Essential Marketing Ideas for Dental Offices

Attend meetings of the American Dental Association (ADA), and network with other dentists. This will help you get references from other dentists for your specialization.

Today, with so many dental offices or clinics serving and helping people, you cannot expect patients to just walk into your office. You will have to promote yourself and your clinic so that the general public become aware of the services you offer.

Whether you are a general dentist, endodontist, oral and maxillofacial surgeon, pediatric dentist or a prosthodontist, you will have to undertake marketing initiatives to make your presence felt and people know about your dental office. So, here are few tips to do so.

Ensure that the dental office or clinic has a friendly, easy to remember name. Design a logo and brand identity for the dental office. You can even offer patients bottled water with your logo on it. People often are scared to visit a dentist because of the associated pain involved with dental treatment.

To comfort your patients' fears, you can create a relaxing and soothing ambiance in your clinic, and you may also put up before and after photos of dental success stories. Here are a few more easy but vital marketing ideas for dentists.

How can you expect to get clients if all your business cards or letterheads mention that you are a general dentist, and do not mention your specialization. Right from the signage to prescriptions to business cards to files, ensure that they all mention your specializations. For example, you can mention "General and Cosmetic Dentist". If you are catering to dental implants, make sure all your business collateral mention it.

You can also offer free electric toothbrushes, toothpastes, mouthwash, etc. Also, if you can, offer branded stationery, clocks, calendars, etc., this ensures that people remember to visit your office for a dental check-up just by looking at your gifts.

Children give parents a difficult time when they are to be taken for a dental appointment. But just imagine what will happen if the children insist on visiting your office. You will have to collaborate with various schools and arrange free field trips to your office. Children will get familiar with your office and in the process learn about dental hygiene.

You may treat them to small gifts such as a toy, book, stationery, etc. If the children have a good time, in most cases, they will visit your office again along with their parents. What's more, the parents will be relieved and glad that their child is not afraid to visit a dentist anymore.

Remember, it should have all the details about the various services and treatments you offer in your dental office. Set up social media accounts, and interact with your existing and prospective customers. Provide information about dental hygiene, photographs about treatments done, success stories, etc.

For this, you can arrange free dental check-ups at charity or community programs. Distribute dental hygiene products for free. You can arrange for conferences and seminars that educate people about the various dental problems and the treatments to tackle them. This will help you promote your dental clinic in a non-invasive way.

You can ask existing patients to recommend you to others. However, ensure you word it rightly when you are putting it across to them. When it comes to convincing them, do not sound pushy or aggressive. You do not want to offend your patients by enforcing your idea of self-promotion on them. Try to put it across in course of a regular conversation.

Today's consumer is well-informed and prefers to run an Internet check on any kind of services or products before buying them. This means that you will benefit by registering on various websites like Yelp, etc., and ensure that you have positive reviews. Also, register yourself on the BBB's accredited dentist list as well. This will help create a positive impression on patients.

Putting up billboards and posters will also help promote your clinic. You can also resort to sending direct mail, leaflets, door handles, etc. People in your locality with start recognizing your office after seeing your logo. They will remember it when they have to visit a dentist.

Advertise through TV commercials and radio jingles. While this option may be a little expensive, trust me, this works very well for brand recall. However, time them correctly to have the right impact. Also, pay for ads on Facebook and the Internet so that you are able to reach the right people who are searching for dental services in your area.

No matter what, always have a friendly approach towards your patients/clients. Explain the dental problem and the approach you are going to take to deal with it. Remember, no one likes to visit or recommend a rude dentist.

If you win any kind of recognition or award for your expertise/service in the field of dentistry, make sure you have a press release in place, and disseminate it to various online and offline publications. Remember, always have a happy disposition, even while answering calls, to make a favorable impression on patients.