If you’re a dentist, you know that the two main parts of a tooth are the root and the crown.

Digital marketing for your dental practice can be looked at in those two ways, too: 

• The root is the behind-the-scenes dental and customer experience work that you do to engage with patients and keep current customers coming back.
• The crown is the work you can do that people see right away, and what you do to show up in front of potential customers online. 

Here’s how you can work on both the root and crown of your digital marketing through Facebook, search engine marketing, email and social media. 

Get Your Dentist Office on Facebook 

Billions of people use Facebook and Instagram (owned by Meta) every day, and the odds are, your potential clients are there as well. If you aren’t running Facebook ads, you should be. 

There are two types of Facebook ads you should consider using to promote your dental practice. 

• The first is a dynamic retargeting ad. Set up a Facebook tracking pixel, and you’ll be able to deliver ads directly to users who have already been on your site or exclude your ads from customers who just recently visited.
• The second is a click-to-call ad. This allows anyone who sees your ad to click a button, call your office, and ask questions or set up appointments directly while they’re thinking about it. 

Any Facebook campaign you run should keep the targeting local. Your radius should stay within 50 miles of the city you’re located in to best reach customers most likely to visit you. This radius may be even smaller, depending on your competition and the population of your city or surrounding cities, and your budget.

Want more advice for running Facebook ads? Make sure you check these five things before activating your ads. 

Is Your Healthcare Business Looking for Real Insight From Facebook Ads?

Show Your Practice Online with Search Engine Marketing

When you run search ads on Google and Microsoft Bing, you ensure you show up higher on the search engine results page when people in your area need dental care. 

Here again, focus on local targeting to keep your ad money where it needs to be.

You can set up click-to-call ads on Google, too. This is nice when people are searching for dentists in their area or for a certain type of dental work. They can click an easy link and contact your office right away.  

Don’t forget to target emergency keywords if you offer such services, like “emergency tooth fix” or “urgent tooth care”. Sometimes people aren’t searching for a dentist until it’s too late and something needs to be done. That’s where these keywords will come in handy. 

Make sure you update your Google Business Profile as well, so that when people do search or find you on Google, the first thing they see is the most accurate and updated information. Add photos, hours and key services you provide to help customers identify your practice and inform their decisions.

How to Align Your Marketing Message with Your Healthcare Practice’s Values

Email Your Dental Patients

Email is still a great way to get your message out to customers. The email addresses you have in your customer relationship management (CRM) system are the easiest way to communicate with your patients or potential patients. 

One good email to start with for new clients is to send a welcome email. Thank the patient for choosing to get your emails, link to important pages on your site, and let the reader know what emails they will be receiving in the future. 

What emails could they see in the future? Send out appointment reminders, any office updates, and informational tips on how to best care for teeth or things to look for that signal they may need an appointment. 

Don’t be afraid to ask for reviews, either! Send recent patients an email asking them to write a review or rate their experience. Use that information to gain insight from your customers and share those positive reviews with others online.

How to Run an Email Strategy that is HIPAA Compliant

See Your Clinic on Social Media

You can actually gain quite a bit of reach (and have fun) with content on social media. It’s a great way to stay top of mind and engage with current patients and others. 

Don’t think you have the time to post on social media all day long? No problem. Check out this list of resources to save you time and help you schedule out your posts for the future.

Need some ideas of what to share in your dentist marketing? Try before-and-after visuals. Display the importance of dental care and what a difference your work can make for someone by showing past before and after photos or videos. 

Social media is also a great way to spread informative tips on dental care and raise awareness for common dental issues that you could help with.

• What do unhealthy gums look like? 
• What brushing technique is best? 
• How long should you brush your tongue for?

Answer these questions with a picture or some other visual — like video. Don’t forget the power of video! Behind the scenes videos, video testimonials, and any other video content you can create will perform great on any of the platforms discussed in this blog.

Rural Healthcare System Uses Testimonial Videos to Increase Appointments

Grow Your Dental Practice with Digital Marketing

Taking the time to work on any of these platforms (root or crown) will help your practice find new potential clients and maintain good relationships with current clients, but if you want to utilize the whole “tooth,” you’ll need to put work into all of the above. 

You might not have the team or the time to work on all of this, and that’s where partnering with an agency like 9 Clouds can help you. We’ve been working with healthcare clients for more than a decade now and have the experience and expertise to know how to help you with marketing your dental practice online.

If you’re a dentist or any healthcare provider looking to prove return on investment (ROI) or tools to create more readable reports, check out our new marketing ROI and reporting packages.

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