The fact is, you could have the best practice in the country, but without an effective digital marketing strategy potential patients will never find you.

Let’s break it down.

Firstly, what is digital marketing?

Digital marketing, or online marketing, is any kind of promotion of your brand or services to customers via the internet or other digital communication. These days it’s rare to find someone who doesn’t access the internet in one form or another, so it makes sense to meet them in this space.

Types of digital marketing:

• Social media
• Content marketing
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Pay-per-click advertising

Data collection is fundamental to the implementation of any type of digital marketing campaign. Collecting data gives your digital marketing direction and an insight into your potential patients to help determine how to implement your marketing strategy.

Social media

Social media marketing is one of the most important components of any digital marketing strategy.

When it comes to marketing, you need to go where your potential customers are, and social media is that place. Social media is one of the only digital marketing channels that allows for two-way communication with potential and existing patients, enabling people to leave comments, like and engage with the content you post.

A successful social media campaign can connect you with thousands of potential patients, if implemented in the right way.

Through your social media channels you can build your brand’s personality, promote your practice and connect with both existing and potential new patients.

Content marketing

Content marketing is another way you can attract more patients to your practice.

There are many types of content marketing including:

• blog articles
• EDMs (email newsletters)
• email marketing
• white papers
• landing pages
• podcasts.

Careful consideration should be given before carrying out any type of content marketing for your dental or orthodontic practice. Finding the right channel to connect with your audience is essential, otherwise you’re wasting both time and money.

When a content marketing strategy is implemented effectively, it can be a powerful tool to attract new patients and engage and improve patient retention.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

A successful SEO strategy will have your practice ranking higher with search engines (where patients go looking for dental and orthodontic practices), creating greater visibility for your practice and potentially attracting more patients.

If you commit part of your marketing budget to digital marketing, you can rank higher and get more visits to your website and generate more interest in your practice. This can be managed in-house or by a marketing agency.

Pay-per-click advertising

Google Ads, formerly known as Google AdWords, lets you pay to feature at the top of Google searches. It’s a cost effective way to drive traffic to your website, as you only pay per click, when someone clicks on your ad.

Your Google Ad will only appear to the audience in your area when they are searching for anything relating to orthodontists and dental, giving your practice greater visibility.

Google Ads require careful planning and a digital agency can advise you if it is the right avenue of digital marketing for your practice.

If you dedicate time and money to build an effective digital marketing strategy you can attract more patients to your practice.

Another way to attract new patients is to onboard an affordable payment plan solution. The DentiCare Payment Plan solution is proven to improve client retention and increase treatment acceptance.

Contact us to find out how you can grow your practice with DentiCare.