Blogs

It would be natural, with everything going on, to return to what you were doing for marketing before the pandemic; running the same internal initiatives and resuming whatever external efforts you had in place. Will this work? 

While we don’t know for sure, considering patients may be hesitant to return to care quickly, the possibility of a resurgence of the virus, and the fact that dental practices will be competing for patients – signals a change to your approach may be in order. Even if your practice has pent up demand now – marketing is vital to what happens in your practice 3-6 months from now. Creating a road map for your practice’s marketing efforts will help you implement recommendations to ensure your practice stays on track.

Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan

We encourage you to have an overarching strategy for your approach. This is not the time for disjointed efforts. Consistent messaging is key.

Who Is Your Target Audience?

Once you know your audience, craft content that is consistent with what they want to know. Appealing to your overall community? You might want to show your social responsibility as a dental practice and business. Appealing to current patients? Consider content about safety and cleanliness. Looking for new patients? Discuss convenient hours, virtual consultations, safety procedures, and readiness to serve.

As part of your plan, consider:

• What are your business growth goals for the rest of 2020?

• Re-visiting your marketing budget for 2020 

• What marketing already exists that you can leverage?

• Outlining the new initiatives you want to focus on

• Measuring your results

• Re-evaluating your efforts quarterly

You should have an external and an internal focus to your marketing efforts – all sharing consistent messaging, designed for your target audience, all linked so you are marketing smarter and using resources wisely.

 External Marketing

1.  Website

Your website is a powerful platform that forms the bedrock of your marketing efforts. All other marketing efforts should lead a patient and prospective patient back to your site. Ensure this by:

• Updating your site, if it is not responsive or loads slowly. Prospective patients will move on to the next practice. According to StatisticBrain.com, website users’ attention spans lie somewhere around 8 seconds.

• Maintain or enhance SEO efforts to keep your organic search optimization high. 

• Consider adding a Safety page to your site; detail what your practice is doing to keep patients safe.

• Add an FAQ page spotlighting hot buttons for patients right now: convenient practice hours, teledentistry offering, your membership plan, payment options, and treatment to support a job search like whitening.

• Make necessary changes to ensure easy navigation to find your office hours, phone number means to schedule and a bio for the doctor(s)

 2. Social Media

• Post 1-3 times per week on the top two platforms in dental – Facebook and Instagram. Keep these posts positive, real, personal, forward-looking, and fun.

• When you post, be sure to include your branded hashtag and a “follow us on” any other platforms the practice is on.

• Social distancing has prompted a higher social media engagement from people searching for social connections. Consider boosting your Facebook posts. Boosted posts are an inexpensive way to capitalize on the higher-than-average social engagement during this time. 

Reputation Management

Update review sites (Google, Yelp, HealthGrades, and Facebook) with open announcements, stressing steps you have taken to keep patients safe. (The opportunity to complete a review on Google was turned back on at the end of April.)

• Ask for reviews. A recent survey showed that almost 70 percent of customers are willing to provide feedback when requested. 

• Put direct links to your feedback profiles in multiple places, for example, in a thank you or follow-up email.

• Focus on your average ratings (4.5 and above is key), getting recent reviews, and getting more reviews.

• Respond to reviews, positive, neutral, and negative. Prospective patients need to hear the voice of the practice as well as the reviewer. Keep responses to negative reviews short by inviting the patient to call in, so you can help resolve their issues, while respecting HIPAA laws

Internal Marketing

While marketing efforts often focus on gaining new patients, some of your current patients could be considering a change in dentist due to a change in benefits, job, or perceived lack of care or safety measures from your practice during the pandemic. Be proactive and be sure to reconnect with current patients. They are the most reliable revenue source for you right now.

1. Connect with Patients

Call or email your patients personally, to connect. This will leave a lasting impression. If you have a large patient base, contact those with outstanding treatment first, long-term patients next, followed by the remaining patient base.

• If you are unable to call, connect via email and text through your patient connection software. Messages ending in “we are looking forward to seeing you again; call for an appointment” will leave your patient feel cared for.

• You may have postponed community events. Take this opportunity to test digital alternatives to stay in front of current patients, referring dentists, and community groups.

• Email newsletters – This format has a 25-30% open rate right now.1 Constant Contact or Mailchimp are easy and inexpensive online marketing platforms to use.

• A: Ask for Referrals

• Now more than ever, your entire team needs to be personally asking for referrals.

• Carve out time at a team meeting to share times and ways to ask.

• When a patient compliments the office… “Thank you. We really appreciate your feedback. We are accepting new patients, so if you have a friend or family member who’s looking for a new dentist, we would love to see them.”

• Send a hand-written thank you note to patients who have referred to you.

2. Patient Experience

Future referrals depend on creating a patient experience that leaves patients feeling as though they are well cared for by skilled, caring professionals. Review your patient experience and make any needed changes. Solicit suggestions from your team, review other practices’ websites and social media for ideas.

Conclusion

Above all, consistent focus on your marketing efforts and consistent messaging should empower your practice to not only rebound but slingshot to greater success. If you’d like professional support with your marketing, we have vetted referral sources. The Practice Support Team will be standing by to support you.