When it comes to dental care, most people have plenty of options, and this means that dental clinics that want to grow their client base need to be intentional about reaching new patients and explaining the benefits of the service they offer.
While oral health may be an essential part of healthcare, dental marketing campaigns face unique challenges: many people actively fear going to the dentist, and it can be difficult even under the best circumstances to get patients to come back to the chair. According to the CBC, for example, one in four Canadians skip their annual check-up every year.
This means that dental clinics need to make sure not only that they have active marketing campaigns, but that these campaigns are calibrated to actually deliver results. Here are three features that any successful marketing campaign need to have:
1. Multiple Marketing Approaches
The power of social media as a tool for marketing has been apparent for more than a decade, but one of the most common mistakes clinics make is in assuming that social media marketing is all they need to consider.
In fact, the most successful dental campaigns incorporate a variety of approaches, including:
- Search engine optimization
- Community news letters delivered to homes and apartments in the area
- Listings development
- Reputation management
A social media ad may be enough to get the attention of some potential patients, but if your clinic isn’t showing up in Google rankings and they can’t read reviews in Yelp, that probably won’t translate into new business.
2. Experienced Campaign Management
It isn’t enough to simply set up a community newsletter or send out some Facebook ads, however: a marketing campaign needs to be monitored and managed if it is to yield the best results.
Hiring a company that specializes in handling dental marketing campaigns that has the tools needed to design and monitor your campaign and get the best results is always worth the additional expense. If you want someone with extensive experience in the area, give Patient News a call to find out how they can help bring more patients into your clinic.
3. ROI Tracking
Marketing initiatives have one purpose, and that is to generate new business. The ultimate measure of whether or not an initiative has been successful, therefore, is whether or not it has delivered a respectable return on investment.
What that means in terms of percentage of new income generated over money spent will be different for different clinics, but it is absolutely essential that this data be tracked. If you’re hiring a marketing firm to put together a campaign for you, you need to make sure they are able to provide high level data about the campaign’s ROI.
The days when all dental clinics needed to do was put an ad in the local paper and make sure they were listed in the yellow pages are long gone. If you want to attract new business to your clinic today, you need to make sure you have a well-planned and professionally-executed marketing campaign.
Incorporating a variety of approaches, hiring professional managers, and tracking ROI to guarantee you are getting your money’s worth, are all great steps to take to ensure a growth year for your clinic.
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Interesting related article: “What is ROI?“