Have you recently purchased an established practice with a limited digital marketing presence? Perhaps you’ve just found the perfect space to set up a new dental practice?
Now that you’ve invested a great deal in either your practice fit-out or paying for the good will for an existing practice, how exactly do you get more new patients in an unfamiliar area where people don’t know who you are?
New dentists can grow with established competitors with the right strategy and marketing investment. More established , older dentists typically rely on their existing patients and older methods of new patient acquisition which means more modern digital marketing can exposure your dental practice in more effective ways helping you stand out in your community.
Well, the good news is with a dental marketing plan we can help you make the competition irrelevant. We have developed marketing strategies for new dental practices in areas with an abundance of competition and secured a consistent flow of new patients.
Find out more about how our dental marketing agency achieves this:
It can be a daunting task to set up a fully functioning and brilliant dental practice with numerous clients that come back to you time and again, but it’s especially difficult when you’re trying to break into a region that already has had dentists set up and running for a period of time. You might find it intimidating at first and be unsure of where to start in terms of getting your name out there and taking advantage of complacency that the other practices may have fallen into. Here are some great ideas that can help you market yourself and your business in an existing competitive marketplace.
Scope Out The Competition
You can’t know where to start with your business plan of attack if you don’t know what you’re up against, so scoping out the competition is a great starting point when you’re planning to set up shop in an area that already has dentists and has done for a number of years. Consider visiting their website, checking out their social media pages and even visiting their physical premises under the guise of looking for a new dentist yourself to see what kind of shape their office is in, what they offer in terms of customer comfort and entertainment while waiting and other useful bits of information that you can spin for your own practice. This will help give you an idea of what is working for other dentists locally so you can have an advantage of being in the know from the get go.
Many dental practices that have been around awhile rely on the same customers to keep coming back time and again and don’t offer anything in the way of customer retention or loyalty perks, so consider adding this to your practice as well as taking note of how many practices are accepting new patients or not. This will help give you an idea of your potential customer base and how to target them. For example, if you are asking a dental practice in one neighborhood if they’re taking on new patients and they aren’t, chances are locals in the area could be in need of another dental care option, so you may want to consider canvassing the area with flyers or the like to announce the opening of your new clinic.
Advertise Your Dental Practice In Key Avenues
Getting your name out there is the next important step to helping grow your business. Consider advertising options that will work for you and the customer base you’re trying to attract. Digital marketing using SEO through your website is a great way to get traffic to your site, but if you’re new in town (or at least your practice is) you will want to get your name and face out there in more practical, personal ways so that people know that you’re around to begin with. It’s all well and good to have a great website, but if people aren’t aware it’s there you won’t ever get customer traffic through it. However, you may want to consider running ads on Facebook or Instagram about your new practice with your website address in the advertisement itself to help promote your website.
You can use directories to build our more citations and gain backlinks to help your website improve visibility in search engines. Here is a leading dentist directory you can list your practice on to help your community get you when someone is looking for a dentist near me.
You may want to consider hosting a booth at a local fair or community event where potential new patients can meet you and learn about your services. This is a great option when you’re only a week or two away from opening your practice, so you can invite these people to your grand opening. Likewise, consider hosting an open house when you get your practice up and running, offering cake and coffee and the chance to look around and meet your staff.
Offer An Incentive For New Patients
This is a great way to get customers in the door because, after all, who doesn’t like a great deal? Offer incentive packages for signing up to your practice as a new patient such as a family deal where you give 50% off cleanings for the whole family, a free first dental exam or the like. This will help generate buzz behind your practice and will get people coming in the door to try out your services, especially if the competition aren’t up to scratch anymore.
Don’t just stop there though. Once those customers are in, keep them in through a loyalty retention program, such as customer cards with stamps where you get a free cleaning after every five or ten, or run prize draws where customers can enter their name to win a prize of some kind (which can be anything from a gift certificate to use at your practice, a free examination or cleaning, a dinner gift card and the like). Be sure to engage your customers as well through your social media as well as in office by running polls, asking for reviews or suggestions on how to improve the practice and more. Be sure to be consistent with all of these things to make your client base feel like they’re a part of the family and you will keep clients as well as attract new ones easily – the perfect recipe for growth!
Keep Innovating and connecting with your local community
Overall, one of the best ways to grow your business into a powerhouse is to keep trying new things. Don’t become the next dental practice that gets a diploma in complacency once you get a hearty client base, and keep switching things up and trying new things in terms of attracting and retaining customers.
Hiring professionals to freelance certain aspects of your business (such as custom blog content creation with SEO keywords in mind) is a great way to save money but stay relevant in an ever changing marketplace. Be sure to farm out creative tasks to people like your receptionist so you don’t have to worry about keeping on top of it all, meaning you will be free to focus on providing an impeccable service – one that will keep customers coming back and the referrals flowing in. You might be surprised at what a bit of fun and creativity can do for a dental practice in terms of attracting new and keeping existing customers. So what will you try?
Our team focus on building your local brand & authority which will help you increase your local strong hold in the area. Find out how we can build your dental practice up and get in front of the dinosaurs in your industry
If you’re a great dentist and need a marketing partner to make the competition irrelevant then give our dental marketing agency a call today for a free consultation.