Top 10 Dentist Online Marketing Channels and Social Media Marketing Plans

Top 10 Dentist Online Marketing Channels and Social Media Marketing Plans: Patients’ acquisition is very essential for dental practices to achieve their business growth and success. According to a report by Aldrich Advisors, every dentist needs at least 20 new patients every month in order to achieve their business growth and success.

To find these patients, dental practices need functional marketing channels. They need to start by investing more in digital marketing.

The digital space is very large and it is where most prospective patients are and where they can be easily converted.

A report by Pew Research shows that 77% of consumers go online to search for dentists and research dental treatments. Interestingly, a lot of consumers that go online to search for dentists use mobile devices. According to statistics, 84 percent of online searches are carried out on mobile devices.

If you’re still wondering about the right online marketing channels and social media marketing plans that you should use in order to acquire new patients, all you need to do is to continue reading.

In this article, we are going to enumerate in detail the top 10 online marketing channels and social media marketing plans for dental practices.

1. Create and Optimize Your Google My Business Page

There are over 3.5 billion searches on Google per day.

On average, 56% of searches on Google My Business listings are website visits.

16% of businesses receive more than 100 calls each month from searches made by consumers on Google My Business.

Local businesses receive 94% of calls from Google My Business between Monday and Friday

From January 2020 to July 2020, there was a 61% increase in calls from Google My Business.

A typical business gets 59 actions from their Google My Business listing every month.

With all these stats on Google My Business, we can comfortably say that Google My Business is an excellent online marketing channel. Creating a Google My Business account page tops our list of online marketing channels for dental practices.

Your Google My Business listing should be the centerpiece of your local SEO strategy. Your Google My Business page is a verified source of information about your dental practice that includes the location of your clinic, work hours, photos of your clinic, phone number, office address, reviews and ratings, and so on.

Potential patients that are searching for dentists on Google will be able to see your Google My Business page. They will be able to view your page and get useful information on how to contact you.

Having a complete and optimized Google My Business listing can help your dental practice show at top positions in Google search results when people search for dental practices.

2. Create a High-quality Website

About 71% of small businesses have a website.

90% of online users judge a business by the look of their website at first glance.

Online visitors spend 88% more time on web pages with video content.

Nearly 40% of people will stop engaging with a slow website

You might have the most beautiful brick-and-mortar dental practice and provide excellent services, but they won’t count for much without an A+ website.

Creating a high-quality website is the second most important online marketing channel for your dental practice. Your website is your practice’s first point of interaction with patients. Patients will usually first check through your website before deciding if to contact you or not. They will judge your practice based on the looks and performance of your website.

Ensure that your website is of excellent standard and contains all useful information about your dental practice. Include high-quality images and videos to drive engagements.

Hire a professional website designer to designer and develop a high-quality website for you. Work with the website designer to ensure that you get a high-performing website.

Ensure that your website is optimized for mobile. More than 70% of local searches are conducted on mobile devices and smartphones. According to Think with Google, 79% of people agree that they’re more likely to revisit and/or share a website that is optimized for mobile and easy to use.

3. Use Social Media To Connect with More People

There are more than 4.55 billion active users on the social media space right now.

57.6% of the total population of the world uses social media.

More than 54% of social media users currently use social media to research products and services before making a purchase.

74% of consumers rely on social media to guide them through their purchasing decisions.

Consumers check reviews and comments before they’ll add a product to their baskets.

60% of consumers interact with the brands they buy from on social media.

You can acquire a huge number of new patients on social media. The major social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have been very instrumental to the success of many businesses in the world today.

As a dentist, leveraging social media is an excellent online dental marketing idea. Create accounts on each of these social media platforms for your dental practice. Optimize and acquire huge followers on your various social media platforms and you’re on the right part to acquire new patients.

4. Add Your Practice to Relevant Dental Directories

According to Pew Research, 25% of people prefer to use their state dental society or dental board. To be able to reach those 25% of people, you need to make sure that you and your practice are included in relevant dental directories.

Some relevant dental directories include:

• American Dental Association
• Dentist Directory
• com
• Every Dentist
• com
• Smile Guide
• Super Dentists
• The Dentist Hub
• ZocDoc

Including you and your dental practice in these directories doesn’t only help people find you; it is also an essential part of local search engine optimization (SEO). These listings and citations directly impact your rankings on search engines such as Google searches.

Ensure that your listings in these directories are complete, accurate, and have a consistent name, address, and phone number. It is also helpful to include information such as your educational background, certifications, awards, and services offered. Also add your practice locations, hours, and a link to schedule an appointment.

5. Use PPC Ads to Capture High-Intent Searches

65% of consumers click on PPC ads when searching for products and services.

As of 2021, Google owns 92% of the global search market share.

Paid advertisements have a 200% Return of Investment. PPC generates twice the number of visitors compared to SEO.

PPC Ads can increase brand awareness by 80%. Paid ads convert better when customers have made a buying decision.

Using pay-per-click (PPC) ads is an excellent way to make sure that your dental practice shows on top of search engine results. Patients that search for dental practices will be able to see your dental practice at the top of search results. This is an effective marketing channel to acquire new patients.

If you don’t have a well-optimized PPC campaign right now, you might be missing a lot of potential patients. When done correctly, PPC ads can help you place lead-generating content at the top of search results. It helps potential patients find you easily.

PPC ads are great for advertising special offers or discounts, which is often one of the most effective ways to acquire new patients. There are a lot of strategies that go behind the success of PPC ad campaigns. Ensure that you run a robust PPC ad campaign if you want to get good results. You can hire a marketing expert to help you out if you don’t have the right knowledge and time to run a successful PPC ad campaign.

6. Create and Publish Consistent Content on Your Dental Blog

57% of marketers agreed that they’ve gained customers specifically through blogging.

53% of marketers agreed that blogging is their top content marketing priority.

B2B marketers who have blogs get 67% more leads than those who don’t have blogs.

About 60% of marketers will reuse blog content 2-3 times.

As a dentist, it is important for you to have a functional blog site and make good use of it. Do not neglect the marketing power of a blog.

Create and publish content consistently on your blog site to gain more traffic and engagements. It is a common weakness for most dentists to neglect their blog sites. You can lose opportunities to convert prospective patients if you are among those dentists that neglect their blog sites.

Optimize your blog site and make it very active by consistently publishing useful health-related content for people that may need the information. Provide dental health tips and address common dental problems.

Healthy oral habits can be a great source of content to publish on your blog. You can create content on healthy oral habits and encourage regular dental check-ups.

Regularly updating your blog with useful content will also help you show your expertise in the field of dentistry to your audience. Having an active blog site with huge traffic can help your website rank higher on search engines. It can also help you connect with potential patients by engaging with them.

7. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

70% of marketers take SEO to be more effective than PPC.

61% of marketers say that their top inbound marketing priority is improving SEO and growing their organic presence.

57% of marketing executives say on-page content development was their most effective SEO strategy.

68% of online experiences begin with a search engine.

61% of B2B marketers agreed that SEO and organic traffic generate more leads than any other marketing initiative.

70% of online marketers agreed that SEO is better than PPC for generating sales.

85% of consumers perform some type of online research before making a purchase online.

A big part of connecting with patients seeking dental care is SEO and these statistics have proved beyond doubt that SEO is a very essential marketing initiative to increase traffic to your website and acquire new patients.

Search engine optimization is the process of improving the quality and quantity of your website traffic from search engines such as Google. It simply means the process of improving your website to increase the visibility of your website when people search for products or services on search engines like Google, Bing, etc.

With SEO, people can easily see your dental practice when they search for dental practices on search engines. SEO helps your dental practice to appear at top positions on search results.

There are many things that go into SEO. You need to hire the services of an SEO expert to ensure a successful SEO campaign for your dental practice.

8. Use Engaging Videos to Drive Traffic

75 percent of US consumers watch videos on social media.

60 billion U.S. users access YouTube daily.

68% of marketers agreed that video has a better return on investment than Google Ads.

53% of marketers agreed that video helps them raise awareness.

49% of marketers agreed that video helps them engage with their audience.

52% of marketers agreed that video helps them build trust with potential customers.

One of the quickest and most effective ways to consumers’ hearts is through video.

Videos are visuals. This means that people can actually see what you’re talking about. They have a better understanding of what you’re talking about because they can see it.

Videos are an effective marketing initiative to attract potential patients. As a dentist, there are many different types of marketing videos that you can create to attract potential patients.

Some examples of good marketing videos for dental practices include:

• Patient testimonials or review videos
• Educational videos on oral health
• Dental treatment and procedure overviews
• Introductory videos
• Videos about you and your staff members

These are some great videos that you can create and upload on your website and your YouTube channel. If you don’t have a YouTube channel already, you need to create one where you can upload engaging videos to show and educate your audience about your dental practice.

You can as well post videos on your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages to get them in front of more people.

9. Practice Facebook Advertising

Facebook accounts for more than 9% of digital advertising.

Facebook accounts for more than 18.4% of the global mobile digital advertising.

92% of social marketers are using FaceBook for advertising.

Facebook is the world’s third-most visited website

79.9% of Facebook users access the platform on a mobile device.

Facebook has over 2.9 billion active users.

Businesses are now paying 122% more to advertise on FaceBook.

The importance of Facebook in today’s world can’t be overemphasized. Facebook has become a household name and a social media platform that is used by both young and old.

Facebook is a large social media platform that you can use to significantly increase your dental practice awareness. It is a huge marketing platform that you can leverage to drive traffic to your website and convert potential patients.

What makes Facebook Ads so effective at generating leads comes down to targeting. With the right strategies, you can target the right audience with Facebook Ads. The good thing about Facebook is that you can conduct your own advertising by yourself as well as run an ad campaign. You can engage with your Facebook friends and followers, post useful oral health content and videos to drive engagements.

10. Use Instagram to drive engagements

Just like Facebook, Instagram has become a powerful marketing tool. With over 1.3 billion active users, Instagram can be a powerful marketing initiative for your dental practice.

Over two million advertisers are already using Instagram to run paid ads.

60% of Instagram users discover products and services on the platform

Over 200 million users visit business profiles on Instagram every day.

All these stats show the number of potential patients that you can get from Instagram.

Running an Instagram Ad campaign is a great online marketing idea if you want to connect with potential patients and engage with them.

Instagram is the leading platform for visual storytelling. With the right tools and knowledge, you’ll be able to tell visual stories to your teaming audience on Instagram. With various ad formats on Instagram, you can actually achieve great returns on investments.