Studies suggest that there is currently a severe shortage of dentists in the United States. In fact statistics in 2015 estimated that at the moment, there are only 60.9 dentists per 100,000 population. If you do the math, that’s a lot of patients per dentist. The question is, are you getting your fair share? Dental marketing , done right, can help you achieve your goals.
If we’re to believe the data obtained by the Health Policy Institute (HPI) and the American Dental Association (ADA), then patients should be lining up at your door. With the number of patients, you would need a waiting room the size of a gymnasium.
In all fairness, there’s a good chance that the data is 100% correct, but if your dental practice isn’t receiving enough new patients or keeps on losing patients to other practices, then there’s something wrong. Moreover, the likely culprit would be the failure of your current dental marketing strategy.
Why Review Your Dental Marketing Strategy
The truth of the matter is there are too many false marketing ideas for dental practices. They believe that there are enough patients to go around and what’s important is your current patients and how you manage them.
Let us tell you; they sure have a point. Statistics have even backed that up. However, what they failed to mention was that people move around these days. They’ll be in New York this year and California the next, and Canada the year after that.
In short, there’s only a small chance that your current patients will be with you until you retire. If you don’t have a dental marketing strategy, what happens when your patients don’t show up anymore?
What we suggest is a review of your dental marketing strategy to figure out a way how you can increase the number of new patients.
Marketing Ideas for Dental Practices
We’ve got plenty of marketing ideas for dental practices to accomplish this, and all of them have their merits. However, since every dental practice is unique (because no two dentists are alike), your dental marketing strategy needs to be carefully tailored to your situation.
By increasing your practice visibility specifically or the ‘patient types’ you WANT to attract we can increase your patient load over time. With ongoing similar strategies for other ‘patient types’ we can further increase patient acquisitions. But keep in mind that this is a fluid situation that takes time, with lots of competition of prized keywords and will require an ongoing marketing strategy. Otherwise, all the gains and upward trends will eventually be lost.
When the strategy works and new patients begin to flow in, you may need to hire new dentists as you surely won’t be able to manage all those patients.
Don’t be skeptical about growing. The same study mentioned above also mentioned that large practices tend to get a better share of the market. In fact, that’s the current trend.
So if you’re looking for stability, let’s review your marketing strategy and see how you can grow using our marketing ideas for dental practices.
Common Marketing Tools for Dental Practices
Standing outside your building handing out brochures may work, but to what extent? Asking your current patients to spread the word may also work, but do you really want your patients doing your marketing for you? What happens if one patient is unhappy with the service for one reason or another?
There are plenty of marketing tools for dental practices, but the tool we suggest draws in new patients like never before. The tool we use is the internet.
Marketing a dental practice through the internet works very well, simply because nowadays, that’s where people are looking. If you use the best marketing tools for dental practices correctly, you simply can’t fail.
Do you want your dental practice to grow? Are you yearning for a better share of the pie? If you are, then Dental Solutions OC can help you achieve your goals. We will begin by reviewing your current dental marketing strategy. Then we will see how we can leverage the best dental marketing tools for dental practices to drive clients by the droves to your door and achieve your goals.