Your dental practice needs new patients. They’re essential to keep your practice thriving and your client base growing. The only problem is, it can be tricky to attract new patients, because many people already have a dentist they enjoy going to, and the rest don’t regularly see a dentist.
You can actually attract new patients to your practice from both categories. Here are three innovative ways you can keep your practice growing.
1. Offer Incentives for Referrals
Using a referral system is a great internal marketing method. Referrals are typically a high percentage of dentists’ new patient numbers. In fact, 70-80% of new patient referrals for most practices come from their existing patients.
So why not reward your loyal patients for telling their friends, family and coworkers about your practice? Set up a referral bonus system that incentivizes existing patients when people they refer visit your office. It’s a simple yet effective motivation.
But don’t start a competition among your patients where you only reward one patient who brings in the most referrals. That can work against you because patients won’t try when they think they’d only get a couple of referrals anyway. Instead, offer smaller incentives for each successful referral, like a free dental product, free teeth cleaning, or discount on a special dental service.
If a patient brings in a certain number of referrals, and you can do something a little bigger and better, get creative and reward them with something exciting, like a gift card or a free iPad. Then watch the good buzz about your practice spread like wildfire!
Referrals are not only a way for you to attract new patients; they’re a way to build better relationships with your existing patients. And good relationships with patients is one of your most cost-effective ways of marketing.
2. Beef up Your Online Presence
In today’s world, every business needs a website. Many, if not all, of your existing and potential patients are online. They get their news, communicate with friends and family, shop, bank and do just about everything else you can think of on the Internet. Having a good website and good social and content-marketing strategies need to be top priorities!
Your website needs to be a place where existing patients can find convenient information and prospective patients will be informed and attracted to your practice. On your website, be sure to have:
- patient testimonials
- calls to action
- contact and new patient forms
- your office’s phone, fax, email, and address
- a convenient and secure method of paying a bill
- a link to your blog
You may be surprised by that last item, but blogging is one of the best ways to attract new visitors to your site. When you create and post interesting, quality content on a blog, it can inform and entertain as well as answer patients’/potential patients’ questions. Use various types of content to provide your patients with dental industry news and information, and keep things interesting.
The next step after creating and posting content to your blog is promotion. Create social media accounts for your practice on websites like Facebook, Twitter, or Google+, and use them to promote your business website and blog. When content promotion is done right, it helps your practice rank higher in the search engines. This in turn will generate leads and get more exposure with your target audience, which allows you to get more new patients and more revenue.
Remember to not just post links to your site through these social accounts, but use them to interact with your audience. Ask readers to comment on your postings with their thoughts or questions, and then be sure to respond to their comments.
Another way to cultivate an awesome online presence is by offering online-only deals. People love deals and constantly look for them online, especially your young adult patients and their families. Offer a special deal to people who find your practice online and come in for a treatment. You can also reward existing patients who like your Facebook page, follow you on Twitter, subscribe to your emails, etc. Or host an online contest via social media with deals and special offers to generate buzz.
3. Get (and Use) Patient Reviews
You want reviews―as many as you can get. You may think reviews aren’t a huge deal since your existing patients know you’re a great dentist, and you expect them to tell people how wonderful your practice is. Of course, word-of-mouth marketing is good and many patients do it on their own, but when you want to attract new patients online―which every dental practice should―you need reviews. Online reviews play a huge role in whether you get new business.
When potential patients find your site or hear about your practice and want to find out more, they look for online reviews. They want to know what kind of experiences your patients have had. People trust what customers say more than a business. The more positive reviews your patients give you, the better your chances at attracting new patients.
Don’t be afraid to ask your pleased patients for their reviews. Make it easy for patients to leave a review by making available an iPad or computer with a preferred comments website before they even leave the office. Even patients who aren’t computer-savvy will hand write comments (that you can later enter online) if you have forms and a box conveniently located. Then watch those online reviews―and patients―multiply!
Of course, you’ll probably receive a few negative comments because you just can’t please everyone. You can, however, turn negative reviews around to be beneficial to your practice. By responding to and handling negative reviews in an ethical and effective way, you earn respect from potential clients and appreciation from those reviewers. People who leave reviews, especially the negative ones, just want to know they’ve been heard and that their opinion matters, so let them know your practice cares by responding.
Correctly responding to and using your patient reviews to your advantage is a surefire way to get you more patients that are looking for a dental practice online.
Your dental practice needs new patients, and when you follow these three innovative ideas of offering incentives for referrals, beefing up your online presence and using patient reviews to your advantage, you’re guaranteed to attract a continual flow of new patients for years to come.
About The Author
Allen Crow is the marketing manager for Easy Dental, an affordable and simple dental practice management software.
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