Whether You’re Buying or Just Starting a Dental Practice Here’s the Dental Marketing Checklist you need to Follow
At 360° Dental Marketing we specialise purely in digital marketing for dentists, which means we have the expert knowledge and history in the field to be able to help. So we love to share our expertise with new and upcoming dental clinics who need that extra little bit of help in their starting weeks.
Buying your own practice is an exciting but daunting adventure, once you find that perfect location, buy all of the equipment and get your finances and budgets in order, you still need to build an online presence. We know that dentists may not be Google Ads specialist and web design may not be in your area of expertise, so as the dental marketing experts we’re here to help.
OUR CHECKLIST:
ONE: Google My Business (GMB)
The first step is your Google My Business account, this account allows your clients to find you through a map search and find all your details. The more information you put in this account the better, this will help with selling to your clients without paying or without the most basic other elements. Even if your website isn’t ready or if it’s down, Google My Business can still get you brand new patients walking in your door.
If you’re buying an existing practice you will need to get full admin ownership access to all previous accounts from the seller. Google My Business is one of those accounts as it has already got the registered address and most of the details ready to go. If you are rebranding, part of this will include changing the name and images and all relevant fields, however a tip from the digital marketing specialists is to take it slow. Rebranding needs to be a step by step process so you don’t lose existing clients in the transition. At 360° Dental Marketing we take care of your GMB account for you and can assist with all these steps, especially in the case of rebranding, if this sounds like something you need help with check out our consultation page here.
Google My Business also is the first spot you’ll see your reviews appear and while you’re starting up you’ll want to try and get every single patient to log in and give you a 5 star rating. Grab your Google My Business review link and get ready to text it to your patients as they walk out the door and put a QR code up in the office, word-of-mouth is still the best way to get leads, and reviews is the closest online replicate of that and you’ll need a GMB account to get you there. One of our tips is to make sure you reply to all those reviews, taking that extra care lets your patients know that you take them seriously, and we consider it a huge element of our online marketing for dentists.
TWO: Website & SEO
Hopefully you have signed up for a website domain or are using a program such as WordPress to ensure that your clinic’s name is secured online. This in addition to GMB is going to help your dental seo (Search Engine Optimisation). Dental website design has very specific requirements so you need to prioritise the ease of requesting a booking either with contact information front and centre or an in-built online booking system.
You’ll need images of your building and of your dentists (hopefully in action) and a detail about you section on the front page and on a separate page. You’ll need to make sure it’s easy to navigate and not too crowded but once it’s up and running your patients should be able to find where you are, all the treatments you provide, when you’re open and exactly how to book in ASAP. In essence you’ll need a personalised website that makes you stand out that also brings in conversion and helps with SEO.
However the biggest tip is to make sure you have keywords prominent and repeated often. Just like “Local Dentist” or “Best Dental Clinic” you’ll want to see your best search terms flooding your website, which will organically help your patients find you closer to the top of their search results page. Seo for dentists is highly competitive and so it’s always good to consult with teams like ours with dental seo experts to guide you.
THREE: Google Ads
One way to guarantee a spot high up in search results is Google Ads, and this is almost a necessary spend due to the intense competition between dentists’ in online marketing. Tips for google ads for dentists means real but clean pictures, great keywords and local ties, and hundreds of ad options. Google ads specialists, like us, recommend monitoring what is working and what is ineffective as often as possible, this is the only way to maximise your Google Ads.
Unlike us, you may not have certified google adwords specialist to make sure you’re not making any mistakes, so just in case we’d love to share one of the most common mistakes we see with our clients before they onboard with us like in this case here. One of the biggest mistakes is overspending on unnecessary adwords, you can very easily try to spend hundreds on each adword you think could possibly apply however if you spend the same amount on just a select set of adwords your Google Ads will be much more effective. So watch out for that overspend, don’t always be tempted to bump your budget!
FOUR: Facebook and Instagram
The last step to setting up your online presence as a brand new practice, dental social media marketing helps add an extra advantage over your competition. Instagram and Facebook are the essential platforms to have, to establish yourself in the online dental sphere. So again, make sure that if you’re buying from an existing clinic that you get ownership to these accounts.
When it comes to Facebook marketing for dentists it’s all about the content, prioritise videos but keep them short, small portrait reels on Instagram (See our previous blog on reels for tips) and on Facebook are the best for getting large views from a wide audience. You will need to ensure a variety of posting however to keep your audience engaged, posts on treatments, new patients, some informative and some just upbeat and aesthetic pictures of your clinic to surround your feature videos.
The number one element is to avoid repetition, stay original and make sure you’re active and online often.
ALL SET AND READY TO GO!
Whether you are starting from scratch, buying an existing clinic, rebranding or just think you have plenty of room to grow we are specialists in dental marketing and personalise, build and maintain all of these elements for you, so that you can worry about what matters, your dentistry and your team.
Book in for a consultation today to relieve your workload and your stress levels today!
