5 Ways to Attract New Dental Patients

It is of vital importance to the financial health and longevity of a dental practice to maintain a steady flow of new patients. If active patient growth suddenly drops off, this can leave you scrambling to fill your schedule and maintain your bottom line. As you might guess, marketing is the primary means of attracting new patients. Using marketing campaigns effectively may mean the difference between continued success and financial ruin.

Consider the following tactics when seeking new patients:

1. Evaluate your website. Is your website converting traffic, or just drawing traffic? If you receive many hits without reaching a 3% conversion rate, consider taking more aggressive online marketing measures. Hire a professional web development company to help you.
2. Optimize for local patients. Perform search engine optimization that targets locals. This means tailoring your website to appeal to the cities nearest your practice, and will result in a more focused marketing strategy.
3. Invest in Pay-Per-Click ads. Determine what one conversion – or one new patient – is worth to your practice and then determines whether a pay-per-click campaign might benefit your marketing goals. Google AdWords is a complex ad platform, so be sure to employ qualified experts to optimize your ads and lower your cost-per-click expense.
4. Solicit patient reviews. Ask your satisfied patients to go online and review your services. Online reviews generate word-of-mouth and are generally considered a credible source of information. A few positive reviews may entice patients looking for a new dentist.
5. Launch social media. While not easy to leverage effectively, social media such as Facebook or Pinterest can be an extremely effective means of reaching new patients. Encourage your current patients to interact with your practice’s Facebook page. Doing so will expose your page to hundreds if not thousands of users and increase your exposure far more inexpensively than traditional marketing methods.

Marketing is an ongoing effort. Growing complacent and curtailing your marketing expenditures when business is good might prove a costly decision in the future. You never know when business might slow down, and having a steady stream of patients is insurance against an unforeseen downturn.