If you’re looking to attract new patients to your dental practice, you’ve come to the right post. This is a situation many dental practitioners find themselves in, where they’re working under a tight budget but still want more patients through their doors.
This is especially true when you’re starting, as you’ve already spent a lot on acquiring dental equipment and software, leaving you with a little budget for marketing. Fortunately, you can attract new patients in budget-friendly ways.
Below are some creative ways to help you attract new patients to your practice.
Digital or online marketing for dentists is crucial in this modern age of online search. It entails using digital strategies, tools, and resources to put your dental practice out there for patients searching online.
Investing in online leads helps you stay competitive in today’s market, where many customers begin their search online. There are numerous ways to attract new patients through digital marketing.
For instance, you can invest in a good website that’s fast and easy to navigate. A website serves as an online front desk for your dental practice. Therefore, if your website is smooth, potential patients are more likely to trust you and visit your office.
But when your website is slow and outdated, it scares away potential clients. When updating your website, remember to include previous patients’ reviews to assure potential clients that your practice provides professional and high-quality services.
You can also invest in search engine optimization (SEO), as many patients search for dentists on online search engines. Investing in good SEO is an excellent way to ensure your practice is visible in searches.
You can also start a blog to enhance your SEO by ensuring every blog post focuses on industry-related keywords. However, your blog posts should cover relevant topics such as things mainly asked by patients or things you’d want to educate patients about.
Finally, if you’re not working under a constrained budget, consider using paid ads to attract new patients. Paid ads entail using online platforms like Google ads, YouTube ads, or Facebook ads to advertise your dental practice in your locality.
Besides online marketing and SEO, you can attract new patients to your dental practice by being a resident expert. This entails reaching out to local newspapers and radio and TV stations to ask if they need a dental expert to give talks or answer questions about dentistry. This allows you to give expert advice through the media and gives you media exposure where you can advertise your dental practice.
Besides the media outlets, you can volunteer in schools, aged care facilities, community centers, or seminars and educate people. You can also offer dental services during sports or other community events to reach out to more people and make your dental practice known.
Finally, you can approach local organizations to offer talks or informative articles that can help their publication. This way, they can hire you to be their dentist, which gives you access to many patients.
If you treat and take good care of your patients, they’re more likely to come back and refer others to you. In fact, patient referrals are one of the easiest and most effective ways to get new patients. Ideally, it’s easier for a satisfied patient to convince a potential patient of your expertise than convince the patient yourself.
Therefore, regularly reach out to your current patients to know how they’re doing and remind them of their appointments. You can also ask them if they’re satisfied with your service and for their suggestions on improving service delivery. This makes them feel appreciated and gives them a reason to refer others to you.
To increase the number of referrals, consider incorporating dental referral program ideas, such as offering special discounts or bonuses for a patient who refers a friend. For instance, you can offer free teeth cleaning services or award free movie tickets. If you’re starting and don’t have patients yet, consider using this strategy with your employees, as they have plenty of friends and family they can refer.
Attracting new patients to your practice can be daunting if you don’t stand out from your competitors. Many people likely have a dentist they see regularly, so you must give them a reason to switch.
Offering discounts is a great way to attract new patients because many people look at the value of money and deals. Offer discounts, such as free consultation or free teeth cleaning service, after two paid visits.
The listed marketing ideas can help you get new patients and maintain your current ones. However, no one strategy is enough to achieve your marketing goals.
As such, you may want to combine the above strategies alongside other marketing tactics to give your dental practice a marketing advantage.