5 Dental Marketing Tips to Save Time and Increase Revenue
For many front office managers, the concept of marketing your dental practice is unfamiliar and you may not know where to begin. With the number of tools available and so many ways to promote your business online, it’s easy to get lost in all of the different avenues and quickly feel behind other practices. Marketing your practice doesn’t have to feel directionless. We explore five different areas that your practice can utilize to drive growth and profitability. Follow these suggestions to get more out of your current patients and boost your online presence to draw in new ones.
Commit to a Newsletter
Implementing a monthly newsletter is a great way to interact with patients while they are between appointments. Newsletters offer patients the ability to stay informed with changes to staff, practice hours and new services or specials at your practice. Linking your practice blog or educational dentistry articles keeps them engaged and promotes continuous learning and care for their oral health. Avoid creating newsletters that come off as pushy, rather, the key is to bring added value to patients who take the time to read them. Regular newsletters are an added bonus that not every practice will offer, which help patients to stay informed and feel appreciated by this extra perk your office provides. Not only can a monthly dental newsletter increase patient knowledge and connection, but practice profits can improve too. Implement call-to-actions throughout your newsletter to drive engagement and increase revenue. Simple reminders in your newsletter to schedule an appointment can go a long way. In fact, one practice utilizing RevenueWell found that 40% of profits generated by RevenueWell came from their monthly newsletters.
Customize Campaigns for Patients
Say you want to reactivate a patient who is not only overdue for a cleaning, but is in need of additional treatments as well. Building a text or email campaign that focuses on patient-specific needs is an effective way to grab their attention and draw them back to your practice. While sending different campaigns to each individual is unrealistic, it’s still possible to make your campaigns feel individualized. Tailor a campaign to a group of patients with similar treatment needs, and it comes across as a well thought out, personalized message. Rather than sending a generic email reminding all patients to schedule their appointments, customized messages speak directly to patients about their oral health, making it much more likely for these patients to take action. Check out this webinar to learn more about dental marketing techniques your practice can utilize.
Know Your Patient’s Communication PreferencesNo matter how great your messaging is, if you’re contacting patients at an old phone number or email address where they won’t read it, your hard work is going to waste. Keeping up-to-date contact information on file for patients saves your practice time and money that otherwise may be spent on reaching out to patients to no avail. The best way to prevent this is to ask your patients about their preferred contact method when they’re in for an appointment. Keep in mind, 80% of people don’t answer calls from unknown numbers, so if you’re calling a patient who prefers to be texted, it’s likely your efforts aren’t getting the results they should be. Ensure your practice allows for various contact methods, whether it’s by phone, text or email to ensure they’re receiving all of the information they need.
Manage Your Practice’s Online Reputation
It can be disappointing to see a bad review from a patient who was less than satisfied with their experience at your practice. While these reviews are bound to happen every once in a while, it’s important to take charge of your online presence. Negative reviews can have a very real impact on your practice’s bottom line and the ability to draw in prospective patients. Be proactive by sending patients an automated message after their appointment that asks them to leave a review. Increasing the number of positive reviews your practice gathers online can not only help your business rank higher on local Google searches, but can increase profits as well.
Use Automation to Your Advantage
As busy as dental practices can be, it’s common for staff to sometimes feel like they need more time than the day allows to finish their tasks. Relieve some of the stress and free up time to get more done by using automation to your advantage. Marketing tools like RevenueWell’s communiations and marketing systems allow appointment confirmations and reminders to be automatically sent, so your team can spend more time with the patients in-office. If you’re onboarding a new patient, keeping a pre-made new patient package handy can save time on both ends. A simple welcome email can be automated to include appointment details, required paperwork, and practice expectations so new patients can be prepared for their first appointment before they walk through the door. Your practice can even use automation to further delight your patients, such as with a scheduled birthday message. Small gestures that remind your patients that your practice values them can make a significant impact on patient loyalty and retention.
How Can RevenueWell Improve Marketing Efforts at Your Dental Practice?
Whether your team is experienced in dental marketing or it’s a new project your practice has taken on, marketing your practice can be a time- consuming process. RevenueWell’s all-in-one dental marketing software empowers dental practices to work more efficiently by automating a variety of patient communication needs. Easily automate prewritten campaigns, or customize them to send groups of patients personalized messages in minutes. With RevenueWell’s automatic review collection and dental reputation monitoring features, your practice can easily keep track of your online review status, and staff don’t have to worry about reaching out to individual patients to rate their experience. Schedule a demo to learn more about how RevenueWell can assist in your practice’s marketing efforts to start seeing real results.
