How to Market Your Dental Implant Service Online Dental implants are often considered to be one of the most significant dentistry advances in the past fifty years. That being said, many people aren’t even aware they exist. Many of those people could benefit a lot from those implants. With that in mind, dentists should determine how to successfully promote dental implants. As an implantologist, a dentist specializing in implantology, your competition is growing by the day. This is because an increasing number of periodontists, prosthodontists, and general dentists are offering dental implants these days. The reason for that lies in the appealing financial rewards that many oral health professionals can’t resist. So, it’s a big challenge to survive and prosper in this competitive field. The bigger challenge is to regularly gain new patients interested in dental implants. In fact, dentists should make every effort to encourage and interest people in operative dentistry that involves dental implants. The key is to create an implant dentistry marketing strategy that really works. Only results-oriented, ethical marketing can increase the number of dental implant cases and build your practice. In this post, we’re going to discuss some marketing ideas related to dental implants. Without further ado, let’s dig in.
Want to market dental implants? Before you do anything else, try to define the size of a geographic radius that covers your target audience. Yes, it’s possible to collect a lot of local demographic information through online research. But you may also identify your target audience by using the statistical data of your current patients. Let’s assume that the records of your patients are computerized, which is common for many medical or dental practices. If this is also the case with your dental practice, then you can generate reports based off of your patients’ demographics. Those reports will tell you a lot of valuable information about your patients. For example, you can find out the mean and range of their age, and the distance they were travelling to your dental office. You can also find out how many years they’ve been your patient. Try to think the way your target patients (we will call them “personas”) think. This may take some practice. But once you become capable of doing that, you will be able to create blog content and social media posts that attract your intended readers.
CREATE YOUR TARGET PERSONAS (TARGET GROUPS)
Take the time to create your personas. That’ll ensure you pick out and target the right audience. Think about what kind of people would like to get dental implants. Here are three types of people that come to our mind:
- Someone who has lost teeth in an extreme sport
- Someone who has lost teeth in an accident
- Older people who have lost teeth over the course of time
From these examples, you can see that your target audience can include a wide variety of people. One group may include young people, whilst the other could consist of middle-aged or older people. In addition to these three target groups, there are also many other kinds of persons interested in dental implants.
In addition to these three target groups, there are also many other kinds of persons interested in dental implants. So do not lump all people into one group. Instead, you should create a couple of target groups and market to each of them separately. It includes a variety of demographic details such as age, location, occupation, marital status, etc. With the use of these figures, it is possible to define a radius around a practice. It will help you gain a better understanding of your target patient and what kind of marketing you ought to use. That will mostly depend on the average age of your intended users within that radius. This process can be a little tedious and time-consuming. However, remember that all successful marketing strategies rely on the research which goes into their creating. You also need to ask yourself two questions about your target personas:
- What is keeping those people from receiving dental implants? (family, stigma, lack of money, or other reasons).
- What are they hoping to accomplish by receiving dental implants? (a beautiful smile, healthier mouth, easier chewing, or something else).
Once you know the answers, you’ll be able to create advertising materials and content that present the benefits of getting dental implants to your target audience. That will break down barriers or prejudices which keep those people from becoming your patients.
USE YOUR ACTUAL DENTAL BLOG OR CREATE A NEW DENTAL IMPLANT BLOG TO GAIN MORE PATIENTS
No matter what kind of business you’re running, a blog is a powerful marketing tool to promote your products and/or services. The same holds true for dental practice. That is because a blog enables you to position your dental practice in a certain area. It allows you to develop relationships between your future and your current patients. Besides, a blog provides your patients with valuable information on medical procedures that you and your workmates perform. You can either start a separate blog from scratch and get it linked to your existing website or include your dental implant blog on your site. Maintaining a blog and keeping readers engaged is certainly a big challenge. Maybe you’ve launched a blog for your dental practice with great enthusiasm. But as you create new posts from week to week, your creative energy will probably start to wane after a while. You won’t know what to write next at some point in time.
HOW TO MAINTAIN A SUCCESSFUL DENTAL IMPLANT BLOG
Narrow Down Your Focus
In order to write each particular blog article, you should have a narrow, clear focus. You need to know what questions you’re trying to answer. Also, you should know what concerns you’re intending to alleviate. Then try to narrow down your focus. For instance, address only one concern related to dental implants at a time. Many blog writers tend to vaguely describe the complex procedures in a single post. It’s much better to create a continuing series of posts by explaining every single step with a detailed description. This way you’ll get more material for your future posts.
Focus on The First Impressions
It is also important to focus on the first impressions. They often have a stronger effect when expressed online than in everyday life. By the way, most of your potential clients use the Internet and are just one click away from you. You will lose them if you don’t act fast and intrigue your readers. Looking for the attention grabbers? Here are a few ideas on how to grab the attention of your readers:
- Tell relevant, personal stories
- Ask provocative questions
- Share funny or inspirational quotes
- Offer astonishing statistics and facts
Create Interesting and Engaging Content
The content on your blog should “touch” pain points and interests of your readers (target audience). Do you know why most people avoid getting dental implants? That’s because they do not know the professional opinion on that issue. With that in mind, make sure to write informative and educational posts regarding dental implant process from time to time. Many people steer clear of dental implants due to the high cost. That’s why you should consider creating an infographic that consists of multiple payment options. Turn your blog into a multifarious platform where you can promote different content materials, including:
- Infographics
- Informational videos
- Success stories
- Images
Aside from that, think of the following pointers when creating content for your dental implant blog:
- Put yourself out there
- Be consistent
- Be unique
- Be personal
- Keep it simple
- Include a call to action
UTILIZE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS TO PROMOTE DENTAL IMPLANTS
Once you have determined your target audience and created some content on your blog, it’s time to start using social media. For the initial launch, it’s wise to use various social media platforms. Start with the four most popular social media platforms. That would be quite enough for the beginning. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Google+ are good places to start. So make use of these platforms to launch your social media marketing campaign. It’s advisable to have social media marketing optimized. Here are a few tips to do it:
- Speak to your social media followers — What can catch the attention of your target audience? Something that grabs someone’s attention who is in his 20s will probably not catch the imagination of somebody in his 70s. This is why you need to discover your followers on social media. Seek them out actively across social media. Some of them will have to be targeted while others will come in voluntarily.
- Automate your posts— There are numerous social media management tools that let you schedule your posts on the major social media networks. Most social media managers use Buffer, Hootsuite, SocialOomph, IFTTT, TweetDeck, just to name a few. These automation website tools are beneficial for any business. They are significant time savers. All you need to do is choose the optimum times of the day and schedule the certain blog posts in advance. Then simply walk away. These tools also offer valuable reports that let you know which posts have attracted the most attention. So, you should definitely give them a try.
- Promote your blog content— Let’s face it, most businesses use social media to draw traffic back to their websites. Actually, this is the main goal of most social media marketing plans. So you should do the same. Promote your new blog posts on social media. Make them more attractive by including relevant hashtags, engaging images, as well as other things that make people click. For most social media platforms, share the same content a few times to get the best results. For example, promote a blog post four times on Twitter, two times on Facebook, and once on less busy platforms such as Google+.
- Monitor your posts— Be sure to monitor your posts regularly. You also need to watch for comments and questions of your readers/followers. Make sure to respond appropriately. Social media is an ideal place for customer service. Don’t let the complaints of disgruntled patients catch you some by surprise. Respond quickly and try to address the issues. Over time, interactive communication will build a stronger relationship with your audience.
FINAL THOUGHTS
There is no magic marketing formula that can bring you a lot of patients at once. Don’t be fooled by online marketing companies which claim that they will do it for your practice in no time. Do you want to know the real truth? Most digital marketing strategies are created by a process of trial and error. That being said, conduct the proper research and brainstorm various marketing ideas before you’re implementing a certain marketing plan. Test out different strategies to see which ones work best for you. It will certainly eliminate some errors. However, you can see the real effects after launching and running a marketing plan for a few months. That will give you a better idea of what people discuss, share, and like the most. Turn the most successful strategies to your advantage and market dental implants for your practice.