7 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Marketing Dental Practices

Running a successful dental clinic isn’t as straightforward as you might have expected. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to be a skilled dentist. While it helps if you’re personable and good at managing employees, it’s still not enough.

To run a thriving dental clinic, you must learn how to market your services effectively. If people don’t know you exist, how are they going to become patients? Just importantly, you need to know what not to do when marketing dental practices.

We’re here to provide some guidance. Keep reading for seven common mistakes to avoid when marketing your dental clinic.

1. Not Creating a User-Friendly Website

As a modern business owner, the importance of your website cannot be overstated. Future patients will use the quality of your website to gauge the quality of your services. if your website is slow, unintuitive, and difficult to use, they’ll naturally assume your dental services lack credibility.

By failing to provide patients with a user-friendly website, you’re taking money out of your own pocket. Instead, focus on providing a positive website experience.

Your website needs to be visually appealing, quick-loading, and easy to navigate. Just as importantly, you must optimize your website for mobile devices. Over 85% of Americans own smartphones, and most of us use these devices for all of our online applications.

2. Not Focusing on the Right Demographics of Patients

Using generic SEO coding is one of the most common mistakes made when marketing dental practices. Yes, you need to code your website for popular keywords related to your industry. However, if you aren’t focusing on long-tail keywords and local keywords, you could be missing out on future patients.

You must use long-tail keywords in your digital marketing strategy to target specific corners of the market. For example, if your clinic specializes in cosmetic dental procedures, your SEO must reflect that. This will help you drive quality traffic to your website.

Additionally, use local SEO coding to make sure people in your area are being led to your site. If your dental clinic is in California, it won’t matter if you have thousands of website visits from people who live in the UK. Your business will not benefit from non-local website traffic.

3. Not Investing in Your Social Media Presence

The prevalence of social media is a staple of modern society. Did you know that Facebook alone has 2.8 billion monthly users?

If you’re not using social media marketing to your advantage, you’re making a catastrophic mistake. Social media profiles aren’t just used for influencers and young people who have nothing better to do with their time.

In truth, social media apps are valuable marketing platforms for businesses of all kinds. You can use them to increase your brand awareness in the community, provide information, publish content, promote your services, and communicate with patients.

4. Trying to Avoid Paid Advertising Techniques

One of the most naive mistakes you can make when marketing dental practices is assuming you can do everything for free without compromising your results. While there are countless organic (free) marketing techniques you can use to generate more leads, there are few things that can compete with paid advertising.

For example, using PPC Google ads will help increase your website visibility. These ads are particularly beneficial if you haven’t had time to build up your website SEO. In essence, you can pay to have your website come up at the top of the search results page for certain keyword searches.

However, there are several other types of paid advertising options if you have a new career in the dental field. You can also look into paid social media ads, banner ads, retargeting ads, and influencer marketing.

5. Not Using Email Marketing to Keep In Touch With Patients

Digital marketing is essential for increasing your visibility online. However, consistency is key in generating leads and making sales conversions. Therefore, you need to make sure patients are seeing your marketing messages frequently.

If you’re not using email marketing to retarget patients and remind them of the different dental services you have to offer, you could be missing out on potential sales. Encourage people to subscribe to your email list to receive special promotions, exclusive online content, and more. Once someone has subscribed, you will have a direct line of communication with them.

6. Not Using Content Marketing to Build Trust and Credibility

Content creation is one of the most valuable ways of marketing dental practices. It includes everything from regular blog posts, social media posts, emails, and more.

The goal of content marketing is to create stronger relationships with patients. As such, your content should provide value in the form of information, advice, tips, instructions, tutorials, and more.

The better your content is, the more patients will learn to trust you. They will see you as an authority in the dental field and will be more likely to use your dental clinic if they need dental work done.

7. Not Reaching Out for Help

Finally, don’t make the mistake of trying to do everything on your own. While you may be an experienced and qualified dentist, you may not have a knack for content creation or digital marketing, and that’s okay.

Learn when to ask for help. This could mean reaching out to a digital marketing agency, website designer, etc.

Yes, these services cost money. However, in most cases, you’ll get a much bigger return on your investment. In time, this will lead to more patients and greater success.

If you rely solely on DIY marketing, there’s a chance that your dental clinic will never get the attention and recognition it deserves in your community. Remember, people can’t become patients if they don’t know your clinic exists.

Need Help Marketing Dental Practices?

We understand how difficult marketing dental practices can be. You won’t gain thousands of Facebook followers or hundreds of email subscribers overnight. It will take time to build up your online presence.

However, avoiding the mistakes listed above can help you expedite the process. And if you’re looking for more marketing tips, check out some of our other articles before you go. Our blog was created to help entrepreneurs like you grow their businesses.