A guide to effectively marketing your dental practice, which will help you both retain and acquire patients. This is a "must-see" slideshow for anyone in the healthcare industry, and will help your business create a competitive advantage in the industry. Numerous marketing tactics, relevant to dental practices, are outlined in an easy to comprehend manner that will have you improving your marketing strategy in no time.

1. How To
Market A
Dental
Practice

2. Start With What You
Already Have
When developing a marketing campaign, start with your current and
former patients. It is generally much cheaper and easier to get a
former patient to return to your office or to upsell an existing patient,
than it is to entice a completely new patient.

3. 5 ideas to help you
make the most out of
your current and former
patients

4. Regular
Calls
1)
There are many programs
out there that provide this
service, but Solutionreach
offers the most extensive
and customizable outreach
options.

5. Regular
Newsletters 2)
Whether through electronic or traditional mail, a regular newsletter will
keep your practice top of mind with patients. The optimal time to release
newsletters, as shown by marketing studies, is every 3-4 weeks.

6. Direct
3) Mail
With a 400 percent return on
investment, direct mail
campaigns are the most cost
effective marketing strategy
when well executed. Direct mail
campaigns are perfect for
engaging current patients,
reaching out to new patients,
or re-connecting with patients
with whom you have lost touch.

7. Discounts,
Coupons, and
Patient Loyalty
Programs
4)
Another way to reward regular patients and re-engage past patients is
to offer discounts. These discounts can be offered either through
coupons included in regular mailers, or through patient loyalty
programs that reward patients who visit your practice regularly.

8. Advertise Yourself
5) In Your Practice
Patients at your office are a captive audience, which may be more
receptive to hearing about additional procedures. For example, if a
patient enters your practice looking for a cleaning, then it may be
possible to also interest them in a whitening.

9. My Smile TV
My Smile TV (MSTV) is an internal television network designed for
dentist waiting rooms. This network comes with pre-programmed
content, but is fully customizable and allows for specific imported
content to also be displayed. Furthermore, MSTV allows dentists to
share content that they have developed for the program via the MSTV
Network. More information about My Smile TV can be found here.

10. Brochures
Brochures for other services
offered by your practice are
also an effective tool for
marketing additional services
to current patients. These brochures should outline the pros and
cons of the procedures you are trying to market. More information
about how to put together a successful brochure can be found
here.

11. Online and
Offline Tactics
For Generating
New Business
Once you have your current and former customers established, it’s time to
focus on attracting new customers to your practice. Before getting into the
specific tools used for doing this, it’s important to think about the services you
offer and how patients go about researching those services.

12. Online Marketing
According to the market research firm, BIA/Kelsey, 97
percent of new patients use online media to research
professional medical services. Therefore, it is
essential that you have a
strong online presence
to attract new patients.

13. Here are 5
steps to get
the
most out of
your online
advertising.

14. Step 1: Get Your
Website Straight
Before you can jump into online outreach, you must first ensure that you have a
quality website to direct potential patients to. If you do not have a website,
there are several services that offer free and easy to use website building and
hosting services. Information about the most popular web building sites,
including how to choose the site that is best for you, can be found here.

15. Step 2: Get Your
Directory Listings and
Online Reviews Straight
•Online reviews play a critical role in a prospective patient’s decision to
come to your practice.
•See Where You Are Already Listed.
•Make Sure You Are Listed In The Primary Review Sites and Directories.

16. Step 3: Run Pay Per Click Search
Engine Ads
89 percent of consumers use some sort of search engine to assist them in
making a purchase decision. The three most popular search engines, Google,
Yahoo, and Bing, all allow you to pay to have your website show up when people
search for terms related to your service.

17. Step 4: Get On
Social Media
With all the different social
media networks out there it’s
easy to get overwhelmed. This
is why we recommend choosing
one, or at most, two networks
to start with. Since 70% of the
US population has a Facebook
account and spend a significant
amount of time there, this is
where we recommend starting.
More information on utilizing
social media can be
found here.

18. Traditional Marketing
The great thing about online advertising is that it does not require a lot of
money to get started and success can be tracked with ease, compared to
traditional advertising. That’s why we recommend focusing first on your existing
patients and online advertising before moving on to more traditional methods.

19. Here are 5 Steps
To Make Sure You
Get The Most
Out Of Your
Traditional
Media
Campaign

20. Direct Mail
& Flyers
Direct mail is the most
efficient form of traditional
advertising. Cheap and easy
to produce, direct mail can
have a profound impact on
your practice. More
information on direct mail
advertising can be
found here.

21. Newspaper
Advertising
Despite the fact that newspaper readership is on the decline, millions of
homes across America still receive a daily newspaper. If your target patient
pool is above the age of 35, then a newspaper marketing campaign can be a
great way to reach potential new patients. This strategy is especially effective
if you are located near a large metropolitan area with a widely read
newspaper.

22. Television
Advertising
Television advertising can be a great tool for reaching a large number of new
potential patients. However, TV ads can be expensive, especially if you are
located near a large metropolitan area. It is important to constantly monitor
your television advertising campaign to ensure that you are receiving a decent
return on investment. More information about television advertising can be
found here.

23. Referrals
The best way to start generating referrals is to start giving them yourself. By
referring your patients to other practices, you increase the odds of those
practices referring their patients to you. Providing a referral to another
practice is the cheapest, easiest, and most effective way to advertise your
practice to other practices.

24. Conclusion
A marketing strategy that utilizes
online, traditional, and referral
marketing techniques is essential for
growing your dental practice.
Regardless of the tools you choose to
use, it is important to always keep an
eye on the return on your investment.

25. Conclusion
Another resource available for
marketing your practice is ZocDoc.
ZocDoc allows patients to view a list of
local dentists in their insurance
network, read reviews from other
patients, view available appointment
times, and schedule an appointment.
More information about ZocDoc is
available here.

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