One of the most efficient ways to implement our digital marketing plan in order is to define, according to our objectives, the types of digital media that we are going to use. In this blog we will teach you how to create an optimal digital marketing mix, in terms of frequency, reach and budget allocation of your campaigns, so that your results are highly efficient and translate into more patients for your dental clinic.
It is good that you keep in mind when thinking about your marketing actions, that around 55% of your website traffic comes from organic sources, such as searches on Google or other search engines. In order of importance, this is followed by paid traffic which comes mainly from your Google Ads campaigns and represents around 17% of the total. Finally, the remaining percentage corresponds to the organic traffic that is generated in your social networks, mass emails, banners, etc.
In our previous blog “Digital Marketing in the dental clinic: How to create a digital campaign that works?” We have talked about SEO and SEM and how to optimize them to obtain the best results. results. Today we will tell you how social media marketing can help you achieve your goals, we will also see the importance of having a good profile in Google My Business and being geolocated and, finally, we will We will teach which are the factors that you should take into account when creating a mass mail campaign that works. Let's start!
Social networks in the dental clinic
You are probably familiar with the concept of social media marketing, which consists of using social networks in order to commercially connect with your audience and maintain a relationship with them. But how to choose social networks for your dental clinic? This will depend on your goals and the audiences you want to reach. Do you want some clues?
In the case of dental clinics, the most complete and adaptable social networks to your objectives are Facebook and Instagram, since both are capable of achieving great reach , generate activity, conversions and engagement. It is good to use them together and they are complementary, they will allow you to reach different demographic segments.
Facebook: with this social network you can reach people from the age of 25 and you can support images, videos and also links, which will be very useful to drive traffic to your website. Facebook will allow you to build relationships with your audience, share your blog articles, showcase your services, and reinforce brand loyalty.
Instagram : it differs from Facebook mainly because it is more visual and will be focused on a younger segment, generally between 18 and 35 years old. This social network will also allow you to build relationships and generate leads, but you will also be able to generate a closer interaction with your audience with the use of stories and reels. Do not hesitate to use them and let your creativity fly.
There are also other networks that, despite not deriving a large amount of traffic to your website, can be useful to generate greater brand awareness. This is the case of Youtube which provides above all reach and has the particularity of concentrating audiences of all ages. This social network is not intended to encourage interactions with your audience, as in the case of Facebook and Instagram, but if you can use it to teach your patients about a certain topic and they will thank you, YouTube certainly adds a lot of value to your dental clinic.
If you are thinking of sharing more elaborate content with your audiences, such as blog articles, eBooks or news, the social network that cannot be missing in your dental clinic is Twitter, which has a great capacity to derive traffic to your website. This network, like Facebook, will help you meet your reach, activity and conversion goals focused on a segment of people usually over 25 years of age.
WhatsApp Business deserves a mention as an essential for your dental clinic, because in recent years it has become a first-choice means of communication for most people. WhatsApp Business will help improve communication between your clinic and your patients. But what makes WhatsApp Business different from normal WhatsApp? Fundamentally, a company account allows you to have a profile where you can put data such as your website, email, address, telephone number, hours, etc. and you can also send messages automatically or schedule automatic responses. Remember that people value immediacy very much and it is one of the main strengths of this means of communication, do not take long to respond to your messages. There are many benefits of WhatsApp Business for your dental clinic and, in addition, it is free.
As a general tip, only choose networks that you can manage, because it is important to always keep them up to date and present a good image to your audiences. If you are thinking of LinkedIn as a professional network for your dental clinic, it may not be the most suitable for attracting patients, although personally it is always good to be present to be updated on the news of your sector and make networking.
Your dental clinic on Google My Business
When the services provided by a company are face-to-face, as is the case with dental clinics, Google My Business is essential. This free Google tool will allow you to have greater visibility on the web and it will be the first thing users will see when they search for you on Google, therefore, it is important to have a complete profile, well configured and always updated.
In Google My Business you can include information such as the name of your clinic, description, address, hours, images, etc. In addition to this, there are two highly relevant reasons to use this tool:
Your dental clinic will be able to receive user reviews
: through the opinions of your patients you will be able to know your strengths and weaknesses. Reviews are public and everyone can see them. Is this a disadvantage? It is not if you are sure of the quality of your service, but we know that mistakes can always happen or that, even if you try very hard to offer a high quality service, there is always the possibility of receiving a bad review, that is why We advise you to respond to all comments, both good and bad, with your gratitude, your understanding and your firm commitment to improve in the event of a criticism.
Dentaltip : ask your patients for reviews, they will be happy to speak well of you, but they won't think to themselves.
- Your dental clinic will be geolocated: that is, it will be visible on Google Maps and in search results for your area. When someone near your clinic Googles "dental clinic" you will appear on the map as a nearby establishment and your profile and ratings will be displayed.
eMail Marketing in the dental clinic
Continuing with digital channels, we cannot fail to mention eMail Marketing as one of the most effective. Thanks to this tool you will be able to reach large audiences and also specific groups.
To make use of this resource, it is essential that you build your own database from leads obtained through your website, your social networks, and your own patients. It is also important that from the beginning that you segment them according to their interests or needs, this will allow you to be more successful in the type of content you send them. For example, if you blog about brushing techniques for children and send it out in a newsletter, it will be more successful with your patients who have young children.
Launching a successful email marketing campaign is a challenge, not because it is difficult to do, but because every detail counts to attract attention among the multiple emails that enter the inbox. But don't worry because we'll give you some tips:
The first thing you should take into account is the existence of laws that regulate the use of personal data to send commercial communications. In very general terms, these laws call us to be very careful in the way of collecting data, to be clear and transparent and always ask for the person's consent to receive commercial communications. If you want to know more, we recommend you read the EU General Data Protection Regulation and always inform yourself about the local regulations of each country, in the case of the UK you can read GOV.UK's page on the Data Protection Act.
With all this in mind, we can start our eMail Marketing campaign and for this we will take into account:
- Mail sending software or platform
- Collecting data and building mailing lists
- Types of emails you can send
- What formats to use in our emails
1. Mailing software or platform
Our first piece of advice is not to use your personal or business account to send emails directly from your inbox, this is because ISPs (Internet Service Providers) monitor large-volume mailings and if they are assigned to email marketing campaigns they can blacklist all emails that come from your clinic ...@dentalclinic.com, therefore, they will arrive directly in the spam folder.
It is best to always use mass mailing platforms or software that are adapted to work with large lists, can segment audiences, automate many of their processes, and obtain statistics that allow you to measure your results. Most of them have free and paid versions, mostly depending on the number of subscribers and available options. Some of the best known are: Mailchimp, MailerLite, Sendinblue and Benchmark.
2. Collect data and build mailing lists
Having a subscriber list requires dedication. In the case of a dental clinic, we recommend asking your patients directly if they want to receive emails and updates from your clinic and adding them to your list with their consent. Your patients who are happy with your service, the more they have you in mind, the more likely they will recommend you to their close circle.
Another way to get subscribers, potential new patients, is to put subscription forms where we are delivering valuable information, such as downloading an eBook, an article a blog, a webinar, an application, a discount coupon, etc. The person will leave their data and their consent in exchange for something and will be more willing to receive your information. In this way we will build lists of people who are really interested in our clinic and most importantly, who have authorized us to send them emails. Complying with these peramiters decreases rejected, deleted, unlisted emails and increases the opening, click rate and purchase intention of your service.
3. Types of emails you can send
The type of content you send to your subscribers determines the success of your email marketing campaign. Your content must be relevant to your audiences, some examples:
- Welcome: we thank our patients for their trust
- Appointment Confirmation
- Appointment or periodic check-up reminders
- Surveys: ask patients to evaluate the quality of service
- Oral Health Care Tips
- Post procedure instructions. How nice it would be to have this on smartphones!
- Newsletters with useful content, resources, tips
- Offers: it is better if you always accompany them with content that adds value
4. What formats to use in our emails
Try to remember what you do when you receive email from a company. Do you read it or just look at it? Or do you send it directly to the trash? We understand! It's hard to grab people's attention, especially in a hyper-stimulated world that's shortened our attention spans. So how to attract the attention of our audiences?
Create an attractive subject line : This is perhaps the most important part of your email because its sole purpose is to get people to open it. We must, in a few characters, be direct and concise. Do not waste unnecessary characters, for example "Great news!!!" and not use words that could be considered spam, for example “free”. Inspiring curiosity in a few words can be quite a challenge.
Use a descriptive email address, and if you want to be “more human”: your audience will be more receptive to senders that they understand what they are. If your dental clinic is called “The Tooth” and that is your email address, it may not attract as much attention as if it were "The Tooth Dental Clinic". A very good option is to humanise it: "John from The Tooth Dental Clinic", the reader will unconsciously regret throwing the email from "John" into the trash, who is a person who "has taken the time" to write to you.
Use images, graphics, and not just plain text: colors and shapes are more attractive than plain text, it is a fact, but be careful not to go too far, using too many graphics can make your mail is very heavy, difficult to load or can be classified as spam. Always finding balance is the best option, neither boring nor overloaded. The same with the text, if you are going to send a blog article, do not put it in full in the mail, you should only give a short description and put a link so that it can be read on your website. Also, remember that your emails must be responsive, that is, they must look good on the computer, on a tablet or on the mobile.
Calls to action: this in the marketing world is called CTA or Call to Action and is one of the most important parts of of the mail. An action must be well placed and must be related to the called content that we want to transmit. For example: if in our email we are counting the benefits of our service, a good CTA would be "Book your appointment".
Make sure to include your contact information, the address of your clinic and your social networks. Before sending, send yourself a test and check the wording, spelling and that all links work correctly. And then you have your mail ready!
Thank you for reading the third blog in our Digital Marketing for Dental Clinics series. If you have not yet read our previous articles you can find them at the following links:
Part 1: Digital Marketing in the dental clinic!
Part 2: Digital Marketing in the dental clinic: ¿How to create a digital campaign that works?
We hope this article has been useful to you and that you can start your digital marketing plan and boost the growth of your dental clinic.
If you have questions we are always available to help you. Remember that you can also follow us on our social media to always be updated on the latest news in the dental sector. See you soon!
