15 Aug Why digital marketing is important for the growth of your dental practice
Traditional marketing has been commonly used by dentists for years: radio spots, newspaper ads and the famous yellow pages. But who is the most contacted doctor of this age? Dr Google.
If a person is feeling sick, the first thing he does is to search his symptoms online and after a couple of unpleasant photos of extreme diseases, he might try to Google for a doctor nearby.
In Australia, almost 80% of the population is using internet on a regular basis, and 69% of them are active users on social media. Your patients and potential patients are all out there on the internet. If you want to be listened and seen, – jump onto social media too.
So what are the options available to you as a dentist to drive new patients to you –
Facebook Ads: These ads are targeted to very specific profiles and could either be segmented by preferences, gender, specific areas and more. It will attract more people to your Facebook page or official website.
Google Ads: The first results showed on Google searches under specific criteria are Ads. Words like ‘toothache’ or ‘dental emergency number’ even ‘dentists in___’ can make your business appear as one of the options.
Social media presence – Facebook/Instagram/LinkedIn: Having active accounts on Instagram and Facebook, for example, can help you to be closer to your patients. They can get to know you through personal posts, find out about what your practice specialises in, be educated by articles and just get a feel for the practice before they even make contact. A Facebook page is a great opportunity to get reviews from your patients and currently that’s the best publicity you can get. This is how you attract more customers!
Email: When you create a data base with your patients’ emails you can send them information about promotions, news, appointment reminders or important information they might need to know. It’s important to keep all the channels open and active.
INSTANT RESULTS
Think about a newspaper ad. How can you know how many people actually saw it? Did they really read the whole ad or just skipped it? Even if you could get an estimated number, it might take some days, even weeks to get the final results. With digital marketing you can get all your results almost immediately and if you feel an ad is not working, you can easily change the target audience, imagery, copy until the results are positive.
Having a digital strategy is important to attract more patients and to maintain a closer relationship with the ones you already have. If you’re interested in getting started with this, we can help you to create the best option for your business.
Digiseed are the specialists in digital marketing for the health industry.