At DTS we pride ourselves on being more than just a dental lab and we know that keeping your business going is the most important thing. Do you feel as if there is something you could be doing to give your practice that little extra push to attract more attention from the public? There are many things you could be doing to market your dental practice more effectively, which will have a number of positive outcomes!

1.     Make sure your website is impressive – No one likes a messy website. Have a well laid out website which gives your visitors all the information they could possibly be looking for such as your phone number, address, opening times and services. This is important because your main goal will be to get these visitors to make an appointment with you!

2.     Start a Blog – If you have a website it could be beneficial to have an extra blog page. Having a blog on your website is a great way to show off the personality of your dental practice! It is also a useful tool in keeping your patients up to date with what’s happening at the practice. You could post about a mixture of different topics such as changes to opening times, interesting stories about the practice staff or any interesting dental news!

3.     Use Social Media – Social media is a great tool for strengthening your relationships with your patients as well as attracting new patients. On social media you can post a mixture of different content that entertains and informs your patients, which will also encourage interaction. For example, you could have a “Dental Tip of the Week” post go out once a week on Facebook and Twitter. This will give your practice an element of fun and will help your brand stand out online. As well as this, you can use your social pages to inform your patients of any last minute news such as opening hours over the holiday period. It might even be fun to come up with your own hashtag for your dental practice!

When your patients are visiting remember to ask them to like your Facebook page or to leave a review. This will help to attract new patients online as well as boost your pages in search engines!

4.     Target Marketing – For your dental practice, target marketing will be crucial in reaching the patients that you want! If you are a local dental practice, you will want to target people within a certain radius of your practice. Another factor to add to this will be the age, gender and interests of the kind of patient that you want to target. For example, if you offer teeth whitening you may want to target primarily women, aged 25 +. Along with this you will want to add specific keywords that this market may recently be searching for such as: teeth whitening, white teeth, teeth cleaning, teeth whitening treatment etc.

In addition to this, make sure that you have added your dental practice’s address, phone number and opening times to Google My Business. This will help your practice get noticed online when local people search for dental practices in their local area.

5.     Newsletter – Keep your patients up to date with a newsletter! You can send your patients a digital newsletter easily using a service like Mail Chimp every few months to update them about things that are happening with the practice, as well as adding some fun little touches to it like facts about teeth! You will be able to add your web link and social buttons to this to encourage visits to your websites and your social media pages.

6.     Make use of printed materials – Reinforce the branding of your dental practice wherever you possibly can. You can use your branding on business cards, patient information brochures, your dental practice walls or your uniform. This will increase your brand awareness and your patients will be able to hold onto business cards and brochures for future reference! Remember DTS can provide a full range of customised printed marketing materials for your practice!

7.     Give Good Customer Service – You may have mastered your marketing but the most important thing you can do to make it really effective is to provide outstanding customer service. This can be done by simply treating your patients well by listening to them, asking them questions and to be on time for them when they arrive for their appointments! All of these will help to build and nurture your relationship with your patients. Patients who are treated well will tell others about how great you are!

Why don’t you start marketing your practice by using one or two of the tips outlined in this blog? Do you have any other tips of your own for marketing a dental practice! We’d love to know so that we can add your tips to this list!

Remember that DTS provide marketing support and can help you create a customised marketing strategy for your business. Contact us for more information.