What Is The Best Dental Advertising?
You want to hear what the reality is…
No matter what you think should be the case. The only one core way to turn your practice into THE chosen practice above all the others in your area… a place where patients are ready to do business with you, it’s faster and cheaper than any other media on planet Earth and ironically it has the least competition… that is mastering the Internet.
Dental Advertising should be done utilising the Internet and other media to have the maximum impact. You job is about getting noticed and that is harder to do in these days of competition and post recession. The first thing to do is dismiss some of the myths of advertising so you are starting from the right place.
‘I don’t need to advertise my dental office because I am a dentist and people should find me’ – Oh no, not any more.
‘You only need to advertising in the Yellow Pages because that’s where everybody looks for a dentist’ – Oh no, 80% of people find dentists online.
‘You just need a website and that will do’ – Oh no, having a website is only a small part of the process you need to have one that people know is there and one that converts the visitors into patients.
‘I did some advertising last year and I have enough patients’ – Oh no, you need to keep your marketing and advertising going to maintain a healthy and profitable business. People leave, change and go elsewhere and you might have a healthy list today but what happens next year when you wake up and realise everyone has left?
‘Dental Websites are too expensive, I’ve already spent too much money’ – If you get the right dental website – as part of a dental advertising and marketing strategy that works, whatever you spend on your website and other advertising will return you more, therefore it is not an expense – it is a way to make money.
‘Dental Advertising is for the big boys I have a small dental office’ – whether you are the size of McDonald’s or a one man dental office you need to keep on advertising. As long as all the advertising has clear and measurable return on investment then, you don’t advertise because you have to, you advertise because the money you pay out comes back as a bigger sum.
‘I tried a website before and it didn’t work’ – I’m sure this is true in the past and many people have spend money on advertising and website with very little or no return. It is all about making sure whatever advertising you do – whether a website or a direct mail piece that the right people are getting the right information, in a form that benefits them. If you tried something before and it didn’t work then you are probably getting bad advice.
‘It won’t work in my area’ – advertising works in all areas – whether New York or Springhill. Advertising is about matching your product or service to people who are looking for it and unless there are absolutely NO human beings in your area then advertising will work.
I hope I have dispelled some myths about dental advertising and if you want to focus your mind completely on your dental service and your patients why not find someone else to take care of it for you?
Online dental advertising is very helpful for your practice. A good majority of people tend to go online for services and products they want. This explains the success of sites like eBay, Craiglist and Amazon.
Often, people also log on to the internet to exchange information, opinions and comments. Considering the huge exposure you can gain from online advertising, online dental advertising is a must for any flourishing dental practice.
Benefits of Online Dental Advertising:
Large numbers of people are going online for their needs. So, creating a website for your dental business increases web traffic and expands the number of clients to your practice.
Online dental advertising is one of the easiest ways to generate new patients on a consistent basis.
While bad dental advertising sucks, effective, focused advertising strategies offer one of the best ways of letting people know you care. To achieve this, it is important to communicate with your customers and connect with them on a one-to-one basis. Once your clients feel that you care about them, you can count on retaining their business for a very long time.
Word of mouth is no doubt one of the most powerful methods of offline advertising. Online, social media does the same job as word of mouth. Imagine you are an active member on Facebook, where you give free advice regarding modern dental procedures. There are thousands of people listening to you.
At least a few of them may be from your vicinity or may have friends, relatives or colleagues in the same vicinity. These people pass the word around and before you know it, you have new clients beating a path to your door. Why does this happen? Because you have established yourself as an authority in your niche and people like to do business with the people they know and trust.
Since the internet allows the use of streaming audio and video, you can make use of your website to put up videos of client testimonials featuring previous clients. Potential clients can’t help but be impressed by testimonials from patients who have used your services in the past. What your customers say about you and your staff is a very powerful tool in advertising.
If you can put up before and after pictures of patients you have worked on, you can create a great impact on prospective clients. This helps cement their faith in your skills.
Since most patients are quite sure about the treatments they want or at least about the effect they want to create, seeing images of real people who have undergone the same is a very strong call to action. In this way, you can excite viewers enough to make them take action.