Dentists have participated in advertising campaigns for centuries. Unlike other professions, such as doctors and lawyers, dentists have always been able to actively seek new patients. Of course, this might be in part because dentistry needed products so that people would be aware of dental health.

Perhaps the most famous stories about dental advertising history come straight from Colonial American History. Paul Revere was a dentist who ran ads in a Boston Newspaper between 1768 and 1770.

One of the original selling points for toothpaste was “You stop bad breath with Colgate. Fight tooth decay all day.” Indeed, many of the brands we now depend on play up the relationship between clean teeth and health. We now know these pioneering advertisers were on to something big.

Early dentists understood the power of advertising. Today, if you’re a dentist or run a dental practice, you need online marketing. Without an online presence, you won’t be where the people are. At Web Rocket Media, we help dentists like you find their place in the cyberworld.

 The Four Cornerstones of Marketing for Dentists

One of the most remarkable aspects of online marketing is the number of different advertising channels available. Our society is living through a digital revolution where every business could benefit from, in many respects, online advertising.

For dentists, it helps if we put online dental marketing in terms of four cornerstones. Each cornerstone is weaker without the others, and all are stronger together. At Web Rocket Media, we get this and work with you to establish your cornerstones.

Cornerstone One: Your Website

A dentist’s website is an extension of the office, practice, or clinic. It doesn’t do any good to have a modern office and not have a modern website to go with it. Even a dental clinic that isn’t as modern as it could be is enhanced by a really good professionally created website.

What does a website specifically designed for a dentist look like? The website should follow all the norms used in creating websites that attract web searchers. The key is the type of searcher. For a dentist, it’s someone looking for a dentist at a specific time. For example, the sudden onset of a toothache.

The website should:

• Attract attention.
• Keep someone’s attention
• Be easy to use (for example the speed pages load matters).
•  Inform existing and potential patients about important information
• Have an appointment scheduler

 While these are the basics, the team at Web Rocket Media can create virtually any design.

Cornerstone Two: Social Media

The statistics about social media use and influence across wide swaths of our society are staggering. For instance, globally, in 2021, 4.5 billion people are expected to use social media regularly. With all those people on various social media platforms, it seems reasonable to advertise where the people are?

 Social media-based marketing is an effective way to market your brand as a dentist. Indeed, as a dentist, you’ve probably already branded yourself. Put your dentist practice and your brand out there. Social media marketing takes planning and patience. Only skilled social media marketers know how to run long-term social media marketing campaigns.

Cornerstone Three: Content

For a dentist, content is crucial for getting your brand into your local community. Consequently, not just any content works with dental practice advertising. A dentist should be creating two types of content. The first is professional content, i.e., PSAs and information about an aspect of oral care.

The other type of content a dentist should create is “humanizing” content. For example, office pictures of happy patients and positive testimonials are the sort of content that can make the dentist’s office friendlier. In a specific sense, much of this type of content should be shared in social media feeds. The expert information can be shared in the form of blogs.

The content and social media cornerstones work together to create a “social atmosphere” surrounding your brand as a dentist. The trick is to get residents to follow your social media streams and become part of the social atmosphere.   

Cornerstone Four: Local SEO

When a potential patient (with a toothache) opens their web browser to find a dentist, the search engine result page (SERP) shows only local dentists. Chances are the potential patient is Google which nudged the SERP to list local dentists. What happens when you practice dentistry in a big city like NYC? You’ll need experts who know how to nudge Google in a specific way to get your listing at or near the top of the SERP. This is where local SEO comes into play.

SEO experts that specialize in local SEO know-how nudge Google in such a way that gets results. The first step, however, is hiring a digital advertising agency that knows local dentist SEO and how to run local advertising campaigns. Web Rocket Media has an expert team of dedicated web marketers who understand local SEO from a big city perspective.

Closing Thoughts

The four cornerstones of marketing for dentists should be deployed together for best results. However, this is not written in stone. The truth is, any one of the cornerstones, if deployed effectively, should yield results.

This is not to say that any cornerstone is better or worse than the other three. Deploying three of four is weaker than four of four, but stronger than deploying two of the four cornerstones. In other words, advertising effectiveness diminishes without all four cornerstones working together.

As a dentist, you are either a local hero or you get lost in the shuffle of the other dentists trying to get the same patients you want. Hiring a trusted team of digital marketers will help you locate and keep new patients. One good thing about hiring Web Rocket Media is the expertise they have at creating and deploying the 4 essential cornerstones for success.