7 Ideas to Grow Your Practice
Consider implementing these top-seven areas of dental marketing to ensure your patients will see, hear, and trust your prospects. Also, learn about the key indicators of your marketing performance.
Wanting to grow your practice but unsure where to begin?
There’s more to it than you might think.
Growing your practice is more than just promoting your services and offers. It’s also about building a unique online brand that patients can see, hear, and trust. Throughout our 15 years of operations, we have noticed seven trends and ideas you need to implement into your strategy for better marketing performance and more appointments from your target audience.
1. SEO
If you want to put your clinic on the map, you’ll want an impressive search ranking. This means that your website will appear on Google’s top results page—ideally in the number-one spot. As a practice owner, however, you’re likely aware of how competitive the dental field is. And with everyone striving to come out on top, you’ll need more than just a few basic strategies and optimisation techniques to get you there.
Win Great SEO!
To win great SEO, you’ll need to think outside the box. For example, don’t just target your own suburb—widen your net and target surrounding suburbs, as well. Research your target demographic, trending content, and search volumes. Take note of this information and use it to sharpen your SEO strategy.
Keep It Fresh!
We find that other marketing agencies tend to post duplicate blog posts, which is detrimental to SEO performance. We all know that repeating the same action will yield the same results! (Also, as a side note, Google will often detect and penalise duplicate content.) The best way to earn a top search ranking, then, is to research unique keywords and implement them into your written copy. In the interests of SEO and engagement, it’s important to keep that content fresh!
Keep Chipping Away!
When implementing a new SEO strategy, it can take up to 90 days before you start to see results. However, it is common for practice owners to interpret this 90-day lull as poor SEO performance and to question the methods of their SEO company. It’s important to understand that SEO doesn’t work overnight and that a gradual increase in your Google ranking is a good sign—especially at first. The best way to monitor SEO performance is with a month-to-month performance review. You should also regularly cross-check your keywords for popularity and update them when necessary (which will be more often than not).
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
2. Website Optimisation
Make It Mobile - Friendly
Optimisation goes beyond search engine ranking. It also applies to your website’s functionality and design. For example, with more people accessing the Internet via smartphone, a mobile-friendly website is a must. In fact, users are more likely to abandon a website that does not perform optimally on a smartphone. You need a website that is user-friendly on whatever device you’re using. You also need to plant clickable calls to action throughout your website in a way that makes taking action feel easy.
Give It a Good Flow
When it comes to your website’s content, it needs to have a clear, logical flow of information. To make this vague advice more concrete, our new clients often approach us with websites consisting of multiple pages for the same service, each wearing a different title. Sifting through webpage after webpage about the same topic is the web-browsing equivalent of speaking with someone who repeats themselves. Ensure your content is concise, logical, and easy to understand.
Use Plain English
While we’re on the topic of comprehension, don’t underestimate the power of plain English. As a clinician, you may think that clinical jargon sounds impressive—and, to other dental professionals, it does. However, remember your target audience. Patients may not recognise these words, and they certainly wouldn’t search for them. Keeping the language accessible is a key factor in maintaining SEO principles.
Lately, we have seen other marketing agencies offering dental website development at extremely low prices. However, this always comes with at least one of the below catches:
1.
The website will
be difficult to edit
2.
The website won’t
rank well on Google
3.
The contract’s fine print will specify that you won’t hold ownership of the website or the website’s content should you decide to part ways and go with a different supplier.
1.
The website will be difficult to edit
2.
The website won’t rank well on Google
3.
The contract’s fine print will specify that you won’t hold ownership of the website or the website’s content should you decide to part ways and go with a different supplier.
Needless to say, we believe that your website and its content should belong to you, regardless of who designed it. We also prioritise your Google ranking as we believe it’s a critical component to dental web design success in Australia.
3. Invest in Your Collaterals
Quality Content
We all know that dentistry is a competitive market. To give yourself that competitive edge, we find that original visual content is king. Speaking from experience, stock photos are ineffective at representing a unique brand. Original, high-quality photos and videos, on the other hand, will give a positive and authentic impression of a practice. From a website design perspective, original visual content looks best when embedded in high-quality aesthetic designs that speak to a practice’s brand.
Google Reviews
Another great way to build momentum around your brand image is to encourage patients to complete Google reviews. For optimal results, you should request a review immediately following all appointments. Although it may sound reasonable to send a text-based request later in the week—or later in the day—nothing is as effective as an in-person request while the appointment is fresh in a patient’s mind. And you can bolster this request with effective marketing campaigns or strategies! Our favourite technique is to display a QR code by the reception desk that patients can scan to access the review page then and there. It’s like a real-life call to action.
Build Trust
By investing in your collaterals, you’re building trust with your audience. The Internet is often a person’s first port of call when conducting research, and throughout their research, people will trust organisations with authentic imagery or footage, positive Google reviews, a social media presence, and a quality website.
4. Trust Organic Social Media
Ditch the Shallow Trends
As tempting as it is to cash in on the shallow trends, nothing is worth sacrificing your brand’s voice over. Put your trust in organic social media—and when we say ‘organic’, we don’t just mean authentic. Organic social media is concerned with the results achieved through social media management alone rather than those earnt from paid ads.
Engaging Content
In terms of organic social media, it’s important to keep your content not only on-brand but also fresh. Your social media posts should be equal parts entertaining, engaging, and informative. Obviously, we don’t mean posting up-to-the-minute, TikTok-style dance videos (although you can do this if it’s something you’re interested in). However, we do mean that informative posts needn’t be deadly serious. In fact, there are lots of creative, attention-grabbing ways to get your message across. And that’s exactly what we do for our clients through our social media marketing service.
Social Media Is a Lot
Social media is about more than just posting. It also involves extensive trend research, daily audience engagement, designing, photo editing, copywriting, and strategising based on analytics. At 360° Dental Marketing, we have an entire social media marketing team dedicated to organic management alone. To manage social media—and do it properly—takes time and energy. Take it from us!
Time - Poor?
If you’re finding yourself with the difficult conundrum of being both time-poor and reluctant to trust an agency with your vision, we hear you. Book a free consultation with us and discover how we get to know your business intimately. Don’t think of us as your marketing partner—think of us as an extension of your in-house team. Our point of difference is that we leverage our detailed knowledge of your brand to get you your desired results. And we’ll be in touch about this every week rather than just once a month.
5. Use Social Media Paid Advertising
Find Your Audience
Whilst Google Ads will help your audience find you, social media ads will find your audience—even when they’re not actively searching. Social media advertising taps into that untapped market space and pushes brand awareness, even if just peripherally. Expose your audience to enough ads and, when the time comes for them to search for a dental clinic, there’s a high probability your name will spring to mind. That, in essence, is the strategy behind social media advertising.
Offers & Promotions
A great way to entice prospective patients is to up the ante with offers and promotions. Take the time to cultivate an offer that would make someone not only stop scrolling but also book an appointment on the spot. If you’re having trouble coming up with such a social media ad, you can always check out the competition. What do they offer their patients, and can you borrow any of their strategies?
Offers & Promotions
A great way to entice prospective patients is to up the ante with offers and promotions. Take the time to cultivate an offer that would make someone not only stop scrolling but also book an appointment on the spot. If you’re having trouble coming up with such a social media ad, you can always check out the competition. What do they offer their patients, and can you borrow any of their strategies?
Community Guidelines
If you’re finding yourself with the difficult conundrum of being both time-poor and reluctant to trust an agency with your vision, we hear you. Book a free consultation with us and discover how we get to know your business intimately. Don’t think of us as your marketing partner—think of us as an extension of your in-house team. Our point of difference is that we leverage our detailed knowledge of your brand to get you your desired results. And we’ll be in touch about this every week rather than just once a month.
Monitoring Optimisation
Your social media ads will work best if you’re already active on social media. Moreover, whilst many agencies are content to ‘set and forget’, we believe that a campaign cannot thrive without constant monitoring and strategy-informed optimisation. Outsource your social media ads to
360 Dental Marketing and you can learn our insider knowledge acquired through years of industry experience. Here’s a tip for free: save your emergency dental ads for Google Ads rather than social media. If someone has a broken tooth, they won’t be scrolling through Facebook for emergency dental services!
Monitoring Optimisation
Your social media ads will work best if you’re already active on social media. Moreover, whilst many agencies are content to ‘set and forget’, we believe that a campaign cannot thrive without constant monitoring and strategy-informed optimisation. Outsource your social media ads to
360 Dental Marketing and you can learn our insider knowledge acquired through years of industry experience. Here’s a tip for free: save your emergency dental ads for Google Ads rather than social media. If someone has a broken tooth, they won’t be scrolling through Facebook for emergency dental services!
6. Use Google Ads
Target the Right Area
Many clients have approached us disheartened from an experience with Google Ads, whether they executed the ad campaign with another agency or off their own bat. Upon examination, we can almost always isolate the issue to a wasted ad budget squandered on poor campaign strategies or keywords that don’t convert. We’ve seen Sydney-based clinics show up in Melburnian searches, as well as budgets wasted on functions that SEO already has covered (for example, targeting an ad to an existing patient who was likely searching for the clinic in question anyway).
The ‘set-and-forget’ strategy is also a repeat offender.
Full Disclosure
When setting up a Google Ads campaign, here’s your first clue: marketing is a team effort. Although we can provide our services without your input, our strategies will be a lot more effective if you do disclose your data. For this reason, it’s on us to call the practice manager or receptionist at least once per fortnight.
This way, we can know what sort of calls you’re receiving, match it to our data, and determine what is and isn’t converting. We don’t want to miss a single loophole, strategic opportunity, or endeavour that is wasting your money. We also conduct monthly meetings with practice owners to explain their performance in detail, address any concerns, and advise them of our strategy for the upcoming month.
7. Use Google My Business (GMB)
It’s Powerful
Google My Business (GMB) is one of the most powerful tools available to your practice. Of all platforms, GMB presents the most calls to action—people can call, email, find directions, or go to a website at the mere click of a button. It’s for this reason that GMB has the highest volume of organic conversions across the board. Your GMB profile also showcases all highlights of your clinic. Here, you can find everything pertaining to your online presence (your Google reviews, website, photos, and social media links), as well as more practical information (your services provided, opening hours, and address).
Improve Your Take-Home Profits & Make the Most out Of Your Dental Marketing
Our director Prabin Gautam will be joining forces with Albert Gigl, founder of MW Partners, to ost a live webinar on September 10th.
This webinar is designed for dental practitioners and practice owners who are looking to retain more of their profits and get more out of their marketing efforts.
Register Your Interest
Frequently Asked Questions
The key philosophy behind business ownership is that you need to spend money to make money. When done correctly, marketing will bring long-term benefits—even if it doesn’t feel like it at first.
After about 90 days, a quality marketing strategy should generate more leads than ever before. You should see a hefty return on investment, which will repay your expenditure—with interest.
Today, you could plan and push your marketing channels whilst also caring for your patients—but this is time-consuming and overwhelming. Alternatively, you could hire a trusted marketing company that will routinely manage your marketing channels for far less than it’s costing you now.
Other marketing agencies tend to lose interest once their clients have paid their money. Moreover, the full extent of their contact is little more than the standard statistical ‘dump’ at the monthly meeting. They do not maintain a consistent dialogue—and they tend to prefer the ‘set-and-forget’ approach.
At 360 Dental Marketing, our point of difference is that we initiate contact once per fortnight—if not once per week. We understand that you may have a tight schedule, so we work to lighten the load. Just as often as we liaise with you, we also liaise with your front office team. Why? It helps us to understand the actual day-to-day nature of appointments, which informs the strategies we discuss with you.
We go beyond reporting statistics—we also analyse them and explain them to you in detail.
We use the information from your front office team to detect areas for improvement (in terms of conversions and ad budget) and determine your next growth steps.
For the record: at 360 Dental Marketing, setting and forgetting is the equivalent of expecting abs from a single cardio session. You need to work to get the result you want!
At 360 Dental Marketing, we take care of the marketing side of things so you don’t have to.
Our goal is to make your life easier so that you can devote your energy to running your practice.
Having said that, marketing is a team effort. The more data you provide to us, the more tailored our strategies will be. We understand how busy you are, which is why we always offer before- and after-hours meetings. We will work with you to find the best time to chat.
