• Dental Marketing ,
• 26 Nov

Most dental professionals realize that marketing is a necessity for any company.

Unfortunately, when making a decision, they simply hire a company that will perform a certain task. For example, they might hire a PPC or SEO professional without previously formulating their goals.

Similar to some other decisions, this one may be affected by our personal bias. We’ve heard that a few friends have started getting more patients after revamping their site.

But, is this something that we need? Should we consider additional services?

Because of this and many other questions, it is necessary for an owner to create a proper dental marketing plan!

So without further ado, here’s everything you need to know.

What are the benefits of having a good dental marketing plan?

Although “marketing plan” sounds like a term that is only used for big corporations, it is actually a concept that any business can befit from.

Here are some of the main reasons why you should implement one:

• It gives you structure. With a dental marketing plan, you are able to put various elements on paper and make proper calculations and adjustments
• A lot of dentists tend to stray away from their initial plans. Or, they decide to discontinue a dental marketing service after a month or two of poor performance. Marketing plan “persuades” you to be patient and stay on track with your initial decision. Keep in mind that marketing usually takes time to kick in so it isn’t something you should hurry
• Helps with budgeting and cost anticipation. In order to be certain that this plan is viable, you have to consider the financial side of it. If you make proper financial calculations, you can rest assured that you can sustain this type of expenditure
• Helps delegate tasks and responsibilities. It makes the whole process more transparent and easier to measure and control. This is especially important if you have a big team or several marketing agencies working for you
• It is great for dental offices that have decided to pursue various marketing channels
• The marketing plan makes the whole process more efficient and streamlined. It also helps reduce or eliminate impulsive decision-making

A dental marketing plan does take some time, but given the advantages, it is much better to create one. It is very similar to a business plan in the sense that it is a great way to eliminate certain business risks.

While it’s much better for a professional to create a dental marketing plan for you, keep in mind that you should be an active participant.

In the end, you have access to certain sensitive information that will allow you to make the best decisions possible.

Main considerations for creating a dental marketing plan

Here are seven of the things you need to figure out when creating a plan:

1. What makes your brand unique?

You always have to start with yourself. What makes your brand unique? How do you measure up to the competition?

SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) is the backbone of any marketing process. It focuses on your advantages and disadvantages as well as your potential for growth.

If you haven’t created a brand identity, this is the best time to do it. In the end, the point of a marketing campaign is to distinguish yourself from the competition and offer something new to the market. You cannot do this if you don’t know who you are.

During this step, you will make all other important decisions regarding the brand (if you haven’t done so previously), such as creating mission and vision, creating a visual design, and establishing other principles under which you will work in the future.

2. Who is your target audience?

Identifying a target audience is the second, common step for any company.

In terms of dental practices, it is relatively easy to establish who is your ideal patients. In most cases, it comes down to people who are living in the vicinity of the office.

While dental offices traditionally make a lot of money out of older people with bad teeth, there are more and more treatments focused on younger generations.

Teeth whitening is a good example. Identifying a target audience should be a cakewalk, so it isn’t something that should take you too much time.

3. Who is your competition, and what do they do?

Similar to the audience, your stiffest competition will be in your immediate vicinity. You also have to consider dental practices that are in your city, have several officers, or invest heavily in marketing.

The best way to learn more about the competition is by simply browsing Google. Any dental office worth its salt will have a strong online presence. Make sure to browse several pages and mark all the companies and their related addresses.

When it comes to digital campaigns, in particular, it is very important to learn more about all the platforms they’re using. Do they focus on PPC? Perhaps they have a strong Facebook presence, or they simply sway their customers with overwhelming Google scores?

No matter what, this is something you need to learn!

Keep in mind that if you hire a marketing company, they need to get acquainted with the competition. There are lots of different online tools that can be used for this purpose.

For example, Dentie Leads puts a big emphasis on the competition. By learning more about other local dentists, you can create a unique offer, a unique value proposition which we will be talking about in the following step.

4. What is unique about your dental office?

A unique value proposition refers to everything you can do or offer than other competitors can’t.

There are lots of things that can distinguish you from the competition. For example, you can work longer hours, work during weekends, accept emergencies regardless of the situation, give advantage to kids, etc.

Even if there isn’t anything unique about your business, you need to create something that will make you stand out. This is important not only so you can have an advantage, but also because it makes it easier to promote your office.

If this unique value proposition is really awesome, you can become renowned for it. As such, it can work well for all your future marketing efforts.

5. How much money can you put aside for marketing?

Nowadays, word-of-mouth marketing is not as efficient as it used to be.

Most dental companies are advertising online, and by passing on this, you are practically losing an opportunity to reach more people.

Marketing theory teaches us that you can never invest enough in marketing. And this is generally true. However, if you want your marketing plan to be viable, you need to find the right figure and stick to it.

As previously mentioned, most dental owners make a mistake by not sticking to their guns. You need to keep in mind that most marketing campaigns will start paying off after a while. This is especially true when it comes to digital marketing, which takes time to kick in.

You need to make sure that you’re comfortable with the monthly costs and that you can see the project through.

Otherwise, there is a chance you will pay a marketing agency for a few months, and then, either due to lack of funds or lack of results, you will totally quit before the campaign makes an impact on your sales.

6. What kind of a platform or a method should I choose?

One of the most important things is identifying the optimal marketing channel and services.

There are lots of things that a digital marketing company can do for you. Here are some of the services that a dental owner should consider:

• Website improvement/redesign

Everything you do online is affected by the quality of your site. A bad, unresponsive site can affect your conversion rates, it can have an adverse effect on your optimization, and can lead to other issues. So, this is probably the first thing you need to fix before you go full out. Keep in mind that even if you have a properly working site, there are always things you can improve

• Content marketing for dentists

A lot of dental sites don’t have a blog. Still, blog posts can do wonders for your practice. They can educate visitors and increase conversion. They are also an important tool for SEO and SMM. Sooner or later, you should at least consider having a dedicated person who will create different types of content for your website

• Pay-per-click (PPC)

PPC refers to campaigns where you bid against other advertisers, and a person with the highest offer is allowed to promote its services on a specific platform. The most popular PPC is Google’s, but there are also Facebook ads that should be considered. This kind of advertising gives you instant results, it is easy to set up, but these ads will instantly disappear as soon as you stop paying for them

• SEO for dental companies

Site optimization is another popular way of promoting your company on Google. SEO is a process meant to optimize your web pages, so when people search for a particular service, they can see you at the top of the results. It is completely opposite from PPC; SEO is slow, takes a lot of effort, in theory, is free, but the results stay even when you’re done paying

• Dental social media marketing (SMM)

Social media marketing refers to a process where a marketing company is managing one or more social media accounts. Of course, the main reason is so you can increase brand awareness and conversion. If you’re already creating awesome content, it is best if you share it via social platforms. It also allows you to connect with your patients on a more personal level

• Reputation management for dental practices

Reputation management is very important for any business that is heavily reliant on localization. Your dental office will get reviews and scores from the patients. With reputation management, you can improve these scores and browse the web in an attempt to find all the social mentions of your company. Basically, you’re making sure that the people are only saying positive things about your business

Keep in mind that you will get optimal results if you mix several methods. Each one of them has its merits but also flaws. By combining them, you are able to reduce the impact of flaws while also getting more of the positives.

7. What to do if unpredictable happens?

Controlling and modifying processes is very important during any marketing campaign.

It is also very important to call it quits if things don’t pan out the way you wanted.

The issue here is when should you call it quits and when should you implement modifications. As previously mentioned, most owners are too impatient, which is why they will quit a campaign mid-way through.

While you shouldn’t do this, you also need to take action if an unpredictable situation occurs.

Determining when to implement fixes is the hardest call of them all. Generally speaking, you should give it at least 6 months for any campaign. During this time, you might perform small tweaks, but you shouldn’t quit the campaign.

After 6 months, if things are going really bad, you might consider more drastic measures (if they’re needed). This is something you need to decide on when creating a marketing plan.

Conclusion

Whenever you wish to start a marketing campaign, it is necessary to create a marketing plan.

Although you can try and create a plan by yourself, it is much better to hire a marketing agency to do this task for you. An agency such as Dentie Leads.

We have extensive experience working with US-based dental practices. Not only can we provide every service mentioned in this article, but we can make certain that you get optimal results.

The best thing yet is the fact that you can get all digital services in one place.

Do you need both SEO and SMM? No problem, we’re masters at both of them!

Do you need a new website? We got you covered too!

Just pick up the phone and dial us today.