We have seven absolutely critical marketing elements that you need to have and continue to work on in order to grow your practice. It’s important to know that some of these tips we are listing you can do yourself, while others you should look into hiring a professional in order to get the most out of your efforts.

1.        A Lead Generating Website

Anyone can create a website, especially with all of the inexpensive website’s that are template based. That’s why we’ve added “Lead Generating” before the term website. Your website needs to attract new dental patients with a nice design. But design isn’t the only thing your website needs. Look for a web design company that has an internet marketing background. These companies will be able to help you get the content needed to being in those new patients and convert viewers into patients.

2.      A Dental Blog

Along with a lead generating website, you need a blog that allows you to produce and publish valuable content for two very different things: your visitors, and search engines. By providing more valuable content through blog articles, you can be placed higher in search engine rankings and also perceives you as a leader in dentistry. You should write about topics that you have a special niche in, for example veneers, invisalign, implants, or any cosmetic procedure.

3.      SEO Efforts

Speaking of moving up in search engine rankings, a large part of owning a business in this day and age is to have local listings and work on search engine results. Do you have a Google+ business page? If you don’t, you need to get on that right away. If you do, is it optimized with photos, videos, special offers, and is it up to date with your current hours and information? If your page doesn’t show these things, your competitors are going to outrank you and will get the phone calls you want.

4.      Reputation Marketing

Another piece that we’re going to add in here is your practice’s reviews. If you have bad reviews, you’re going to see a loss in incoming calls from potential patients. That’s not to say that you won’t have a bad review every once in a while, but stay up to date on your reviews and bring the negative reviews to your attention. A bad review can change into a positive one if you reach out to the reviewer and discuss the situation.

5.      Video Marketing

Did you know that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world? So why aren’t you on there? As a dentist, you can utilize YouTube as a way to position yourself as the expert in your field. We would suggest allotting a budget and having a video marketing company come in and create the video with you and help optimize your YouTube channel. If your video isn’t getting many views, it’s a waste of your time.

6.      Mobile Marketing

We have reached that point in our society that mobile search has exceeded desktop search. What does this mean for your business? That you need to get mobile friendly. This means making your website mobile friendly and setting up a text message marketing system. Make sure that your website is not just mobile friendly but is a clean and attractive mobile website. Nothing is worse than going to an ugly, difficult to navigate website on your iPhone or tablet.

As for the text message marketing, we suggest setting up a plan where your patients can get reminders the day or week before an appointment. This can cut your cancellation rate in half considering a lot of patients forget about their appointments that they schedule 3 to 6 months in advance. If you have special offers you can send them out via text message to let your patients or potential patients about the deals that are available for them.

7.      Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, Oh my! Social Media is constantly evolving and it’s a great way to reach all of your demographics. Using Social Media accounts are extremely important but only if you are keeping them up to date and are engaging. If you have patients check in to your practice, the amount of reach you will get is amazing considering all of their friends can see that they were at your practice. Add incentive like an entry into a drawing for a free cleaning. Be sure to also encourage your patients to review your practice on Facebook to help with your credibility.

Each of these seven tips are extremely valuable when it comes to growing your practice, but only if you are keeping them up to date. When you calculate the amount of time this could take, it might be a full time position. That’s why we suggest reaching out to a marketing firm or a consultant for some help.