No matter how successful your dental practice is, you’re always looking for ways to bring in new patients and provide an even better experience for your current clientele. You want effective methods to grow your dental business that you can implement starting today. Below is our guide to growing your dental practice that will help you earn new patients so you can continue providing excellent care and professional customer service.
Encourage Online Reviews
The vast majority of internet users say online reviews influence their opinions about local businesses. Potential customers know that reviews paint a truthful picture of the services your dental practice offers. That’s why you must manage your online reputation and encourage your patients to leave positive reviews.
The most effective way to get patients to leave a positive review is to ask for one. After they pay for your services, email patients a receipt that includes a link to leave a review. While potential customers check out multiple platforms for online reviews, you should direct happy customers to leave reviews on Google. More than sixty percent of customers go to Google to find reviews for businesses. Facebook and the Better Business Bureau are other places people will look to find reviews of your dental practice.
The most crucial aspect of managing your online reviews lies in keeping things positive. Less than half of consumers would consider using a business with less than a four-star rating. If you find you’ve received a negative review, address it. Ask the reviewer how you can help and give them an email address to send their complaints to. Once you’ve resolved the issue, ask the customer to remove or alter their negative review to reflect their new opinions about your dental practice.
Finally, remember that with reviews, time is of the essence. For your reviews to work for you, they need to be recent. Nearly three-fourths of consumers only care about reviews written in the last month. These numbers show that a dental practice must constantly manage its online reviews to be an effective marketing tool. When you earn positive, frequent online reviews, patients looking for a dental practice will notice, and you’ll find that your business will grow.
Expand Your Services
Your patients, and especially patients with children, want a dentist’s office that serves as a one-stop shop. You already offer exceptional dental services, but what else do you provide that sets you apart from your competition? One way to attract more customers to your dental practice is to expand your services to include pediatric specialty care, orthodontics, and other unique benefits that draw patients through your doors.
Parents want a dentist that treats their entire family. By marketing yourself as a family-friendly practice that can treat the whole family in one visit, you’re sure to attract parents who want to take care of everyone’s dental treatments at once.
Even the smallest intentional service offerings can encourage positive word-of-mouth reviews and earn new business for your dental practice. Give patients the option to choose their hygienist. Offer cable TV during the visit. To attract families, have a bin with children’s toys and provide children’s seats in the operatories. Every detail counts when you’re working to bring new patients to your practice.
Focus on Local SEO
All of your dental practice clientele will be from in or around your community. Focusing on local search engine optimization (SEO) will help your dental practice’s website earn traffic from locals looking for dental care.
A quality SEO strategy ensures patients can easily find you on Google and other search engines. Creating a site that targets hyper-local areas for the keywords your patients are searching for puts you in a position to get noticed by new patients every day. Local SEO optimization is the most effective way to showcase your website—and services—to new patients and grow your dental business.
Create a Social Media Presence
Patients want to feel like they have a relationship with their dentists and dental hygienists. And you want to show patients that they’re more than just a number. Creating a social media presence allows you to foster communication and relationships with current and potential patients. Nearly across the world use social media. Utilizing Instagram, Facebook, and even TikTok gives you access to a limitless number of potential patients.
Your social media channels allow you to provide helpful, engaging content to current patients as well as people shopping around for dental care. Your posts can include everything from helpful health tips from the dentist to more personal content, like staff introductions. Consistent, genuine posts earn trust from patients, increase your exposure, and grow your dental practice.
Offer Consumer Financing
One of the best ways to grow your dental practice is to offer consumer financing. Quality dental care not only boosts a person’s self-worth, but it’s necessary for their total health. Unfortunately, insurance doesn’t cover the entire cost of most dental procedures. And medical credit cards don’t approve patients for the full dollar amount. You might find that some of your patients come to you without insurance at all. When this happens, consumer financing can mean the difference between a patient receiving much-needed care or simply dealing with pain and discomfort.
Working with a professional consumer financing firm like United Consumer Financial Services ensures that your patients do not have to go without dental care. With approval in just minutes and low monthly payments, UCFS helps your patients access the dental care they need without facing the burden of paying for treatment upfront. By offering consumer financing, you’re able to provide more services to more patients, regardless of their ability to pay in full on the day of their treatment. Consumer financing helps you grow your business and provide quality care to the highest number of patients possible.
Conclusion
Dentists provide the necessary care that keeps patients healthy and feeling confident about their smiles. Today, dental offices have to go above and beyond to set themselves apart from their competitors and earn business from new patients. Offering quality, accessible care shows patients you have their best interests at heart. We hope our guide has given you fresh ideas that will help you expand your dental practice starting right now!