As of last year, there were 35,000 dental practitioners working throughout the United Kingdom. While that number has decreased since the highs of 2014 (51,000), competition is still fierce amongst practitioners, which has led many dentists to suffer from low client rosters.
Having marketing strategies in place that can consistently provide you with dental leads is paramount to ensuring your practice’s long-term viability. To that end, our team shares what we think are the eight best strategies that you can start rolling out today to achieve your lead generation goals!
1. Try PPC Ads
Almost everybody that uses the internet leverages search engines like Google to find what they’re looking for. As a matter of fact, the volume of search traffic that Google directs on a daily basis amounts to over 4 billion searches.
Given the number of Google users, it stands to reason that buying ads on Google’s search results pages would serve as a great way to attract clients. Other platforms like Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter also offer PPC (pay-per-click) ad opportunities that are worth looking into depending on where you feel your customers spend most of their time online.
If you’re interested in pursuing this dental leads generation strategy, head over to Google’s AdWords portal to get started.
2. Sponsor Community Sports Teams
Something that brings everyone together, despite their many differences, is a love for sports.
If you’re lucky enough to have junior football, rugby, or another league that operates out of your office’s neighborhood, sponsor some of the teams. Sports sponsorships will give locals a taste for how much you care about them and will let parents know where to go when one of their kids loses a tooth after bumping into a goal post.
3. Show up at Local Events
Christmas markets, school fairs, and more crop up throughout the year. No matter the celebration, if people from your community are going to be concentrated in an area, you’re going to want to set up a booth.
At your booth, you can have people spin wheels for prizes that bare your branding and can hand out coupons for your services.
4. Start a Blog
We’re going to assume that your dental practice has a website. If it doesn’t, put that at the top of your dental leads to-do list.
After your website is set up (and optimized for mobile devices) the next thing that you’re going to want to do is blog about dentistry. Sharing your expertise as a dentist by answering your customer’s biggest questions via blog posts is a great way to build authority. It’s also a great way to get the attention of search engines.
Engines like Google and Bing scrub blogs for “keywords” that they use to connect local customers with professionals. You can learn more about how search engines use content to help businesses find leads by reading about search engine optimization here.
5. Always Lead With an Irresistible Offer
Any time that you engage a prospect, whether it be online or in person, you need to assume that you’ll only get one chance for them to sample your services. To make the most of it, lead your customer engagement efforts with an amazing offer.
Whether it’s a free consultation, whitening, or fill, you want the coupon that you put in your dental lead’s hand to all but assure that they’ll stop into your office. Once you get your prospect in for their first visit, there is a 75% chance that they’ll come back.
6. Make Your Website as Helpful as Possible
When people click onto your website, they want to be able to get all their questions answered without having to talk to anybody. Does your website provide that level of helpfulness?
If it doesn’t, make things like the services that you offer, which insurance companies you work with, and how much you charge as clear as possible.
Clarity on your website will help you drive up appointment bookings and will lead to less confused customers walking through your door.
7. Share Customer Testimonials
Users that see positive testimonials about a business are 72% likely to have their levels of trust go up.
If you think that perception boost could benefit you (and it certainly can) see if two or three of your current customers would be willing to go on camera to attest to your expertise. You can also request that all your satisfied customers leave you a review online in exchange for entries in drawings or other perks.
8. Cross-Promote Professional Services
When somebody goes into a local doctor’s office with mouth trauma and loses a tooth over the ordeal, who does that doctor recommend that their patient see for an implant? In a perfect world, they’d recommend you.
Forging relationships with other professional service providers can serve as a great way to drive up implant lead generation and leads for a number of other services.
Generating Dental Leads Means a Brighter Future for Your Business
Having a healthy flow of dental leads coming into your practice is essential to your office’s survival and ability to thrive. The tips above can substantially help you to improve your lead generation efforts so don’t wait to start rolling them out.
Our team of orthodontic professionals loves sharing tips on the dental industry almost as much as we love serving our patients. If you’d like to learn more about how to get the most of of your time as a dentist, consider reading more of our newest blog content!