For dentists and other healthcare practices, digital marketing plays a key role in your ability to attract new patients to your local area. While walk-ins do happen, most people researching a new provider will use the internet to research and evaluate local practices before making their final choice.
But if you’ve done any digging into how to market your practice online, you probably found it a bit overwhelming.
An unending number of strategies can be used to get your business in front of potential clients, each working together to create an overarching strategy that provides a reliable flow of new leads. As a practice owner, it can be a lot to take on.
Most quickly realize that they will need some help navigating digital marketing to produce reliable results. At RiseFuel, we use an overarching “Inbound Marketing” strategy to produce results for our clients. Inbound marketing focuses on educating clients and establishing your brand as an authority within your industry, bringing new clients to you instead of going to them through additional advertising.
Inbound marketing for dentists involves a fusion of several dental marketing strategies to produce consistent results. The strategies synergize with one another to increase your digital presence while growing your authority in your target audience.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is optimizing your website to appear in search engines like Google and Bing for keywords related to your business.
For instance, a dental practice from Austin, Texas, would want to rank for terms like “Dentists in Austin” or “Dental Practices Austin,” as those are the keywords that interested prospects would search for.
There are many factors that Google takes into account when ranking websites for specific keywords, including factors both on your website and off.
Some of the key factors that affect your ability to rank for specific keywords include content relevance, the age of your website, incoming backlinks, and technical on-page factors that make your page easy for Google to crawl and classify.
Additionally, search engine optimization encompasses online directories like Yelp and Google Places to ensure that your practice has maximum visibility to searchers.
SEO is at the foundation of our long-term inbound strategy, positioning our clients for success.
On-Site Content Marketing
Source: MarketingLand
A major component of effective SEO, on-site content marketing involves publishing high-value information that helps your audience better understand your company, services, or industry.
The most common form of on-site content marketing is a company blog, but there are many formats that can be published to great effect. Some content types, such as eBooks, require that the reader share their lead information to gain access to them.
A few of the more common on-site content formats used in inbound marketing include:
- eBooks. eBooks are PDF documents that cover a subject for your audience. For example, a children’s dentist might release an eBook giving parents tips on ensuring their kids consistently floss after brushing while explaining the benefits of doing so.
- Whitepapers. Whitepapers are similar to eBooks but are usually more technical or data-centric. Whitepapers are often used to explain complicated industry subjects. You have probably received whitepapers about various dental procedures or tools as a dentist.
- Case studies. Case studies examine how you have been able to help your customers, detailing your interaction with them. While case studies are typically used in B2B marketing, they can still be useful tools for dental practices.
Your on-site content plays a key role in your overall inbound strategy. Growing and developing your authority within your audience plays a key role in your ability to attract new patients to your practice.
Keeping a consistent publishing schedule filled with high-value content is critical for inbound marketing success.
Off-Site Content Marketing
Source: MarketingLand
While publishing content on your website is important in inbound marketing, off-site content is also key because it helps you to grow your audience and expose your business to new people.
Additionally, off-site content is critical for search engine optimization because it builds backlinks to your website.
Common types of off-site content include:
- Guest posts and contributions. Being invited to publish content on other industries ' blogs can be a great way to grow your audience, increase your perceived industry authority, and secure backlinks back to your website.
- Videos. Creating educational video content can be a great way to expose your company to new audiences and improve your perceived industry authority. By publishing your videos on platforms like YouTube, you gain access to the giant audiences that use those platforms.
- Infographics. Infographics visualize data and complicated subjects that could be difficult to understand through text. Creating infographics is a useful form of off-site content because they are easily shared and can quickly gain momentum on a variety of different platforms.
Off-site and on-site content are both parts of a well-balanced content strategy. They work together to establish your company as a reliable source of high-value information that attracts new patients to your practice.
Social Media Marketing
Source: ITBiz
Did you know that 95% of adults between the ages of 18-35 follow at least one brand on a social media platform?
For dentists, social media can be a great way to stay in touch with current clients, increase brand awareness in your community, and distribute the content that you produce.
There are more than 2.5 billion social media users across the globe, and the medium has quickly become the preferred method of communication between customers and brands.
Social media plays a key role in our dental marketing strategies because social media is the best option for connecting with your customers in the modern age. Additionally, it can be a great way to spread awareness about community events.
Email Marketing & Automation
There is no method more reliable for direct one-on-one digital communication with your customers than email. Worldwide, more than 3 billion people use email. In inbound marketing, email is a medium that we often use to deliver content.
By convincing a visitor to share their email address with you, you have the ability to continually market your services to that person in the coming weeks and months.
Another reason why email marketing is so integral to long-term inbound strategies is that it lends itself well to automation.
You can schedule newsletter posts weeks or months in advance, making it a very hands-off relationship-building tool for dental practices.
Effective Dental Marketing Strategies
At RiseFuel, we’ve worked with many dental practices and healthcare providers to improve their digital marketing strategies and deliver a consistent, reliable stream of new patients.
Using inbound marketing and the strategies outlined in this post, we help dental practices to create an effective long-term plan that positions their practice as an authority, builds relationships with current customers, and grows their digital audience.
