5 Best Dental Marketing Strategies  

There were over 200,000 practicing dentists in the U.S. as of 2020 — around 61 for every 100,000 people.   

That means most places have multiple dentists competing for the same patients — and it’s about to get worse. The number of new dentists is projected to grow even faster than the general population. By 2040, there will be 67 dentists for every 100,000 people.  

In a field getting more crowded and competitive with time, you need to promote your practice using the best dental marketing strategies available. Keep reading for the five we most highly recommend.  

Dental Marketing Strategy #1: Custom Websites  

As a dental provider, having a website is non-negotiable. A great dental website helps with so much more than just digital marketing.   

In addition to helping you reach prospective patients, your website can help you sell your dental services by explaining what you offer and why patients choose your practice. You can even incorporate online booking capabilities that grow revenue while lowering admin costs.   

However, incorporating these features into a well-designed website takes time and expertise. You also need a keen understanding of what dental patients are looking for online, how they find it, and what drives them to contact a provider.   

Building a website yourself has never been cheaper or easier with DIY website builders. But DIY websites can do as much harm as they do good. Poor design and buggy features can frustrate prospective patients and give your dental practice a poor image.   

Hiring experts to build a custom website for your dental practice ensures you get a fully optimized website designed to convert your website visitors into patients. 

Dental Marketing Strategy #2: Web Content & SEO  

In today’s information economy, patients want to know as much as possible about your dental practice before they ever make contact. The information you post on your website, blog, and on partner sites helps people explore, understand, and trust your practice so they can make an educated decision.  

Website content also boosts your ability to be found by potential patients. Posting the right content with the right search engine optimization (SEO) practices help your custom website rise through search results so you rank ahead of other local dentists. Alternatively, lack of content can doom your website to appear on the second page of results…or worse.   

For busy dentists, planning and writing content can be time-consuming. Maintaining a high rank in search results requires a careful, customized, and consistent approach.   

Rather than taking on that work themselves, many dentists enlist an SEO expert to make sure their website continues to deliver new patients.   

Dental Marketing Strategy #3: Paid Media  

If you are the first dental practice someone finds when searching for a dentist, you are automatically top-of-mind. Being the first dental practice to make an impression puts you in a powerful position to become that patient’s final selection.   

With paid media, you can appear at the top of the page when people search for things like “Dentists near me.” And if you play your cards right, what you spend on paid media will be dwarfed by the additional revenue it generates.   

That being said, paid media can just as easily be a waste of time and money. The difference comes down to your approach. That means answering some tricky questions:  

• Which keywords should we advertise against?  
• What platforms should we advertise on?  
• How should our ads look and read?  
• What’s a reasonable amount to spend on paid ads?  
• Should we run ads against clicks or impressions?     

If you want to get the most out of paid media without spending months on research and education, bring in a team that understands both the paid media landscape and where your dental practice best fits in.     

Dental Marketing Strategy #4: Social Media  

At this point, the majority of dentists have social media profiles for their dental practice. Having a presence on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube costs you nothing but time. By posting content and interacting with your target audience, you build:  

• goodwill with existing patients  
• awareness of the services you offer  
• meaningful connections with future patients  

You also help to give a face and voice to your dental practice, so you are more approachable and personable.   

If you don’t have time between appointments or after hours to post compelling and engaging social media content, give the responsibility for social media marketing to someone else who can turn your profiles into patients.   

Dental Marketing Strategy #5: Online Reviews  

A survey exploring how people choose a dentist shows that most respondents, by a vast margin, choose the one with the best online reviews.   

Positive online reviews are incredibly valuable for a dental practice — but also difficult to obtain. Most people will post no review at all. Others only feel motivated to leave negative feedback that casts your practice in a bad light. Fortunately, there are ways to first, get more reviews and second, get more positive ones.   

A marketing partner can help you set up an automated system that emails patients asking for a review and rating. The positive responses go directly online to as many forums as possible. The negative feedback goes into a queue so you can contact the sender and make things right before they post about their experience online.   

Planning Your Dental Marketing Strategy  

What separates successful dental practices from the rest? The best digital marketing for dentists.   

It’s the best asset your dental practice has, provided you have the resources to plan the right strategy, execute all the work involved, and optimize the details to drive results.   

Socius Marketing provides all those resources in the form of comprehensive marketing services from a team with deep experience in the dental industry. Getting the results you want starts with the marketing you need. Schedule a consultation to explore where that starts.