rather watch something than read through a blog post or web page!)
They’re also extremely shareable and can be easily uploaded to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
What’s more, advertising costs for video content are usually a fraction of those for image/text posts.In other words, you can reach a significant number of people with a video ad for very little (think 5,000 people for less than £20.)
Video creation is easy. You can use just text and slides/video clips, add a voiceover, or either sit down and talk to the camera or be interviewed (we now offering a new service where we can make videos for you really easily – please contact us for details how it works as it’s a bit of a trade secret!)
Video enables you to reach a large number of people in your area, help current/future patients with help and advice, and answer questions and educate people about treatments like Invisalign and impants.
Video can be SEO-ed so that they appear at the top of Google and/or YouTube. They can also be added to your websiteand social media.
Finally, there’s nothing that will position you the same way as video.
Whether you’d like to start small and get your feet wet, or just dive in, video can help you reach prospective patients in your area and position your practice as the best option in your area.
Social media is a great way to reach new people in your area. If you can create something that is interesting, educational or fun, there’s a great chance that it’ll be shared and raise awareness of your practice.
Will social media bring in business directly? Maybe a little but it’s more likely to enhance your other marketing and overall brand than convert lots of business by itself.
And, at the minimum, because we’re admins on a number of client Facebook pages, we see a lot of enquiries coming in via Facebook Messenger all the time, so it’s clearly a preferred way of communicating for many people.
Best practice: there’s a clear correlation between the practices that post more often and the ones that get the most enquiries and booking requests. We recommend posting every day or 2 as people expect to see fresh content on social media.
Which platforms should you post on?
Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are the most popular platforms for dentists.
Best practice: try to cover your different marketing objectives with different kinds of posts. E.g some posts will get you a lot of reach, some will position you as the expert, some will show people you’re friendly and approachable.
Brainstorm a list of objectives for your social media and then think what type of post/content would satisfy each of them.
For example, to build trust you could post reviews like this:
We offer a service where we’ll post to your Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages every other day for an extremely affordable price. Please get in touch if you’d like to know more.
Blogging is a great way to bring in more people to your website where you can tell them about your services and why they should choose you.
If you think of web pages as hooks, it makes sense to get as many out there into the “internet ocean” as possible.
When you have enough of them, they can attact a significant amount of people to visit your blog. Take a look at the screenshot here that shows just how much traffic a single post can attract:
With blog posts, you can address very specific questions people have such as “is teeth whitening safe?” They’ll then see your post when they search for answers.
You’ll also be positioning yourself as an expert at the same time.
Lastly, blog posts can be used to support your main treatment pages and boost their SEO rankings. They’re also the most likely pages to be linked to from other sites which will give you a further SEO boost.
The last benefit of blog posts is that they’re flexible and easily be shared on social media, converted into social media posts, made into videos or used in a practice newsletter.
All of these things can help raise awareness of your practice and help you achieve your goal of more new patients.
You know what a nice website looks like so we’re not going to say anything about that (apart from your website should look nice!)
So, what else can we do on a website to bring in more patients?
Well, the first thing is to make sure that your site is seen by plenty of people – check our SEO and Google My Business/Google Maps/Local SEO pages for more details.
Another thing you want to do is add “nets” to catch visitors before they click away (most site visitors visit once and never return). Check out our info on opt-in offers such as treatment-specific eBooks/guides for more details on that.
Your website should be fast-loading to prevent bored visitors leaving, and it should be easy to navigate around. There should also be plenty of ways for people to “convert” – such as calling or emailing you or subscribing to your email list.
It’s best to have plenty of before and after images for each treatment – nothing is more persuasive to a prospective patient than seeing you’ve successfully treated other people with their exact same issue.
Blog posts help you bring in more traffic and position you as the expert. You can even create video blog posts for people who prefer to watch than read!
Patient reviews/testimonials and patient journeys (whether in the form of articles or videos) can show the treatment progressing for individuals together with positive comments and feedback about you, your practice and your work.
You can also add engagement widgets, live chat and chat bots on your website to initiate a conversation or create some interaction with site visitors.
There are a huge number of things you can do on your site to improve its CRO – Conversion Rate Optimisation. Stay tuned for blog posts and videos on this topic!
The maps section of Google gets about 1/3 of all the available traffic (find out about getting featured there here).
Which of these dentists would you check first?
The dental practice with the highest overall rating and the most reviews will attract the most initial attention.
These days, 3/4 of people say they trust online reviews as much as they do recommendations from friends. Not only that, they read an average of 10 reviews. If they’re looking for a particular treatment like Invisalign, they’ll search for treatment-specific reviews, too.
Basically, you want to get as many high star-reviews as you can, for as many treatments and services as you can, and to keep them up-to-date (no-one cares how you were doing a year ago).
Some people consider Google reviews to be easily-manipulated, so make sure you get reviews on a number of other sites, too, (Facebook, Yell, NHS Choices, etc) to confirm that your high rating is legit.
We offer a free reviews system you can use to get more reviews and keep them up-to-date on any site you choose. Please join the email list at Richard’s (our glorious leader’s) free blog/emagazine/membership site: Dental Practice Growth.
If you’re looking for something a bit more powerful, check out our fully-automated Premium Reviews System here.
Between 70-96% of people visit a site once and then never return.
Offering these casual visitors a free eBook or cool practice newsletter when they wander in can help get them onto an email list where you can then follow up and send them special offers (e.g. teeth whitening or free consultations) to convert them into patients.
We offer 3 types of opt-in offers:
1. eBooks such as “Upgrade Your Smile” that attract opt-ins and pre-sell cosmetic dental treatments
2. Treatment guides that educate patients about the specific service they’re interested in (e.g. Invisalign) and position you as the best option
3. Magazine-quality newsletters that build connection with the practice, answer patient questions and educate them on your premium treatments.
Once you have the contact info for your site visitors, you can now use email marketing to convert them into patients (see next topic).
So, in the previous section we looked at ways you can stop so many prospective patients from falling through the net when they visit your site.
Once you have a prospective patient’s contact information, you can send them follow-up emails that further position your practice as the best option for them and encourage them to come and visit to have a look around or book their first appointment.
For prospects who have signed up for information on a particular treatment (e.g. Invisalign) this can be done automatically.
When they submit their details in exchange for your free eBook/opt-in offer, they are added to a special list for that treatment and then receive an automated sequence of emails that educate them about the treatment and include testimonials, before & after images, etc.
Include CTAs (Calls To Action) in your emails inviting people to come in for a free consultation, to see a projection of their future results, etc.
For patients who don’t sign up for information about a specific treatment but just want more info about the practice, you can send them your own cool-looking dental practice newsletter, educational content and the odd offer (don’t overdo that as it puts a lot of people off).
Don’t waste opportunities by failing to make the most of what you’ve already invested in (e.g. your website and/or SEO). If you can convert a larger percentage of your traffic it’ll save you spending more on “fancier” marketing for very little. Email marketing gives you the chance to turn a casual visitor into a lifelong patient and the process can be completely automated.
To become a loyal client, people need to first Know about a business and then to Like and Trust the people who work there (KLT).
So, you’ve raised awareness using one or more of the steps above. Now you need to get people to like and trust you. We’ll deal with likeability in the next section so, just how do you get people to trust you?
Well, a major factor is to get reviews as explained earlier – and plenty of them! You’ll need to keep new reviews coming in regularly as recency is important to most people.
What else can you do?
Get video testimonials, detail patient journeys and show plenty of Before and After pictures on your website and social media to help new patients see the kinds of results you can deliver and what they can expect.
Anything that positions you as an expert or thought leader is good: so blog posts, interviews and videos work extremely well.
Just the fact that you’ve been asked to do an interview is a major indicator that you are a trusted expert, so let the world know that you’re being interviewed by the local radio station, newspaper, etc.
If you or your staff complete any kind of training, let people know about it.
Even better, if you teach something, put up pictures on your website and social media showing that. For example, we had a client who taught dental implant techniques and so used several pictures from the class on social media (if you’re seen teaching other dental professionals how to place implants, then you must be pretty good at them, right?)
Other trust factors include:
Have a think what trust factors you can use for your practice and then add them to your website and marketing materials.
As dental professionals, you know that most people don’t love visiting the dentist or having treatment. Many people are nervous, scared or just plain terrified.
This means that it’s really important to allay any fears that prospective patients may have ahead of time or risk them not booking in the first place, or going with a competitor who comes across as friendlier and more approachable than you.
What we’re looking to do is cultivate a sense that patients will be looked after well by a friendly team who will put them at ease and make sure their treatment is professional and painless.
In just the same way that you need to focus some of your marketing on building trust (so patients believe that you are the best dentist for the job) you also need to spend some time building likeability.
So, how do you do that?
The best way is to give people a “peek behind the curtain” and to show the character and friendliness of you and the rest of the team.
On a website you can do this by adding staff profiles with some personal details (favourite holiday destination/food/film, etc) + plenty of pictures of happy, smiling staff members and the team as a whole.
Having a little knowledge about what you and the rest of the team are like makes it easy for people to imagine feeling welcome at the practice and to start up conversations and connect when they actually come in for their first appointment.
On social media you can post pictures with patients, the odd daft moment between appointments plus gifts, comments and reviews from patients, etc, etc.
These all show that you’re fun and friendly, and if you can find ways to show that your patients like and trust you, prospective patients will be more disposed to as well.
The pictures and content you post on social media can also go into your practice newsletter (people like to consume content in different formats and on their favourite channels so it makes sense to “re-purpose” your images and news like this.)
Talking head videos are probably the best way to get prospective patients thinking on a subsconscious level that yes, they’d get on with you and can imagine being treated at your practice.
This is because video ticks so many boxes. When you make a video to give advice about a particular issue or treatment, you’re positioning yourself as an authority (trust) while also being helpful in advance (care) and coming across as a friendly and approachable professional.
Building trust and likeability are 2 things few dentists bother to do on a conscious level, but it’s this kind of attention to detail that makes the difference between a practice that just does OK and one that thrives.
All things being considered, people would prefer to visit a cool-looking dental practice than an average one.
To learn new ways you can do this, check out our free guide here: How to Upgrade Your Practice Image.
Many dentists are reluctant to invest in marketing that doesn’t generate a quick return on their investment.
That’s understandable, but sometimes it’s better to take a different approach and focus on helping patients/prospective patients understand their treatment options and demonstrating your care and commitment towards them.
This way, your marketing will help you come across as more authentic, likeable and trustworthy while at the same time improving your sales through patient education without being “salesy.”
Great ways to educate patients:
If you’re looking for more information on any of the marketing techniques mentioned on this page (or any others!) or would like to learn how you can get these working for your practice, please get in touch using the form below: