• Effective dental marketing depends heavily on your audience, where they spend their time, and how you communicate with them.
• Making personal connections an intentional part of your dental marketing strategy will build rapport with potential patients before they ever set foot in your office.
• Dental marketing is an iterative process that can take some trial, error, and adjusting as you go. Study your analytics and test new tactics and platforms to stay relevant. 

Need to boost your dental marketing for greater efficacy? Marketing is just as important for dental practices as it is for professionals and businesses in every industry. These days, it’s essential to not only leverage traditional marketing channels, but to embrace digital marketing and all the opportunities that come with it. With the advent of social media, the world has become noisier--but there are more opportunities than ever before to get your brand in front of the right people. Dental marketing is one of the key ways you keep your practice top-of-mind for current patients. Additionally, marketing your practice makes it more visible to prospective patients who may not have heard of you before. Either way, these are segments of your audience you want to stay in touch with, and effective marketing is key to making that happen. If you need help improving your dental marketing, we’ve gathered some tips to help you out. Read on for more.

1: Know exactly who you’re speaking to.

If you haven’t revisited your ideal customer profile in a while, now is the time to do that. On the other hand, if you have never determined your target audience, set some time aside to identify exactly who you’re speaking to.

Knowing your audience is one of the most important factors in assessing what to say to them--and where to show up. For example, if you’re running a pediatric practice, you’ll want to produce content that appeals to parents of young children. If your dental practice is largely for cosmetic dentistry, you’ll need to take a closer look at your patients, who you typically serve, and who you want to attract.

Once you’ve identified your target audience, you can combine that demographic data with your current patient demographics to develop your messaging.

2: Leverage social media marketing – especially on platforms where your audience is spending time.

Social media marketing is becoming an increasingly important part of the marketing puzzle across every industry. The full scope of digital marketing, including social media and content marketing, creates a wide array of possibilities for showcasing your practice. When you establish an online presence for your brand, it will be easier to stay top-of-mind in your community.

It’s a good idea to experiment with different social media platforms, depending on which platforms are most effective and where your audience is spending time. Audience demographics and preferences largely determine which social media platforms they prefer. Knowing which platforms each generation uses will help you choose where to focus your time and resources.

For example, a dental practice with patients who skew younger might do well on TikTok or Instagram. If you primarily serve an older patient demographic, you might be more likely to connect with them on Facebook. Pay attention to your analytics as you explore your options.

Want to learn more about marketing for dentists? Check out these articles:

• Instagram for Dentists: Everything You Need to Know
• The Generation Gap: Reaching Everyone from Baby Boomers to Gen Z on Social Media
• How to Use Instagram Live to Grow Your Dental Practice

Knowing what type of content drives each platform also helps you choose which social media presence to focus on. Here’s a brief rundown of what you can expect from each major social media platform:

• Facebook is driven by images, video, text, and active, private groups where brands can connect with their audiences. It has robust marketing tools for businesses looking to build an online presence.
• Instagram is an image-and-video based platform that allows users to microblog in their captions. Over the past year, its focus has shifted more to video, including short-form Reels and Instagram Live, over static images.
• Twitter is a platform based on opinionated, short-form written content, as well as images and videos.
• TikTok is characterized by short-form, vertical videos that are often funny, entertaining, or educational. It’s a great place to connect with younger audiences.
• Pinterest is a highly visual platform that acts as a virtual “pin board.” Brands can use it to create aesthetically pleasing visuals about their services while driving visitors to their website or other content.
• YouTube is a video platform and search engine that features an array of video formats, including short- and long-form videos. If you want to create longer, more in-depth videos that cover more information about the services you provide to your patients, this is a great place to do it. 

Ultimately, the social media platforms you choose to use for your dental marketing will depend on where your audience is most active and engaged. You’ll also need to base your decisions on the type of content your team can create, and their capacity to create and post it on a regular basis.

3. Use your dental marketing to build a more personal connection with current and potential patients.

Help your target audience feel a closer personal connection with you, your team, and your practice as a whole. There are many ways to strategically connect with your patients and prospects. Let’s take a look at a few possibilities.

Give your followers an inside look at your office and team

A glimpse behind the scenes at your office can help both current and new patients feel like they’re more connected to you and your staff. Help them get familiar with you via social media marketing. When you build out your social media strategy, consider including posts that highlight staff members, before and after images (especially if you provide cosmetic dentistry services), testimonials, and more.

Exercise empathy whenever possible

For many people, going to the dentist is an anxiety-inducing experience. An estimated 75% of adults struggle with feelings of anxiousness and fear related to dental care. They’re most fearful of experiencing pain when they visit their dentist.

Even though you take great care to help your patients feel comfortable, some of your current and prospective patients likely deal with dentistry-related fear. Some of them likely struggle to make (and keep) their dental appointments. Why not use your online presence to empathize with them?

Consider making empathy a key part of your dental marketing strategy. When you speak directly to your audience, letting them know you understand their fears, they’ll be more likely to feel comfortable getting to know your practice. You might even attract new patients along the way.

Engage on social media

When your audience responds on social media, make it a point to engage in interactions with them. For example, if you run an Instagram or TikTok account, reply to the comments. If your followers DM you through a platform such as Facebook Messenger, have a strategy for responding in place.

When your followers feel comfortable asking you questions and communicating with you via social media, they’re more likely to feel that they’ve established a rapport with you. In turn, this could help them feel more comfortable with scheduling an appointment.

In some cases, you can set up chatbots to help you reply immediately to people who send you DMs via social. An automated response can let your followers know that you’ve received their message and that someone will get in touch with them shortly. It’s also possible to customize a longer interaction based on specific prompts and responses.

Ask your patients to create content you can share

If your patients are active on social media, consider asking them to create and share content about their experiences with your practice. User-generated content (UGC) is a valuable dental marketing tool that costs you nothing but time – yet it also establishes social proof for others in your community who might be wondering if your dental practice is the right fit for them.

Ask your audience to post about your practice, using a branded hashtag of your choice (if using a platform such as Instagram for your dental practice). That way, you can keep track of the posts your patients share.

Alternatively, when your patients post and tag you, consider asking them for permission to share their posts on your own social feeds. This is a more organic approach to UGC than prompting your followers to post, but its availability tends to be more sporadic and less predictable.

4. Test multiple strategies to see which ones are most effective.

Don’t be afraid to test multiple dental marketing strategies to see which ones are most effective. Marketing is an iterative process. Sometimes, the tactics you use will work well. Other times, they might not. There will be instances where you attempt to repeat a successful strategy, only to find that it no longer works like it did before. Whatever the case, practices like yours must be willing to try different approaches to their dental marketing to optimize reach and results.

Sometimes, you’ll get a feel for how a strategy works based on your level of engagement with your audience. No matter what, though, you’ll need to gauge your strategy’s performance based on data. It’s important to check your social media, email marketing, and website analytics to get the most accurate picture of your dental marketing’s efficacy. Then, you can make adjustments to your strategy and try again.

5. Use email marketing to keep in touch with your patients.

Your email list might be the most important dental marketing tool you have. If you’re not already using it to regularly communicate with your patients, it’s time to begin. If not, it’s time to start building your email list.

Your email list is a central point of communication between you and your patients. Use your email to keep them up-to-date on news around the office, send them to your blog or social posts, and communicate special offers or new services. Be sure you’re as readily available for replies as you are on social media.

Good online communication is a major factor in attracting and retaining patients. This extends from your front desk to your email and social media. When your practice is available to answer questions and assist patients and prospects, you’ll build stronger long-term relationships.

Final thoughts

There are so many options available to help your dental marketing thrive. Ultimately, you want to feel good about your approach to marketing so you can sustain it long-term. Don’t worry about building a strong presence on every platform. Instead, concentrate on the channels that work best for you.

Quickly, let’s recap the 5 ways you can make your dental marketing more effective:

• Know your audience, where they are online, and the kinds of communication they best respond to.
• Establish a social media presence on the platforms where your audience is spending time.
• Find ways to make more personal connections with current and potential patients. This could include showing more empathy when it comes to dental anxiety, engaging more on social media, and asking patients to create UGC.
• Test your strategies and check your analytics regularly to see what’s working and what’s not. Then, adjust your strategy accordingly.
• Use email marketing tools to keep in touch with your patients on a regular basis.