Marketing Mistakes Your Dental Practice Should Avoid

Is your dental practice avoiding these potentially fatal marketing mistakes? If not, you should be. Here's why.

You Don't Have a Responsive Website

A responsive website allows users on virtually any size and type of device to view your site optimally, without having to scroll horizontally. A non-responsive website can lead your patients to believe it's broken or down if they visit your site and images are misaligned, titles are in different fonts, or the sizing of your navigation buttons is too small.

You Market Without Doing Your Due Diligence First

Before you launch a marketing campaign, it's important to check the temperature of your local audience. Be sensitive to political and humanitarian issues and make sure your campaign doesn't step on any toes. You also want to make sure that your dental marketing campaigns align with your local audience's wants or needs. If your area is home to many young families that celebrate Halloween or Christmas, consider running an ad for fillings or dental sealants to protect teeth from candy-caused cavities.

You Aren't Engaging Your Patients on Social Media

Social media is a great way to create brand awareness for your dental practice, but if you're just posting articles and pictures without really getting your patients engaged, you're doing a whole lot of work for not a lot of return. Make a point to start conversations with your patients, answer questions, and like or comment on their posts, keeping in mind any legal privacy limitations. Publish posts that showcase your dental practice behind-the-scenes. Did your hygienist just have a baby? Post the birth announcement! Did you hold a continuing education seminar for dental associates in your area? Share photos of the event.

You Aren't Offering Competitive Pricing

Dental insurance doesn’t typically cover the whole cost of a patient’s dental treatment plan, leaving them without the coverage they need to have necessary dental work done. Many patients also have to pay for dental care out-of-pocket, making the cost of services much more important. Often, patients who can't afford to have dental work will simply go without it until it becomes an emergency that can no longer be put off.

You can encourage your patients to put their oral health first by offering competitive pricing. Run monthly specials to use in direct mail campaigns and advertise your prices on social media.

You Aren't Publishing Educational Content

Blogging can be crucial for dental practices for many reasons, maybe chief among them being patient education. The knowledge patients have about a procedure and why it's necessary plays a significant role in treatment acceptance. Publish blogs about dental health topics that are important to your target audience. It’s an easy way to both give you content to share on social media and give your patients the background information they need to make informed decisions about their oral care.

You Have Limited Videos and Photographs of Your Practice

Today's savvy consumers want to get an idea of the products and services a business offers, as well as the environment they can expect. If you don't have pictures or videos of your office on your website and social media channels, you could be missing an excellent opportunity to help patients get to know your dental practice.

Include images of your office building, exam rooms, and x-ray equipment on your social profiles, especially Google My Business. Record professional video that addresses your patients directly and post it on the home page of your site. Images and video allow you to draw attention to your practice in a meaningful way.

Are You Analyzing Your ROI?

It's important to analyze every aspect of your marketing campaigns to determine if you're getting the most bang for your buck. Ineffective campaigns that don't drive new patient appointments might not be worth the budget you're allocating to them and continuing to run that campaign would be a waste of your marketing dollars. Instead, evaluate which of your practice's marketing strategies produce the best results and continue to use similar tactics in future campaigns.

By avoiding these marketing mistakes, you can help grow your patient base exponentially. Remember that good dental practice marketing is an ongoing effort and isn't ever really something you're "done" with. Keep tweaking your marketing strategies and ditch tactics that don't give you a good return.

About Treloar & Heisel

Treloar & Heisel is a premier financial services provider to dental and medical professionals across the country. We assist thousands of clients from residency to practice and through retirement with a comprehensive suite of financial services, custom-tailored advice, and a strong national network focused on delivering the highest level of service.

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Treloar & Heisel, LLC. and its divisions do not offer marketing or legal advice. Please consult a professional concerning these topics.