Top Marketing Tips to Grow Your Dental Practice in 2023
Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail As the year comes to a close, you’re likely already thinking of New Year’s resolutions and personal goals you want to achieve next year. But have you thought about how you want to grow your dental practice in 2023? What vision do you have for the new year? […]
Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail
As the year comes to a close, you’re likely already thinking of New Year’s resolutions and personal goals you want to achieve next year. But have you thought about how you want to grow your dental practice in 2023? What vision do you have for the new year? What does success look like? Whether you’re hoping to increase volume, add a specialist, or bring new patients to your office, marketing can help you reach your goals.
How to Set a Dental Marketing Budget for 2023
When it comes to marketing, in order to make money, you have to spend money. Spend strategically by including your marketing budget in your year-end planning for 2023.
Financial Experts recommend spending 3-6% of your collections on marketing. Here’s an example of what that would look like if your collections are $100K per month:
- Marketing budget between $3K-6K per month
- That can include all marketing- digital marketing, traditional marketing, content creation, sponsorships, agency fees, or anything else you do to generate new patients.
Adjust this number for the size of your practice, your goals, and how competitive your area is. If your practice does $300K per month (or if you want your practice to do $300K per month), you’ll likely be spending $9k-18K/month on marketing.
Learn more about dental marketing spending and ROI.
Learn about affordable marketing strategies.
Check out our fully custom, dental marketing budget calculator.
Dental Marketing Tips for 2023
Now that you have a budget set aside, which marketing strategies will work best for your practice? A great marketing plan will take a number of different factors into consideration:
- Practice location
- Patient demographics
- Dental services
- Your brand and aesthetic
- Practice goals
Partnering with the right dental marketing agency can help you create a customized, data-driven strategy (and adjust it as you go). In general, here are some marketing strategies to consider as you move into the new year.
Batch create and schedule your social media posts in 2023
When we’re busy, it can be hard to remember to keep our practice active on social media. However, your social media platforms are a good place for your patients to see you, interact with you, and keep you top of mind.
To make it a little easier for you next year, we created a social media calendar that includes all of the 2023 major holidays and dental holidays! That way, you can batch-create (make a lot of posts at a time) and schedule social media posts months in advance. (We use Social Pilot for scheduling, but you might also try Later, Hootsuite, or Sprout Social.)
Download our dental social media calendar here!
Plan your dental practice photoshoot
You know what’s out in 2023? Outdated headshots and boring stock photography. It’s time to update your website, social media, and marketing materials with custom, high-quality photos. Capture the personality of your staff and patients through photos and videos that pack a punch. Here are just a few of the benefits of budgeting for a photoshoot next year:
- Photos build trust with new patients when they find you online
- Custom photography improves the effectiveness of your Google My Business listing, website, and social media channels
- Customize photos set you apart from your competitors
Learn how to plan your photoshoot here.
Leverage local and dental SEO for lead generation
If you’ve dabbled in marketing at all, you’ve probably heard of SEO. Search Engine Optimization means improving your dental practice’s chances of coming up in a Google search. It’s a powerful tool for local businesses–like dental practices. This is especially true in 2023, when so many patients find dentists through a Google search.
We’ve written extensively about SEO tips on our blog. Here are a few of our top articles to learn tips, strategies, and best practices for dental SEO:
The Ultimate Guide to Dental SEO
How to Optimize Your Videos to Get More Traffic
How to Implement a Dental SEO Strategy
Build trust and rapport with patients (and increase your referrals and positive reviews!)
Lead generation and digital strategy are important if you’re trying to grow your dental practice. What’s equally important, however, is remembering that your brand exists within your practice as well. You establish your brand and reputation everywhere you interact with patients: online, on the phone, in the chair, and in the way you follow up.
What does it mean to have patients who love and rave about your practice? It means a positive culture, relationships that stand the test of time, and referrals.
Make it your 2023 New Years’ Resolution to invest in your relationships with patients. It might sound like an unconventional marketing strategy, but it’s foundational to the success and longevity of your practice. Here are some places to start:
Building Trust with Your Patients Through Digital Marketing
Tip to Surprise and Delight Your Patients
How to Film a Dental Patient Testimonial Video
How to Get More Dental Referrals
Dental Marketing Tips for Answering the Phone at Your Dental Practice
Get More Google Reviews
Your patients love you! Why not let them sing your praises on the internet? Google reviews are a powerful tool for dentists, which is why we recommend for every dentist to leverage an automated review tool. There are many out there: Swell, Birdeye, Podium, or BestLocalReviews.
These tools make it easier for your patients to leave reviews. (And easier for you to ask for them.) They send your patients an automatic link to leave their review online. Any new patients who find you in a Google search will feel more comfortable making an appointment after they’ve seen real patients sharing their positive experiences.
In rare occasions, you may get a negative review. (It’s OK! It comes with the territory.) Here are tips on how to respond to them in a constructive way.
Track and Measure Your Dental Marketing Efforts
No matter your goals for marketing in 2023, you won’t be able to measure your progress if you aren’t tracking it. That means you need to work with your dental marketing agency to track meaningful KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for your marketing strategy. Here are some examples of dental marketing KPIs you might track:
- New patient calls
- Call conversions (appointments booked from phone calls)
- New patients
- Production
- Case acceptance rate
- And More
And remember: effective marketing takes time and consistency. One social media post or advertisement alone will not transform your dental practice. But with the right partner, a consistent strategy, and the ability to adjust as needed, you will begin to see your marketing efforts pay off.
Work with Pain-Free in 2023!
We’d love to help you reach your marketing goals in 2023. Reach out to learn more about our data-driven, relational approach to marketing.