Tips for optimizing your messaging
Investing in marketing is a necessary part of growing any practice. If you’re sending out a message that’s not optimized, you may not be attracting the best patients. Fortunately, following a few simple guidelines can help you better speak to the patients who are a great fit for your practice.
Who are your patients?
Trying to position your office as a one-size-fits-all is usually a mistake. “Everyone” is too large of a target market, and trying to reach such a big group will dilute your message and fail to make an impact on anybody. You will want to accurately define which patient profiles are a great match for your practice culture, pricing, location, service offerings and so on. Visualize what your top three ideal patients look like. What are their needs? What are their motivations? Once you’ve got this down, you’ll know exactly who you are talking to as you craft your messaging.
Answer questions and solve problems
Prospective patients looking for a new dentist are not so different than any other customer searching for a product. They have a problem and they’re looking for a service that can solve this problem. Well-crafted dental messaging should be designed to give patients what they are looking for:
- Answers to their questions
- Assurance that you can solve their problems
Dental practice marketing needs to be informative and concise. Patients are more likely to act when they feel you understand and can accommodate their needs.
Create content that focuses on benefits
Leverage your knowledge to create content that addresses the main pain points of your target demographic. Some dental marketing talks about “how” a dentist fixes a patient’s problem, instead of focusing on the benefits of getting the problem fixed.
Stay consistent
Messaging that is not consistent confuses patients. While some channels, such as social media, may be less formal than others, your core messaging should stay the same. You don’t want to position your practice as the most economical in town to one audience and the best for cosmetic dentistry to another. Know who you are and understand who is right for your practice. Then, stick with the messaging that ties these concepts together.
