Let’s discuss how to use digital marketing to get more patients into your dental practice.
Using the Internet to market your dental practice is a smart move. Now that we're firmly in the second decade of the 21st century, it's time to take your dental marketing online. Here's why:
Digital marketing is affordable. It's much cheaper than traditional forms of marketing. And you'll get a lot of bang for your buck. Dollar for dollar, your return on investment is huge.
Digital marketing is measurable. Instead of relying on flyers or billboards, you can analyze exactly how well your marketing is doing online.
Digital marketing can be personalized. You'll have more luck reaching out to your audience if you personalize your approach to their individual needs. Through the magic of Facebook-knowing-more-than-we-thought, we can then reach out to audiences on social media in ways that we never could before. For example, you can use social media to target events, like a recent engagement and then market your teeth whitening service to brides and grooms to be.
Digital marketing has great reach. Almost everyone is online these days, including social media. Go where your target audience is hanging out.
In this post, we’ll take a look at the most important digital marketing statistics for dental practices. You can use this research to create a digital marketing strategy and generate more revenue for your practice.
Here’s a snapshot of the most important marketing statistics for dental practices, broken down into 6 sections: Email, Social Media, PPC, SMS, Content Marketing, and SEO.
Source: OptinMonster
Email marketing is an affordable marketing solution for dental practices. You’ll increase your revenue exponentially by investing in an email marketing platform and emailing on a regular basis, such as once a month. Emailing regularly allows you to stay at the top of your patients’ minds so that they remember you when it’s time to seek out dental care.
Source: Campaign Monitor
To stretch your marketing dollar even further, use an affordable and user-friendly email marketing service like MailChimp or ConvertKit.
Source: GetResponse
The most important email to send is a “Welcome” email, which is typically sent after a visitor subscribes to your email newsletter. In this email, introduce your practice and set expectations for what you’ll send in the future and how often you’ll communicate via email.
Source: IBM
It’s crucial that your emails look good on smaller screens, without forcing readers to pinch the text on the screen or slide horizontally.
Source: HubSpot
When encountering a poorly formatted email on their smartphone, readers won’t keep reading. It’s up to you to create an enjoyable reading experience on mobile devices.
Source: HubSpot
Older patients will appreciate receiving email communications from you.
Source: OptinMonster
The majority of people check emails first thing in the morning, which makes this a great time to send your emails.
Source: GetResponse
This is another reason to send out in the morning. Your email will be opened right away. However, sending later in the day or evening will likely reduce your email open rate.
Source: OptinMonster
While you should experiment with when to send out emails, consider that emails get the lowest open rates on weekends, when people are more likely to be away from their desktops.
Source: Databox
When sending out emails from your dental practice, send from an actual person, such as “Sally at Henderson Dental.” This is friendlier than “Henderson Dental.”
Source: IBM
Being on social media is a good idea for every dental practice. Even if you don’t update frequently, having a full representation on Facebook can improve your visibility with potential patients.
Source: HubSpot
Facebook is tops, but if you have the option to maintain more than one platform, consider using Instagram, YouTube, and even TikTok (we’ll explain why below).
Source: Pew Research Center
This is why Facebook is a must for every dental practice. It’s practically guaranteed that the majority of your patients will be on Facebook.
Source: HubSpot
People use YouTube to search for local businesses, like dental practices, too. Create YouTube videos, such as commercials, before and afters, and testimonials, to increase exposure for your dental practice. Videos enjoy a long shelf life on YouTube.
Sources: AdAge and Upfluence
TikTok isn’t just for dancing. It also enjoys the highest user engagement of any social media platform, including Instagram and YouTube. Plus, TikTok is insanely popular among Millennials and below. You can use this platform to generate new leads with younger patients.
Source: WebFX
Retargeting is when you show ads to people who’ve visited your website before. Because this group is already familiar with you, your follow up ad makes a bigger impact on them. They’re more likely to book an appointment with you from a follow up ad because they trust you more now.
Source: SERP Watch
Over 9% of Facebook ads result in sales.
Source: Quicksprout
PPC ads are affordable, too. You choose how much you feel comfortable spending each day on your ad campaign.
Source: Google
You get in what you put in and more. So, as you see more positive results from Google Ads, continue increasing your budget.
Source: WebFX
And, according to eMarketer, Facebook PPC is the second most popular PPC platform for businesses.
Source: Unbounce
Three out of four people believe that paid ads help them find what they're looking for.
Source: New Media Campaigns
But keep in mind that PPC is most effective when used with SEO.
Source: seoClarity
Google ads are more trustworthy, which separates this platform from other options
Source: Search Engine Journal
Your PPC ads on Google may not reach as many potential patients because a sizable percentage of people use ad blocking technology. On Facebook, there’s no way to block ads.
Source: G2
Research shows that people wake up with their phones, go to sleep with their phones, and even go to the bathroom with their phones. It’s safe to say that most American consumers are addicted to their phones.
Source: Mobile Monkey
Younger people (40 and below) are more likely to open text messages right away.
Source: G2
And consumers enjoy getting these text messages. Over 75% of consumers have a positive perception of companies that offer SMS communication.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Offer your patients the option to sign up for your text community.
Source: Mobile Monkey
A great way to increase text subscriptions is by offering a freebie, such as a coupon. And, when sending coupons over text, they’re more likely to get redeemed.
Source: G2
Not only that, but also 60% of consumers believe businesses should contact them more through text messages. And consumers are over four times more likely to respond to an SMS text message than a marketing email.
Source: HubSpot
Content marketing includes all forms of digital marketing, such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, social media posts, and email marketing. In general, creating content is cheaper than paying for ads.
Source: B2B Content Marketing Trends Report
Approximately 70% of consumers read reviews before deciding on a product/ business.
Source: SEMrush
Also note that more than half of all Internet traffic comes from mobile devices, specifically smartphones. This means that your content should look good on smaller screens. Social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube are mobile-friendly automatically, but you’ll need to ensure that your website is mobile-friendly, too.
If your website was made through Great Dental Websites, rest assured that your website is mobile-friendly. All of our customizable websites are automatically configured to fit smaller screens.
Source: Think with Google
A whopping 95% of search engine users never go beyond page one of the search results.
Source: State of Video Marketing 2021 by Wyzowl
The most popular distribution channels for video content include social media, email, and blog.
Source: BrightEdge
You get over 1000% more traffic by optimizing your website for search engines than focusing on organic social media.
Source: Backlinko
Long tail keywords are search phrases that are made up of three to five words and are more specific. It’s the difference between “dentist” (short tail) and “pediatric dentist that accepts medicaid” (long tail).
Source: Quicksprout
On the other hand, when you stop a PPC campaign, your traffic from PPC ads will immediately stop.
Source: Search Engine Roundtable
Businesses that show up in the local snack pack receive five times as many views than other businesses.
Source: Fresh Chalk
In 92% of the searches that contain a city and a business category, Yelp makes it into the top five results.
Source: Zero Limit Web
The majority of search engine users don't scroll beyond page one.
The above statistics show how you can use digital marketing to increase revenue for your dental practice. Incorporate the above takeaways so that your practice can benefit from digital marketing.