In the current dental market, dentists have a huge opportunity to seize the day. There’s a high demand for dental services but a shortage of available dentists. According to the basic rules of supply and demand, this is the moment to branch out and grow your dental practice.
In 2024, it’s more important than ever to invest in effective dental marketing strategies and capture the available market share. We’ve done the hard part for you and gathered dozens of ways to attract new patients to your dental practice. You just have to choose one and set it in motion.
Whether you want to grow your patient pool, meet your 2024 KPIs, or strengthen your brand, we’ve got the right idea for you. Here are 30 dental marketing ideas for dentists and dental offices from Dandy’s digital dentistry.
Dental marketing is any tool or strategy you use to promote your dental practice and services. Some examples include paying for local advertisements to attract new patients; retaining patients by sending effective email reminders to book their next appointment; or offering a referral program for current patients to refer new patients to your office.
You might decide to try a dental marketing strategy such as:
Ultimately, you want to employ dental marketing methods that give you the highest possible return on your investment (ROI). This might take some trial and error, and success will depend on the unique nature of your practice, your goals, and the community you are trying to reach.
If your dental practice website looks like it’s 15 years old, you’re not doing your practice any favors. Your website is the main place people will seek out information about your practice, yourself, and your services, so make sure it shows off your brand in a strong, appealing way. Prospective patients want all the basics such as location, services offered, and FAQs readily available, and it’s a bonus if you can get new patients to commit to your practice then and there (consider making appointments bookable online). Make sure your site is well-designed with intuitive links and plenty of search engine optimization (SEO) so people can find you online.
You can try to design your website yourself using templates from sites such as Squarespace or Wix, but hiring a website designer is likely a worthwhile investment for your business.
You can draw a larger audience to your website (and ultimately book more patients) by drawing them in with quality and relevant content. There are many different content options you could offer depending on your own expertise and interests. For a topic patients might be interested in, like easy ways to have better breath, you could write a blog post on your website and share it on social media (bring traffic back to your site), or you could make a TikTok video (the funnier, the better) promoting your brand and offering relevant information.
To keep patients coming back for more, your blog should be updated frequently and cover a variety of subjects. Potential topics include:
Modern clinics are embracing digital technologies that can streamline and simplify traditional workflows, reduce patient chair time and overcome costs, and improve patient experience and outcomes. These technologies include:
If you utilize such advancements in dentistry, you should highlight them so that patients are aware that you run a state-of-the-art practice. When it comes to how to attract new patients to your dental practice, these advancements represent a unique selling proposition that you can highlight in your social media and content marketing efforts to set your clinic apart from the competition
An effective way to increase your patient pool is to offer a membership program designed for patients without dental insurance. Dentists can choose to offer an affordable, baseline plan for care that includes basic, preventive dental care such as X-rays, teeth cleaning, and an oral examination by the dentist. If patients need other services, they can elect into and pay for those services as needed. You can charge for the program annually or monthly and keep costs transparent, bringing in uninsured patients who might otherwise avoid the dentist completely.
Whether we’re looking for a place to eat, work out, or get our teeth cleaned, many of us go straight to the online reviews. We trust what real people have to say over an advertisement any day, which is why it’s so important to solicit positive reviews from your patients. You can hand them a card with step-by-step instructions on how to give a Google and/or Yelp review on their way out of the office and follow up by email a few days later.
Don’t forget that the number one way to get a good review is by providing a great experience for your patient.
We all love free stuff. Hosting a giveaway with a valuable prize (it can even be related to your business, such as a free whitening session) can be an effective way to attract social media followers and gain email subscribers.
You’ve got something important to say, so say it! There’s a low bar for entry to the podcast world—you really just need a computer and an opinion. Is there a subject area related to your field that you’re passionate about? You could start a weekly podcast and become an authority in that area as well as attract a new audience (and new patients).
Growing your practice can be as simple as making genuine connections within your community. Make a commitment to volunteer for, sponsor, and donate to the local causes you care about. You’ll meet plenty of people who will remember you and your practice for a good reason.
A meaningful discount can always help get new patients in the door. Consider running holiday specials that make sense for your business, or offering heavier discounts during business lulls. Keep in mind that the goal is to create long-term patients, not to treat them a single time.
In the discovery stage, most prospective patients will begin their search for a dentist on Google. They may research topics related to their dental condition, such as dentures or implants, and then discover potential dental candidates by reading about these issues on their website’s blog. Or, they may look directly for a dental clinic in their area.
In either instance, your goal should be for your website to rank at or near the top of all the relevant queries. Accomplishing this isn’t easy, but it is possible with a well-planned SEO strategy that includes:
When it comes to dental brand awareness, proximity matters. A dental clinic in San Diego will experience little benefit if its website is discovered by a prospective patient in Westchester (this also applies to any local business).
As a general rule of thumb, potential clients will live within a 10-mile radius of their dental practice, though distances could be longer between rural and urban dental practices. Therefore, you need to be focusing your digital marketing efforts on targeting people within this proximal region.
For businesses that depend on community support, such as brick-and-mortar locations, including location-specific SEO on your website and Google location listing is an essential way to ensure that customers in your area can find your business.
Local search/SEO strategies include:
As you create content through blogs, social media, and podcasts, consider reaching out to others creating good content in your subject area and asking if you can write a guest post for them. Search engine robots use inbound links (links on other sites that link back to yours) to give your site credibility and move it higher in search rankings. If you offer up a link exchange (I’ll post on yours if you post on mine) it’s a win-win for everyone.
Online advertisements can target the specific demographic you’re hoping to market to, which means they can be a cost-effective way to reach a new potential patient base. Look into running ads on Google, Yelp, Facebook, and other sites that make sense for your practice and choose the ad campaign that works best for your practice.
Make sure you have a system in place for collecting your patients’ (and potential patients’) email addresses so you can keep in touch, share content, remind them to make appointments, and let them know about any new services or deals you may offer. Reminder emails for upcoming scheduled appointments can also reduce no-shows and cancellations, bolstering your bottom line. Just make sure not to overdo it.
Are you a good source for journalists to interview about a new law that changed concerning the dental industry? Or maybe you just got certified to give a highly in-demand treatment? Consider writing up a press release and sending it to local media with an interesting story angle, all the basic information to know about you and your connection to the story, and your contact information.
YouTube and TikTok are still the reigning kings of content for a reason. You can use your professional expertise to create educational yet interesting videos about subjects from gingivitis to implants to teeth whitening. Follow your own interests, let your personality shine, and see what you come up with.
Direct mail is still an important way to reach potential patients—you just have to make sure your messaging stands out in a pile of junk mail. Set up a target mailing list, design a mailer that attracts the eye, and, if you can, follow up with those same potential patients by email. Keep the name of your practice at the top of their minds for the best chance of patient conversion.
Whether you’re reaching potential patients by mail, email, or social media, you want it to be as easy as possible for them to find you—as easy as one click. That’s where QR codes come in handy. Anyone with a smartphone can easily scan them and get a direct link to your website, your appointment booking portal, your social media page, etc.
Planning a fun or informative event in your neighborhood or online is a great way to capture the attention of potential customers and make them aware of your practice and brand. You could host a webinar about a topic people care about, like how to avoid discoloration of your teeth or an informational session about an expensive procedure that people want to know more about before committing to. In person, maybe you could host a kids’ hour where children can learn about healthy brushing habits and go home with a toy and a toothbrush. Create a space that makes sense for you and your practice, and the right connections will follow.
Referrals and ratings are so important. That’s why Zocdoc, a website people commonly use to find doctors near them or within their insurance coverage, is a great marketplace for your practice to be a part of so people can easily discover you. Join and get Zocdoc verified and you may tap into an automated flow of new patients.
Social media is often the most underutilized digital dental marketing tool. Social Media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok can help you reach a large audience of potential patients with each outlet serving as a unique tool in your marketing toolkit.
Leveraged properly, your social media marketing channels can improve your visibility and brand reach, drive awareness, and stoke engagement among potential clients. To that end, some best dental SEO practices include:
The one thing we trust even more than online reviews is a review from someone we personally know. People talk, and you want them to talk about the excellent experience they had as your patient. Create a patient referral program that rewards your current patients (with discounts, free products, or free services) for every referral patient they bring in, and give them concrete goals to work toward.
Adjacent to volunteering, if you sponsor community events your brand, logo, and practice will become more visible. Research opportunities to sponsor local sports teams or big annual events or local schools and organizations you have a connection to.
This tip is an oldie but a goodie. Not everyone operates online, and you want to be able to market your practice when you meet people out and about in the real world. A business card (with a QR code!) is a simple way to reach new patients or have current patients pass off your information to others.
Do a mind-meld with other local businesses to reap the benefits of your collective audiences. It wouldn’t make sense for you to team up with another dentist (aka your competitor), but what about specialists in your field or other health professionals? Pool your resources, market to customers, and offer deals as a team so you can allow potential patients to knock out two health tasks at once.
Seeing is believing, so give people the tools they need to actually see the results your practice can provide. Show before and after pictures in your marketing to show patients not only what their dream smile could look like, but also how they could attain it (by making an appointment at your practice!).
When you use returageting marketing methods, you deliver ads to an online audience that has already interacted with your practice in some way. They could be someone who opened an email from you, someone who clicked on one of your ads, or someone who searched for your practice. These are people who are already interested in your practice in some way; now it’s time to close the deal.
Decide on your target audience based on the purpose of your message (is it to convert ads to booked appointments, to get people to follow your social media accounts, or something else?) and employ paid ads from there.
Your most important marketing tactic will always be making the best impression possible on your patients. As previously noted, reviews and word of mouth are some of the most powerful marketing tools available to you—plus, they’re free.
Some simple things to keep in mind to improve your connection with your patients include:
Your reception area is the perfect place to market your services to a captive, friendly audience. Keep business cards at the front desk and brochures offering your services and more information about yourself around the area. You can let patients know about wellness services and any new technology you’re implementing, plus offer them a chance to write in their email address for more information. This is an easy way to build your mailing list.
Doctors depend on other doctors to send them a steady stream of referrals, and building your connection with other health professsionals in your area can be crucial to the success of your practice. An effective way to build professional relationships is to set up time to meet other doctors in person. Make it easy on them: visit their office, don’t take up too much of their time, and bring a gift for them and perhaps something for all of their staff to enjoy (who doesn’t love a box of donuts?). Then continue to follow up regularly with holiday cards from your office, personal letters with professional news, and face-to-face lunches and coffees.
Remember that networking is about a mutual give and take, so take notes about each meeting so you remember important details, celebrate their successes, and offer to help them in any way you are able to.
Dental marketing can be pricey, so you want to be able to track the success of your efforts so you know which method works best for your practice.
First, have a clear and measurable goal for what you want to achieve with a marketing campaign. For instance, perhaps you’d like to increase online appointment bookings by 20% within six months. Once your campaign begins, make sure a method is in place for you to track results so at the end of your campaign you’ll be able to measure whether or not you hit your target.
Whatever marketing method you decide to use, you want the best ROI possible. Tracking ROIs can help you see what works for your practice as well as what needs improvement. For instance, if an ad has a particularly low conversaion rate for website visitors, you should consider redesigning it.
You should also track ROIs within your office operations, which is why it’s important to set up a digital dental workflow. Perhaps you have a system in place for front desk employees to call patients when it’s time to make a cleaning appointment, but you notice booking rates are lower than previous months. This information can help you investigate whether there is a staffing issue or something else going on.
You should also consider using Google’s analytics, a free analytics tool, to track visitors to your site and see the digital path they follow, how many of them book an appointment, how long they stay on the site, and much more. This can give you crucial information about the sites your visitors are coming from, including your ad campaigns, and the effectiveness of your website.
Knowledge is power, and now you have all the tools you need to create a strong and effective dental marketing campaign for your practice. Whatever method(s) you decide to use, remember to have a clear goal in mind and a method in place to track results.
When marketing your dental practice, always keep in mind:
With prices rising and competition heating up in the market, dental practices must go above and beyond to distinguish their services and then market them to current and prospective patients. By embracing these marketing ideas for dental offices, you can take the necessary steps to improve your visibility and brand reach, especially in the digital space.
Are you looking to incorporate new dental technology into your dental clinic and marketing practices? If so, the team at Dandy can help you transition to a digital dental workflow, providing an intraoral scanner, powerful software, and the full support of a digital dental lab. Once implemented, you can focus your marketing materials on the benefits of digital dentistry.
If you’re ready to unleash your clinic’s full potential, contact us today.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jillian Anthony is a writer, editor, and content strategist with bylines from Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, and New York Magazine's Vulture. She authors the Cruel Summer Book Club newsletter and hosts a podcast of the same name. Read More
