Sure social media is a great way to get your practice some social street cred, and dedicated local search efforts will get your practice listed within the highly visible local search engine environments. But, communication is the engine behind any dental practice marketing.
And communication is a two-way street.
In order for your dental practice to start effectively communicating through social media and local search, you first need to define who it is you are targeting, and what it is exactly that you will be communicating.
With the interest of generating some digital word of mouth, your existing patients are the audience, and enlisting their help is the message.
Believe it or not people actually like to help.
And by constructing this virtual patient communications foundation from digital practice word of mouth, you can enlist their help to acquire more new local patients all while improving the level of care (read: increasing profit per patient) for your loyal existing patients that are so willing to spread the positive word of mouth.
Your dental practice needs your patients’ help. Gone are the days of only reaching out to your patients a week before their next appointment to warn them about cancellation fees.
Today it is essential to maintain patient communications above and beyond what was formerly considered the norm. The dentist-patient communication paradigm has shifted.
From a practice visibility and dental social media marketing standpoint, the relationship has become symbiotic. But only for the smart practices out there actively nurturing, collecting, and digitally broadcasting existing patient word of mouth.
Would you ‘Like’ to be the most highly recommended dentist in your local area?
Go From Telling to Asking
So many dentally focused patient communications ‘TELL’ us what to do – schedule an appointment, whiten your teeth, screen for oral cancer…etc. We suggest taking more of an ‘ASK’ approach.
Ask your existing patients to partner in your success!
- Ask patients to follow your practice on Twitter.
- Ask patients to ‘Like’ your practice on Facebook.
- Ask patients why they choose you to be their dentist.
- Ask patients how you can improve or enhance their dental care.
- Ask your patients to submit a review of you and your practice in their chosen online community.
The best part is your patients are totally willing to lend a hand with increasing your online practice visibility.
But you need to ask them to do so otherwise they will continue to only communicate with your practice twice a year – if you’re lucky.
If you’re not so lucky, some other dentist in town will be happy to ask your patients how they can improve their dental care and save a few bucks at the same time.
If you’re afraid to ask the questions, or hear the answers, you might have more pressing concerns.
If that’s the case, your patients are already broadcasting your worst fears to their friends, followers, colleagues, families, and so on and so on and so on.
Either way you cut it, you are doing your dental practice and your local community an incredible disservice by not participating in the conversation.
It’s been said a good mechanic, a good doctor, and a good mattress, are life essentials. A good pair of shoes couldn’t hurt either. Maybe attorney, accountant, and dentist should be added to the list too.
A monitored and engaging digital footprint is fast becoming an essential addition to the dental practice online visibility and new patient acquisition equation.
Will your dental practice keep step with the rhythm?
Do you know where your patients congregate online to discuss such things?
Is your practice a visible member of the online local community or are you a card-carrying member of the silent majority?
Take a tip from Tempur-Pedic®, in case you haven’t seen their TV commercial here it is:
Get in the game Maverick, it’s time to engage!
