While good ol’ fashioned word of mouth (WOM) has always been one of the most trusted forms of marketing for dentists and orthodontists, it’s no longer enough. We’re operating in a digital world and as we experience pandemic lockdowns and restrictions, digital marketing has become one of the most effective ways to connect and engage with potential patients.

What is digital marketing?

When you talk about digital marketing, most people immediately think of social media. After all, it’s fuelled the biggest transformation in marketing in the past couple of decades and has changed the way practices promote their products and services.

However, there’s more to digital marketing than social media. Platforms like Instagram and Facebook will continue to be a great way to reach audiences, however email marketing is just as effective and can be used alongside social media to connect with your target audience and promote your practice.

7 advantages of email marketing

• Cost efficient

One of the major reasons email marketing is still so popular is because of its low cost. Unlike social media ad campaigns, print or other marketing there is very little cost involved when generating an email campaign.

The main costs associated with email marketing include the Electronic Direct Mail (EDM) marketing software and the hours it takes to create the content.

• Connect with an already engaged audience

Forget cold calling, email marketing allows you to connect with an already engaged audience.

These patients/potential patients have already signed up to receive your correspondence and won’t be surprised to receive emails from your business.

Whether they are existing patients, or those who have signed up for your newsletter, they have already shown interest in your practice and are more likely to engage than those being contacted out of the blue.

Through email marketing you can share what’s happening at your practice, promotions, COVID-19 updates, information regarding your practice’s payment plan options and other news.

• Easy to use platforms

You don’t need a marketing degree to send out a simple email to your patients. There are a multitude of easy to use platforms such as MailChimp or Vision 6 that provide easy to use templates for your email marketing. Most platforms are just drag and drop and allow you to use images and logos to catch the attention of your audience.

• Instant action

Like most forms of digital marketing, one of the key benefits of email marketing is it’s instant call to action. It’s a great way to immediately connect with those in your database to convey news or other information that is time sensitive.

Within your email a call to action needs to motivate the reader to take action immediately. To create this call to action you need to be clear on your goal and what you want to achieve from the email, for instance directing readers to a page on your website.

• Easily segment your audience

Most email marketing platforms allow you to segment your audience and send relevant information to a particular age group or those who live in a certain area.  Targeting certain subscribers will help increase email engagement and ensure your content is on target for that specific demographic.

• Measurable results

One of the greatest benefits of email marketing is that the results are extremely measurable.

After sending an email you can easily access analytics relating to email open rates, bounce rates (emails that don’t reach the receiver) and click through rates (how many people click the links).

• Easy and quick to implement

Compared to other more detailed marketing campaigns, email marketing is a quick and simple option. Once you identify your call to action and write your copy, basic email campaigns can be implemented immediately with not much fuss.

These are just a few benefits of email marketing. With the right content and a little creative thinking you can implement an email marketing strategy that will help your practice build your patient base and continue to connect and engage with existing patients to keep your practice at top of mind.