Digital Marketing For Dental Clinics – The Human Touch

In business, everything is about strategy.

Need to open a new dental clinic? Strategy. New marketing campaign? Yes, especially when launching a marketing strategy.

The point is that success rarely happens by chance. You have to align your decisions with a plan for it to work smoothly. And if it doesn’t, you will know what caused the problem so that you can rectify it next time.

This is the same case with digital marketing, the most powerful tool you have at your disposal for getting more clients for your dental business. We’re calling it the most powerful because according to research, most people turn to the internet to search for most services nowadays.

If that’s the case, why not make yourself available where your customers spend most of their time, regardless of whether they’re looking for your services or not? Essentially, that’s the whole point of digital marketing. It’s about using web-based channels to connect with your ideal audience. That way, you will build connections that can later translate to business.

Do you want to know how to do that? This article is for you.

We’re going to share with you seven tried and tested digital marketing strategies for dental clinics and how you can implement them. Let’s get started.

1.     Implement Local SEO

You have heard this before. Do you know why digital marketers recommend local SEO for dental clinics? To understand why, we need to break down its meaning.

Local SEO is the practice of optimising your web content for it to be relevant to local searches.

Google and other search engines index online content based on factors like relevance. As such, you should ensure that your content appears for search queries with geographical context. These include near-me searches and so on.

Examples of local SEO strategies include;

• Opening and optimising a Google Business Profile. This tool helps you indicate your operating hours, location, and contacts.
• Creating local landing pages. A local landing page is a dedicated webpage within your website that you publish static content to target a specific location.
• Encourage your past clients to leave online reviews. Online reviews improve local SEO because they mention aspects like location and address of your dental clinic.
• Add location-specific keywords in your content. For instance, if you are writing a blog post, include dental services in [YOUR CITY] for an exact match.

Local SEO is an effective and relatively inexpensive strategy you can adopt for your dental business. Just ensure that you have a plan on how to approach it because you might end up not seeing results if you don’t.

2.     Start Content Marketing

Content marketing is an extensive form of digital marketing with a long history of success. Its primary goals are to educate, entertain, and engage.

People who consume content related to dental services are mostly looking to learn. Therefore, you can invest in creating educational content that informs about various topics related to dental health.

Creating content for various online channels, including social media, websites, and video platforms allows you to establish your dental clinic as a credible service provider.

Content marketing is also about putting yourself out there. In short, it’s a numbers game. With the wave of social media, the most popular brands get the most engagement, which ultimately translates to sales.

The best part about it is that you can get organic reach if you do use the right strategies. Organic reach means appearing in search results without having to spend on advertising. This can be achieved using strategies such as SEO.

3.     Develop Social Media Marketing

This is a big one. Social media has become the go-to online channel for marketing businesses, especially local businesses like dental clinics. Why? It works. Social media marketing accounts for the highest ad spend for most companies.

Your ideal customers have access to the internet and they are spending time on social media. That means you should too.

The common platforms where you’re likely to find your ideal audience are;

• Facebook – Mostly made up of middle-aged audiences, with a strong presence of users aged 35-65. It’s ideal for building brand awareness and community engagement.
• Twitter – Popular among younger, tech-savvy users (18-34 years), Twitter is great for real-time communication, news sharing, and direct interaction with your audience.
• Instagram – Attracts a younger demographic, particularly millennials and Gen Z, with a strong focus on visual content. It’s effective for brands targeting lifestyle, fashion, and beauty markets.
• LinkedIn – Mostly used by professionals, with a focus on business, networking, and industry-related content. Ideal for B2B marketing and professional service providers.
• TikTok – Dominated by Gen Z and younger millennials, TikTok is a powerful platform for viral content, trends, and short-form video marketing.
• YouTube – With a diverse user base across all age groups, YouTube is perfect for long-form video content and educational material. It’s a key platform for product demos, tutorials, and entertainment.

So, if you have a specific target audience, you can focus on the platform that closely aligns with them. The good news is that a dental clinic caters to a large demographic. This means your chances of winning with social media marketing are increased.

The main goal of social media marketing is not particularly marketing, or not in the traditional sense of the word. It is about building a community. With this community, then you can use marketing techniques to convert the community members to customers.

4.     Invest in Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is another digital marketing strategy you can use for your dental clinic. It involves setting up and running adverts on various online channels.

The goal of paid adverts is to bypass the organic ranking and get recommended to the user. That means you will have to pay either the social media platform or search engine you want your advert shown.

Types of paid advertising include;

• Google Ads – Best for high-intent keywords
• Social media ads – Best for brand building
• Display advertising – Best for remarketing campaigns
• Remarketing ads – Best for retargeting
• Influencer marketing – Best for brand association

As you can tell, each type of social media marketing is created for a specific type of platform or online channel. Therefore, the approach you use must be different and follow the ad guidelines for the platform.

The good thing about paid advertising is that you can target a specific demographic. For instance, Facebook lets you define your audience when setting up ads. Therefore, you will attract the exact type of clients you want.

Tip: Use paid advertising sparingly.

This means you should not excessively rely on this form of digital marketing for your dental clinic always. We say this because most people don’t like ads, and they associate too much of it as spam. Therefore, you might ruin your credibility over time.

5.     Optimise Your Website

Website optimisation is more than just using a bunch of keywords to make it visible in search results. It’s also about improving the user interface for a better user experience.

For one, if your website is not mobile-friendly, you’re losing a lot of business. Gone are the days when people had to fire up their huge and slow computers to access the internet.

You’re aware of that, but what you might not be aware of is the implications. A website that loads slowly or does not appear right on a mobile phone attracts no one.

You might be wondering how this is a digital marketing strategy for your dental clinic. It is because the whole point of digital marketing is to get customers using the internet.

Therefore, if your website does not have an intuitive UI, takes forever to load, or is not optimised for mobile, you need to get in touch with professional web designers for help. It will be worth the investment.

Lastly, make sure your website has clear CTA buttons for better conversion. CTA stands for call to action and it gives directions to web visitors to take desired action.

6.     Practise Online Reputation Management

How do you handle negative comments or reviews? The worst you can do is ignore them. Let’s face it, there are days a customer will be unsatisfied with your services.

Typically, they might leave a negative comment on your social media, GBP page, or other channels, detailing what happened. In that case, your online reputation will be at stake.

Online reputation management is a digital marketing strategy that handles such scenarios. In other words, it means being in control of how people perceive you online.

Some common strategies include;

• Handling negative reviews and comments professionally
• Including positive testimonials on your comments
• Detailing your conflict resolution process

Reputation management is also about fairness. In some cases, you might be misrepresented either intentionally or unintentionally. If this happens, you need to set the record straight and ensure that the correct or fair information is on the web.

7.     Build Relationships with Email Marketing

Some people say email is outdated. The truth is that email has been around for some time, but that doesn’t mean it’s outdated. It’s the email marketing strategies that are becoming redundant.

Email marketing shouldn’t be a digital marketing tool. Rather, it should be used to build relationships with your existing and potential clients. The relationship can later escalate to repeat business if you are convincing enough.

Email can also be used to share news (including discounts and promotions), and important updates. For instance, you can share appointment schedules with your customers because it syncs easily into their calendars for reminders.

Ready to Market Your Dental Clinic Online?

There you have it. The seven essential digital marketing that you can use to stay ahead of your competition. But remember, your competition is also using the exact same strategies to stay ahead of you. Therefore, work twice as hard and approach digital marketing like a pro.

At SLINKY Digital, we pride ourselves as experienced marketers who have helped thousands of businesses win with digital marketing. Our approach is based on years of experience testing and trying new ideas until we get it right. Therefore, skip the guesswork and let us handle your digital marketing as you focus on your clients.