YouTube for Dentists: Tips You Need to Know

Should you use YouTube to generate new leads for your dental practice? Absolutely! YouTube isn’t just for vlogs, makeup, music, and comedy skits. YouTube is an incredible resource for generating fresh leads for your local dental practice. Through the power of video, you can attract new, prospective dental patients.

When you break out of the basic marketing strategies that every other practice in your area is using, you’ll find unique leads. Video marketing will definitely set your practice apart, and one of the easiest and most effective ways to do it is through YouTube.

Let's discuss how to use YouTube to grow your dental practice.

Why Use YouTube to Market Your Dental Practice?

So, why should you choose YouTube to market your dental practice? After all, YouTube isn’t the only video marketing platform. There’s also Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, to name a few. 

While you can choose to market your practice on any platform, YouTube has unique benefits that no one can offer. Let’s take a look at the top YouTube benefits:

Get Found By New Patients

YouTube is, first and foremost, a search engine. It’s the second largest search engine on the Internet (second only to its parent company Google). Because YouTube is a search engine, people who’ve never heard about your practice can learn about you through a simple search. Or, if you choose to set up an ad campaign on Google, you can reach out to new people through relevant ads.

Connect With Your Audience

While YouTube’s reach is global, you can attract local leads through YouTube. It’s all about the keywords that you target with your videos. Include local keywords in your video’s title and description page, such as the name of your city. 

Educate Your Prospective Patient

You can create educational videos that help your patient understand a treatment. Demystify a dental procedure. Help prospective patients understand your check in process. Answer frequently asked questions. Your informative videos can reduce fears and build trust.

Optimize Your Google My Business

You can add your YouTube videos to your Google My Business listing. In addition to educational videos, you can share office tours and testimonials. These videos can introduce a prospective patient to your practice and make them feel more at ease about their upcoming visit.

Learn more about Google My Business for dental practices here.

How to Market Your Dental Practice on YouTube

Now that we’ve discussed the benefits of being on YouTube, let’s discuss how to market your practice using this popular platform.

Sign Up for a Brand Account

If you haven't already, your first step is to create a brand account for your YouTube channel. This way, multiple people can manage the same account without you needing to create new individual Google accounts for each user. They can post videos and update information about your practice. 

Learn more about brand accounts here. 

After creating a YouTube account for your practice, set up your profile, upload channel art, add a description, and link to your dental practice’s website and social media accounts.

Create a Trailer

After you’ve filled out all of the basic information on your YouTube channel, it’s time to get into the exciting stuff. Create a commercial for your YouTube channel (a channel trailer). Your trailer is the first video people will see when they visit your YouTube page. 

Creating a trailer is a good idea.

It gives you the opportunity to introduce your practice to people who are interested. Perhaps the viewer saw your video and wanted to learn more about what you offer. They click your YouTube profile and are greeted by your trailer. Here, quickly tell them why they should trust you and subscribe.

It’s important to note that the trailer automatically plays when someone lands on your YouTube profile. For this reason, it’s a good idea to hook them right away in your trailer video. Start off strong. This will give your viewer a reason to continue watching your trailer until the end, and possibly subscribe.

In your YouTube trailer, do the following:

• Keep it short. The best-performing trailers tend to be two minutes or less.
• Hook them immediately. The goal is to hook them within the first 10-15 seconds, otherwise, you may lose them.
• Ask the viewer to subscribe at the end. This is the strongest call to action for a channel trailer. It's easy for users to subscribe after watching your video and find out more about you.
• Only focus on the highlights. The trailer is way too short to discuss any topic in depth. 

Develop a YouTube Content Strategy

One of the biggest keys to your success on YouTube is consistency. YouTube promotes channels that deliver content consistently, whether that’s every other day or once a week. 

The last thing you want to do is upload 10 videos in one day and then go radio-silent for the next six months. The YouTube algorithm will not like that. And your subscribers won’t either. If someone decides to subscribe to you, they expect to receive a steady stream of content. That doesn’t mean that you need to upload all the time, but you do need to upload on a regular and reliable schedule.

To help you remain consistent, create a content calendar for YouTube. The good news is that you can plan out videos weeks or months ahead of time. In one afternoon, you can create video content for the next three, six, or 12 months. By scheduling your video content in one sitting, you’ll save time and be more intentional with your content. 

You can also film multiple videos in one afternoon. Then, schedule your videos to post at set times in the future. 

Mix It Up

The best way to market your practice on YouTube is by uploading different types of videos. Don’t just upload educational content, where you introduce different dental procedures. Also upload the following mix of videos: 

• Testimonials
• Before and afters
• Q&As
• Office tours
• Interviews with a team member (such as your hygienist)
• Vlogs and behind the scenes
• Webinars

When creating your content strategy, you can theme different days of the week, like Tuesday testimonials or Friday Q&As. This allows you to build anticipation with your subscribers. It also makes it easier for you to come up with ideas when creating your content calendar.

Keep Your Videos Short

The top-performing YouTube videos tend to be between two to three minutes. It may be short, but it can pack a punch when you get straight to the point. However, don’t feel like you’re stuck to that time limit. You may find that your videos perform better when they’re five minutes or even 10 minutes long. 

The point is to keep your videos as short as they need to be to convey the information and generate results. Don’t be wordy. Get to the point as quickly as possible.

Add Timestamps

YouTube viewers are notoriously impatient. Even when you get to the point right away, some viewers are still going to think your video is taking too long.

This is why you should always include timestamps in your video.

Timestamps allow you to segment your video into chapters. This enables viewers to click ahead to the exact information that they’re after, either by clicking on the section directly or from a table of contents in your video description box. 

Optimize for Local Search

To generate views from your target audience (who live locally), you’ll need to use local SEO tactics. Here are the most important tips to implement:

Geotag your videos. From the YouTube Studio, find your video and then click on its thumbnail. Choose “More options.” Then, under “Video location,” search for your location. This allows your videos to pop up when YouTube users search for location-specific dentists. 

Include local keywords in your title and description. This is another easy way to optimize your YouTube videos for local search. Simply add your city, county, state, or region to your title or description. You can also tag these locations in the description.

Share local keywords within the video itself. Introduce yourself and where you’re located. Then upfront a transcript of your entire video. While YouTube can’t “listen” to your video (yet), it can “read” the transcript and understand what your video is about. This way, they know when to promote your video to local users.

Create an Engaging Thumbnail

Just like people judge books by their cover, people will judge your YouTube video by its thumbnail. Your thumbnail is more important than your title because your title may be similar to others, but your thumbnail will be unique. 

While YouTube automatically generates a thumbnail, you can and should choose to upload your own. 

Typically, the best thumbnail is a screenshot from the video. This gives the viewer a peek into the actual video. You can also add text to your thumbnail. Think of this text as a subtitle to your main title. It can provide additional information or promise the viewer with a benefit if they watch the video. 

You can create professional quality thumbnails using a freemium graphic service like Canva. 

Create a Playlist

One secret way to get more views on YouTube videos is to create a playlist. 

A playlist is a group of videos that play in order. Your playlist can contain only your videos, only videos from another channel, or a combination of the two. For example, you can share your video about veneers and then link to the manufacturer’s video to show how it’s made. The purpose of a playlist is to provide your users with a thorough understanding of a dental topic. 

Playlists auto-play an entire video series without interruption. This is a great way to get views for your other videos.

Creating a YouTube playlist is easy to do. Here’s how to do it:

• While on YouTube, click on your channel's icon in the upper right hand corner.
• Select "Your channel" from the menu list.
• Go to videos.
• Find the video you'd like to add to your playlist.
• Under the video's thumbnail will be three dots. Click on it and select “Save to playlist.”
• At the bottom, click “Create new playlist.”
• Give your playlist a name. 
• Then, choose "public" as the playlist's privacy option.
• Click create.
• To add additional videos to your playlist, follow the above steps, but don't create a new playlist. Instead, add to the existing playlist.
• To include the playlist to your channel, return to your channel page and select “Customize channel.”
• Under Layout, scroll down until you see “Featured sections.” Click on the button that says “Add section.”
• Select “Single playlist” and then choose one of your playlists.
• From here, you can edit the playlist, add a description, and rearrange the order of the videos.

Final Thoughts

YouTube is one of the easiest and most important tools to connect with prospective patients and market your business. Use the above tips to get started on YouTube today.