Marketing is a crucial skill that we use in numerous aspects of owning a dental practice – yet it’s something that we’re never formally taught at university or in clinical training.

In fact, we use marketing every single day to attract patients, fill our appointment books, retain our patient base, and create a brand that distinguishes us from the competition.

If you can’t market effectively, you’re going to find yourself in trouble pretty quickly…

Now, marketing as a concept is a pretty big topic that applies to countless different skills, disciplines, scenarios, and industries. We could chat marketing all day and still just scratch the surface.

So, let’s make it simple and look at the three most important dental marketing tips every practice owner should know…

 

1. Identify your ideal patient avatar

The very first step is to identify your ideal patient avatar.

Who do you want to work with? What are their identifying characteristics? What do they want in a dental practice? What do they want to avoid? What conversations, thoughts, and beliefs are they holding internally that you need to speak to?

You can’t be everything to everyone, so identify the market you want to work with and focus your efforts there.

 

2. Create a marketing plan (and stick to it!)

It’s so easy to get distracted with the next silver bullet or high-performance hack. You might set out a plan for one week, then find out that some celebrity CEO or growth specialist swears by this shiny new strategy – so you abandon the previous plan and start something new. It’s tempting, but a BIG mistake.

Ultimately, you need to research and put together a strategic and thoughtful marketing plan. together a marketing blueprint. Your blueprint will help you understand what your goals and targets are, how new patients discover your practice, how you retain existing patients, what touchpoints people have with you, and how different puzzle pieces fit together.

From here on, the key is to stay consistent and trust the process.

 

3. Stay on top of your metrics

Marketing strategies may change year after year, but the need to continuously keep a track of them remains the same.

You will need to keep a check on key marketing metrics for each type of marketing that you do. This includes your SEO, your organic traffic, social media engagement etc.

You can’t manage what you can’t measure – so figure out what metrics you want to improve and keep close tabs on them.