9 Steps to Reaching Patients Who Don’t Know Your Dental Practice Exists

Monday, May 11, 2015

9 Steps to Reaching Patients Who Don’t Know Your Dental Practice Exists

You may have a beautifully designed practice website, stay active on multiple social media platforms, and blog every week, but you’re still having problems with potential patients finding out about your dental practice.

This is a common frustration of many dentists who are trying to expand their patient bases. Finding new patients is fundamental to a thriving practice, but it’s always a challenge to increase awareness of your practice among people who don’t even know you exist.

To help you overcome this obstacle, here are nine steps to marketing your dental business and letting more people know about your dental services:

  1. Create awareness around common problems: Most people do not think about their teeth until there’s a problem. Only then do they decide to search for a dentist. As an expert on oral health care, you can market your messages around common problems people face if they don’t visit a dentist often. By doing this you help raise awareness for people who never gave their mouths a second thought.
  2. Give solutions to those problems: Now that people are aware of problems that can or will occur if they do not keep their teeth healthy, you should offer solutions to these issues. You want to present your solutions as the best way to solve any problems that may arise and meet their needs. Ultimately, you want them to come to your office.
  3. Present your services as the best solution: Now that you’ve brought attention to oral health problems and given preferred solutions to resolving issues through your dental practice, it’s time to present your services as the best in town. This is the stage where you can talk about the dentist, the practice, the technology and services you offer, and why people should choose you over your competition. Show them how you are unique and the best practice for them.
  4. Research your target audience: After you’ve planned out how to build awareness to your practice and thought about what kinds of marketing messages you can use, it’s time to research your target audience. But who exactly are you trying to reach? Adults? Children? Elderly people? People with specific oral problems? You will need to research the demographics of your current and potential patients, where they live, where they work, what they like and dislike, what groups would be interested in your services, how you can emotionally connect with them, etc. You may want to refer to your website and social analytics to help with online research. You can also mail out surveys or questionnaires to help gather data and information about current patients.
  5. Customize your messages to potential patients, not your current patients: Remember, when you’re trying to appeal to people who don’t know anything about you and your dental practice, you will need different marketing messages compared to what you use to stay connected with your current patients. When you understand who they are it is easier to connect with them on an emotional level and demonstrate why you are the best fit for them.
  6. Be creative when choosing marketing outlets: If you’re constantly blogging, adding new content and/or images to your website, and posting on social media but still not getting the traffic you want, consider trying other marketing avenues. Try a direct mail campaign. Most people think this outlet is dead but it isn’t, and if other local dental practices aren’t doing it, you could be the one to stand out. You could also try ads or coupons in the PennySaver, local community newsletters or magazines, or even the yellow pages. You could even go as far as exhibit at community festivals, business block parties or any other local events. Get creative and research unique ways to reach people, or see what’s working for your competition or other dental practices that are doing well and try to mirror that success through your marketing efforts.
  7. Use your current patients to promote your services: Don’t be afraid to ask your biggest advocates to spread the word about your high quality dental services. Consider putting a referral marketing campaign in place to reward your biggest supporters when they refer you more business. Word-of-mouth is still one of the best ways to gain new patients.
  8. Manage your online reputation and know what people are saying about your dental practice: You should always be aware of the reviews people are writing about your business. This mean periodically checking everywhere you are listed where people can write a review including Yelp, Angie’s List, Dental Directories, your Google My Business page, etc. If you see negative reviews, address them and try to resolve the conflict. If you notice you don’t have a lot of reviews, start asking your current patients to write one. Reviews are extremely important in the eyes of potential patients. You want to be familiar with how people are portraying you and your business.
  9. Don’t be afraid to ask experts for help: If you have tried multiple times to increase your brand awareness, you constantly change your marketing strategy and you still don’t see any improvement, ask for help. Marketing agencies exist for a reason. Don’t be afraid to hire an agency to help boost your marketing campaigns and efforts, especially if you don’t have the knowledge or time to do it yourself. They may be the perfect investment to increase business for you.

It can be very difficult to attract new patients when they don’t even know you exist. But it’s about positioning your practice to be the best solution to their dental needs and emotionally connecting with the audience so that they think of you first when they are in need of a dentist.

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