Tips to Attract More Patients to Your Dental Practice
Increasing the number of patients you have at your dental practice is something nearly every practitioner strives for. You may have a robust marketing plan in place already, but is that really enough? Here, we’ll dive into some tried-and-true tips for attracting—and retaining—new dental patients.
Direct Mail for the Win
Direct mail gets a bad reputation of late, but it’s still important when it comes to marketing your dental practice. Why? Our email inboxes are stuffed to the gills with what’s otherwise thought of as spam, so it’s easy for an email campaign to get lost. Sending a direct mailer to the mailboxes of your community members means it won’t get lost in the shuffle of our digital lives. What’s more, it doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. Check out these tips from Dentistry IQ on creating your own direct mail campaign.
Referrals Referrals Referrals
Relying on your patient base to help increase your client roster is one of the best pieces of free marketing. According to one study, 92 percent of consumers trust the recommendations of their friends and family with regards to products and services. More than any other form of advertising, folks just want to hear it from those closest to them. There are tons of referral program ideas you can implement. To start, simply asking your current patients to send their friends and family your way is the easiest method.
Social Media is a Must
This one goes hand-in-hand with referrals. A lively, active social media presence is key to engaging current clients and attracting new ones. Patients making comments on your Facebook page (for example) are a great form of advertising, because their comments are being seen by their friends and family as well. And to be perfectly candid, no one is expecting a truly exciting Facebook or Instagram page for a dentist—so if you can stand out in a sea of sameness by posting cool content, go for it.
Reviews Reviews Reviews
The importance of online reviews to your practice’s success cannot be understated. Between review sites like Yelp and Google, a whopping 93 percent of consumers will read online reviews of a service before committing to it. As a patient is finishing up their appointment at the front desk, or even as they’re getting ready to leave the chair, ask them to post a review of their experience on whichever platform you prefer. If you hand out appointment reminder cards, also consider adding a line of copy requesting a review.
When clients post reviews, you should be responding to both the positive and negative ones in a timely manner. Replying to negative reviews in the right way shows potential clients just how dedicated you are to professional, courteous, patient-centered dental practice. A TrustPulse article put it perfectly: it’s not about what the negative reviews say, but how you—the business owner—respond.