Go ahead and toss out that old marketing playbook, because 2020 saw almost every prediction turned on its head. The pandemic has completely shifted how we function as a society. Yet in many ways, it has also advanced some essential strategies and shifted businesses to embrace a more digital-centric approach with an emphasis on alleviating anxieties and making patient care safer, reliable, and convenient.
Managing an annual marketing plan for your dental practice can be challenging, especially when your attention is pulled towards multiple issues. Between attracting new patients and maintaining your current ones, effective marketing can fall low on your list of priorities. Here are a few items to get you started in the right direction:
WEBSITE EXPERIENCE Your website not only needs all the usual engaging features and be mobile-friendly, it now needs to focus on how you deliver patient safety in a pandemic world. Even with vaccines rolling out, this is just the beginning of maintaining higher standards of cleanliness and pandemic protocol for your dentistry. In addition, 79% of people would prefer to schedule appointments online than calling a dental practice to schedule appointments (Dentavox). This increasing reliance on having a smart mobile experience is an important reason to upgrade your site’s serviceability.
CHATBOTS WORK FOR YOU Making it easier to schedule an appointment isn’t the end of the line. More and more people have questions that can’t be answered with a good scheduling platform or in an FAQ. Chatbots have become an essential marketing solution that assist people in real-time and even reduce appointment fallout from curious people looking for the right dental service. Allowing patients to chat and ask questions about treatments, offers, prices, or any other doubts in a quick and easy way, also saves their staff and operation’s time.
DOMINATE THE LOCAL COMPETITION Google My Business (GMB) is a powerful tool that most businesses rarely use to its full potential. It’s something you must include in your marketing strategy, and works right alongside your local SEO efforts. A recent study revealed that at least four GMB posts a week can help keep your listing rank higher in Google maps. Optimizing and managing your dental facility’s GMB profile with recent images and useful information is a smart way your business can significantly impact attracting new patients, outpacing your competition, and generating more leads.
BECOME AN SEO EXPERT Search engine optimization (SEO) tends to fall in and out of focus with most businesses. It’s built and then left alone to “do it’s work”. But the truth is, it’s a lot like getting your oil checked -it needs to be maintained regularly. Your primary audience are people within your dentistry’s area, as they are the most likely prospects. Targeting the wrong audience will result in substantial financial losses in the long run. Stay on top of the latest SEO & keyword tactics as Google changes their algorithms constantly, and you will gain more exposure to your website, receive a higher volume of organic traffic, build your brand credibility with top rankings, and increase your site’s relevant leads.
OPTIMIZE FOR VOICE SEARCH By 2022, more than half of households (55%) are predicted to own a smart speaker (Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home, Apple HomePod, etc.), and more than half of all smartphone users will engage with voice technology on their mobile device, making voice search a must-have in your marketing plan. Optimizing your website for voice search with fast-loading response times, changing site content to conversational language for direct questions (How, What, Best, etc.), and structured data and schema markup for Google will increase the chances of being the first result delivered in voice searches.
Marketing plans like these will go a long way to forging lasting relationships with your patients. A well thoughtout dental marketing strategy consists of a multichannel approach that includes various tactics like PPC, social & reputation management, branding, Dental SEO, and more. These are just a few powerful steps to help you move toward accomplishing your aggressive 2021 goals, and you can’t just watch as your competitors take away all your patients. It’s time to move from being a trend follower to a trendsetter in your industry.
