Cutting-Edge Dental Marketing Strategies From Experts

April 12, 2024
, , Dental Advertising, Dental marketing, Search Engine Optimization

ProspectaMarketing drives business to your dental practiceIn a competitive landscape where every bright smile counts, dental marketing has transitioned from traditional, word-of-mouth referrals to high-impact, digital strategies. The dental industry demands an innovative and strategic approach that not only attracts new patients but also retains and delights them.

For this, you should turn to pioneering experts in dental marketing – ProspectaMarketing. With years of experience and a keen eye on industry trends, we are at the forefront of dental marketing evolution, continually refining our strategies to keep you ahead in this fast-paced, smile-centric market.

Understanding the Digital Shift in Dental Marketing

The evolution of digital marketing has created unprecedented avenues for dentists to reach and engage with their patients. ProspectaMarketing has been instrumental in guiding dental practices through this seismic shift, ensuring that their strategies are both innovative and compliant with industry regulations.

Gone are the days when a dental practice’s reputation was solely built on the quality of service. The internet has leveled the playing field and given voice to patients, making online credibility and visibility more important than ever.

ProspectaMarketing’s approach not only leverages the power of digital platforms for marketing but also educates dental teams on the most effective strategies to convert online traffic into lifelong patients.

The Essential Pillars of Dental Practice SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the bedrock of any successful digital marketing strategy. Dentists who optimize their websites for search engines are more likely to appear in front of potential patients, and ProspectaMarketing champions the following pillars to ensure high visibility:

Local SEO and Google My Business

Local SEO ensures that your practice appears in local search results. It has a direct impact on where you ‘show up’ in the map pack. This is critical as many dental patients seek services within their local area, and being visible in this section of the search results can be a game-changer.

To achieve this, ProspectaMarketing emphasizes the importance of Google My Business, helping practices claim and optimize their profiles to enhance local visibility and engage with patients through posts, reviews, and more.

Content and On-Page SEO

High-quality, original content that educates and informs readers not only helps with patient education but also establishes your practice as an authority in the dentistry field.

Coupled with on-page SEO, where title tags, meta descriptions, and content are keyword-optimized, this content drives organic traffic to your site, converting passive content consumers into active patients.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising for Dental Practices

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising remains a crucial component of any comprehensive dental marketing strategy. PPC campaigns, when managed effectively, can yield a high return on investment.

Custom Campaign Development

ProspectaMarketing crafts custom PPC campaigns tailored to the unique goals and needs of each dental practice. They select the most relevant keywords, write compelling ad copy, create optimized landing pages, and continually monitor and adjust campaigns for maximum effectiveness.

Advanced Retargeting Strategies

Effective PPC strategies go beyond targeting new patients; they also focus on retargeting website visitors who do not convert immediately. With advanced retargeting methods, including dynamic ads, ProspectaMarketing helps practices stay top-of-mind and encourages visitors to schedule appointments.

Email Marketing and Patient Retention

Email marketing continues to be an effective tool for nurturing patient relationships and encouraging loyalty. By employing segmentation, personalization, and automation, ProspectaMarketing helps practices deliver the right message to the right patient at the right time.

Newsletter Campaigns

Regular newsletters keep patients informed about practice news, oral health tips, and promotional offers. These campaigns help maintain a strong connection with patients, even when they’re not in the dental chair.

Automated Patient Reminders

Automated email reminders for hygiene appointments, check-ups, and follow-ups ensure that your schedule stays full and patients stay on track with their oral health.

Legal and Ethical Considerations in Dental Marketing

Navigating the complex landscape of legal and ethical considerations in dental marketing is integral. ProspectaMarketing ensures that all marketing efforts comply with industry regulations, maintaining the integrity of each practice’s reputation.

HIPAA Compliance and Patient Privacy

With a thorough understanding of HIPAA requirements, ProspectaMarketing helps practices safeguard patient information and use it responsibly in their marketing efforts.

Ethical Advertising and Promotions

They advocate for transparent and ethical advertising and promotional practices, ensuring that information presented to patients is accurate and not misleading.

Tracking and Optimizing Dental Marketing Efforts

Effective marketing is all about data-driven decisions. ProspectaMarketing sets up robust analytics systems to track the performance of dental marketing efforts and makes recommendations based on the results.

Call Tracking and Conversion Data

Implementing call tracking enables practices to attribute phone inquiries to specific marketing campaigns, providing valuable insight into the effectiveness of each strategy.

A/B Testing for Landing Pages and Ads

A/B testing different landing pages and ad creatives allows for incremental improvements in conversion rates. ProspectaMarketing guides practices in testing various elements to determine the most effective combinations.

Future-Proofing Your Dental Marketing Strategy

Looking ahead, dental marketing will continue to evolve. Staying informed about emerging trends and technologies is essential to remain competitive. ProspectaMarketing not only keeps you up-to-date with the latest developments but also aids in adopting and incorporating them into your marketing strategy.

Dental marketing is not just about increasing visibility; it’s about building relationships with patients and providing value beyond the services offered. By partnering with ProspectaMarketing, dental practices can develop and execute forward-thinking marketing strategies that deliver long-term success.

ProspectaMarketing is an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices and the tools of Internet marketing. We help you reach key prospects who are looking for what your practice has to offer. Our unique and thorough approach provides visibility, financial accountability, and ongoing refinement and improvement. You can find out more by contacting Lane Anderson toll-free at 1-877-322-4440 Ext 101, by email using the form on our Contact Us page, or online at ProspectaMarketing.com.

Want to Advertise Online? Why Search Ads Make More Sense Than Facebook

May 21, 2012
, , Dental Advertising, internet dental marketing, Social Media

Before you decide to shell out big bucks to advertise your business on Facebook, consider taking a cue from GM. The third largest advertiser in the U.S., GM pulled $10 Million in ads from Facebook last week as a result of their ineffectiveness. How is it that the largest social networking website can be such a disappointment for advertisers?

Business Insider looked at what makes Facebook ads less effective than Google search ads. The key to successful advertising online is to understand user intent when you are choosing where to advertise.

With Google search, consumers are looking for a particular service and want to learn about the product they are researching.  With Facebook, users visit the site for entertainment purposes (for example, tagging their friends in photos from a concert or checking on whether or not their ex is dating someone new yet). Advertising here needs to be much more attention-grabbing because consumers are not using this website to research products.

Business Insider offers this insight:  “Search advertising—the kind Google provides—tends to be more effective on customers who are actively doing pre-purchase research. Facebook, on the other hand, is more of an entertainment medium; no one is shopping for cars on Facebook—a fact GM seems to have now learned.”

Another fact to consider- while it seems that nearly everyone is on Facebook, it actually reaches only 51% of all internet users, paling in comparison to Google’s colossal reach: 90% of all internet users.

If you are considering internet dental marketing, your success will depend on knowing what your user intent is and which medium would work best in order to reach those users.

Google Places 3rd Party Reviews Disappear

August 15, 2011
, , , , , internet dental marketing, Local Internet Marketing, Online Reviews

The news from Google that they will not post 3rd party reviews (only links to them) has created concern for many dental practices that rely on local internet marketing. For some time now, we have always recommended having patient reviews directly in the search engines as well as using third party review sites.  Now that these third party reviews have disappeared from Google Places (other than to have a link to them), it is important to have a strategy to get reviews posted directly in Google.  During the past few weeks, we have discussed a variety of approaches with dental practices.  Here are some strategies to consider.

• Some patient reminder systems for dental practices such as SmileReminder and DemandForce can automatically invite your patients to go into the search engines and write reviews after an office visit.  This is a great way to keep a steady flow of reviews coming into the search engines, but there is a monthly cost.

• Send your own e-mails out to your patients with a link to your local listing. We can help you format an e-mail with links directly to your local listings where they can write a review.  Give them some help with instructions.  Contact us if you would like to some help formatting these e-mails.

• Use QR codes to help direct patients to your local listings using their smart phones.   It will make it easy for them to find you, and they can use their smart phone to write a review and share their experience with others.

• Consider a simple reminder such as a business card with the address of your local listing on it that your patients can take home with them.  Make is convenient.

Reviews are gaining more and more attention from consumers, and it is important to pay attention to this area of your marketing.

Site Speed a Factor in SEO at Google

April 21, 2010
, , , internet dental marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Websites

Google has announced that the speed with which the website loads has now officially become a factor in their rankings.  This is not a great surprise, nor is it likely to be a major factor right now for most websites.  They have been talking about it for some time.  However, it is now official.  Good to ensure that your website is loading quickly and allowing visitors to move around easily.  It has always been a good idea to make your website a good experience by ensuring that the site loads quickly.  Now it is even more important.

For more information, here is some insight from Matt Cutts at Google.  If you feel you might need a site tune-up, please contact us.

20 Ways to Win with Internet Dental Marketing

February 8, 2010
, Internet Marketing, Local Internet Marketing, Online Reviews

We just returned from the Crown Council Annual Event in San Antonio. What a great group of Eagles who flock together in this organization to learn from each other, improve their practices and give back. It was a great opportunity to spend a few days with those who attended.

On Saturday afternoon, I presented a workshop on “20 Ways to Win with Internet Marketing”.  The internet has become a critical source of new patient traffic, but doing it right makes all the difference. If you did not have a chance to attend, here is a list that we shared with those who were there, broken into three areas:

Strategy Development
1.  Effective Targeting
2.  Proper Messaging
3.  Consistent Branding
4.  Channel Strategies
5.   Results Analysis

Driving Traffic
6.  Meaningful SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
7.   Targeted Paid Advertising (PPC)
8.   Hard-Working Domain Name(s)
9.   Informative Website Content
10. Purposeful Blogging
11.  Optimized Video
12. Newsworthy Press Releases
13. Developed Social Sites
14. Enhanced Local Listings
15. Online Testimonials
16. Targeted Micro-Sites

Converting Prospects
17. Enticing Promotions
18. Innovative Phone Tool
19. Immediate Click to Call
20. Convenient Lead Form

Bonus

• Follow-up

• Continual Tracking to Learn What is Working

There was much more in our discussion.  However, in considering ways to reach and convert key prospects as part of your internet dental marketing, this is a good starting list of things that will help you achieve success.

Building Your Online Reputation

October 7, 2009
, , Internet Marketing, Local Internet Marketing, Online Reviews

In the past, dental practices relied on satisfied patients to spread the word with their friends and acquaintances. Today, more and more patients are going online to share their experiences with friends and many others they don’t even know. While reviews have been online for several years for books, electronics and sellers on eBay, reviews are just gaining hold for local service providers.  This is an important developing area of the internet that makes sense to cultivate. While what others were saying about your practice was fairly invisible in the past, now word of mouth is online and visible for years.

Following are some excerpts from an October 2, 2009 Wall Street Journal article by Raymund Flandez that suggest some tips for improving your online reputation.

Three Best Ways to Improve Your Online Reputation

By RAYMUND FLANDEZ

These days, a great danger lurks just a few clicks away: the online review. By Googling your company’s name, anyone can read and track your business’s performance – including missteps, poor service or less-than-stellar products.

Protecting your company’s reputation is now a 24-hour vigil. Negative reviews – whether they’re merited or not – can turn away potential customers and vendors, and reflect badly on your company’s brand.

The good news is that small-business owners can be proactive in securing positive reviews by asking satisifed customers to share their experiences. But what if it’s already too late?

Here are the three best ways to improve your online reputation:

1. Reach out immediately to dissatisfied reviewers. Their negative comments don’t need to be the end of the conversation. Small-business owners should attempt a dialogue, experts say, as complainers might improve the review or take down the post. Oguz Ucanlar, president of SpaForever LLC in Chicago, managed to turn around bad reviews on Yelp.com by contacting the aggrieved posters. He apologized, explained the situation and offered the reviewers discounts or a free massage. The result? One bad review was deleted, and the spa’s overall rating went up. “I take it really seriously,” he says. It also helps that Yelp now allows business owners to respond publicly to any customer comment, giving others a window into how the business treats its most finicky customers.

When a bad review surfaces, an apology goes a long way, says Lisa Barone, co-founder of Outspoken Media Inc., a Spring Hill, Fla., Internet marketing company. “Most people just want to be heard,” she says. “They just want to know you’re listening and you care, and that you’re going to try and fix it.”

Keep in mind that a negative review can sometimes be helpful. Case in point: an online customer of Nationwide Candy LLC of Albuquerque, N.M., complained after she received the wrong bubblegum product. Turns out, the candy wholesaler had posted an incorrect image on its site. “It just casted a bad image on us,” says Ken Hanson, its general manager, who immediately corrected the error.

2. Flood search engines with content you can control. Use digital media’s reach to your full advantage, says Evan Bailyn, founder of First Page Sage LLC, a New York search engine optimization company. Mr. Bailyn says he often helps clients put “good publicity on top to knock bad publicity off the first page” of search engine results. To do that, he suggests releasing press releases through prnewswire.com or pr.com and building Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts since these social-media sites show up high on search results. “The overall strategy is inundating the Google results with as much good or neutral content as possible so that the bad seems like an anomaly,” Mr. Bailyn says.

3. Appeal to bloggers to review your company or your product. Getting others to weigh in can be an effective way to generate neutral or positive reviews to counteract negative ones. Influential bloggers in your niche market can bring instant credibility to a company. If you already know bloggers in your industry, read or reach others by simply scanning their blogrolls, a handy list (typically placed in the sidebar) of potential contacts. Alert them to news about your product or service as a first step in building the relationship.

For your dental practice, one of the ways you can take control of your online reputation is to invite your satisfied patients to provide reviews.  This is easy to do with a simple e-mail invitation that includes a link to your listing on a site such as Google Maps or Yahoo Local where they can write a review.  ProspectaMarketing assists dentists with this by building their local online listing with helpful information about the practice and then providing e-mail templates that can be sent to their patients to write reviews.  It is easy to implement and just requires some ongoing attention and effort.

Some dentists have concerns about the lack of control over reviews.  The best defense is a well-run practice.  However, even the best practices may have a dissatisfied customer from time to time.  One doctor of an excellent practice had a dissatisfied patient who wrote a negative review and had her husband write a negative review as if he were a patient also.  After a phone call to discuss their concerns, they agreed to remove the reviews.  Sometimes just showing you hear them and will resolve their concerns will resolve the problem and maybe even create greater loyalty.