Getting more patients for your dental practice means more income, and more income means more investment into getting more patients and making them happy. It becomes a cycle of getting more patients, earning more, investing more, and getting even more patients. And the more you invest, the less effort it takes to start this cycle and keep it going!
Fortunately, for dentists of all budgets, it doesn’t have to be that expensive either. Every expense can be easily recouped with the revenue from new patients.
Aside from money, you need to spend some time and effort collaborating with your team, or even DIY-ing it, to present the best version of your dental practice to your patients.
So what are some techniques to get more patients to your dental practice with little to no effort?
A conversion-optimized website
You need experts or at least some knowledge of SEO and conversion rates. For example, if your website gets 3,000 visits (or clicks) every month, but your conversion rate is less than 1%, your website is not working as it should.
For 3000 visits, your target conversion rate should be at least 3%, or 90 out of the 3000.
Now “conversion” can have several key performance indicators (KPI).
New subscribers to your newsletter? That’s a KPI. More views on your articles, more Likes on your Facebook, or more followers on your Twitter—those are also nice KPIs. But ultimately, your aim is for web visitors to become clinic visitors.
Your website should:
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Answer questions and provide real value. Do you have blog posts for tips and guides on finding a dentist, taking a kid to the dentist, and information about certain treatments and surgeries?
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Have an irresistible offer. GIVE THEM A REASON TO CALL. Real value isn’t just information. It also includes offers like free reports, free checklists, or discounts on dental services!
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Have an easy booking platform, contact pages, etc. No complicated steps. One button for a call. One button for an online booking. And that’s it. They’re done! Don’t give them a chance to close the website before they’re done.
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Be nice to look at and adjustable to different screen sizes. Internet users are highly visual creatures. You don’t need all the bells and whistles, but you do want a nice color scheme and easy-to-read fonts. About 98% of people now use their phones to browse the Internet. Is your website easy to read on a smartphone?
If you hire an expert to overhaul your site’s design and content, you could easily spend at least $1000, but your patients could pay that back for you if you get 3% conversion overnight.
A focus on your prospective clients and what they want and need
What do your patients need? Do you provide it in your website, your newsletter, your social media posts? Is there information they'd want to read about? Is your website optimized to the max so that they can find you?
Your online campaign needs to be benefit-driven. If you focus on providing real value to your prospective patients, you won’t have to “advertise yourself” at all. Which brings us to our next item:
Give them a reason to call. No logos or branding—DON’T begin an ad or flyer with YOUR name or logo. Make an irresistible offer instead.
Your PPC (pay per click) ads, your flyers, your articles—they should all be benefit-driven, remember? Sure, you can and should add your dental practice name, address, and number there, but somewhere at the bottom after the valuable content has been offered and delivered.
For example, suppose you successfully include your flyer in a tenant’s packet (which is awesome!). If that flyer is nothing but your logo, name, and details, it’s going in the trash almost instantly and will be forgotten.
Again, it's about your patients, not you. Hit their pain points and answer to what they need. That is how you grab their attention and bring them to your website and your clinic. Have an article worth reading, a discount they shouldn’t miss.
They're not interested in seeing your name in headlines. The reverse happens: they ignore you.
People are now inundated with ads all day. You stand out by grabbing your audience's attention. And you grab their attention by giving them a benefit, something they want and need. It could be something short and sweet, like a witty and funny cartoon of a dentist joke, or a discount for new neighbors!
This is how you make them remember you and choose you when they’re ready to have that appointment. GIVE THEM A REASON TO CALL. A discount, a risk-free offer, a free service?
Remember, the easiest thing for us to do when we see an ad is NOTHING. But when the ad is irresistible, that's when we do something!
The beauty of this is that you build a list of interested prospects. They want what you offer. They might not be ready now, but when they are, they'll choose your dental practice.
A referral bonus system
Word-of-mouth is still a powerful tool for marketing dental practices. So make it easy for your patients to recommend you to others. Have a review and testimonial form on your website or your social media page.
Track what you do, test everything, and be consistent.
Are your articles getting read and shared? Which sign ups are getting sign ups?
Track what's going on with your website so that you can fix what needs fixing. And be consistent.
Stick to these techniques. Don't stop. Hire a team to oversee this side of the business. Why do you think businesses launch email campaigns? It's not just ONE email that you send to each lead who signs up for your newsletter. The campaign lasts for months. You court your patients continually through emails, your website content, posts on social media; you don't stop.
Establish your brand, letting them see that they can rely on you for consistent and great content online, and it will follow that you’re the best dentist offline.
