When it comes to marketing a dental practice, few mediums are as effective as video. People become hypnotized at the moving pictures on a screen, which film and TV studios, as well as ad agencies, have long understood. YouTube in particular makes it easy to upload and promote videos to an online audience, and you should be using YouTube video marketing if you want to get ahead in your dental practice.

According to Marketing Sherpa, 90% of Internet users say that watching a video helps with a buying decision. That includes choosing your dental practice over the competition. Still not convinced that video marketing is a good move? How about the statistic that shows that your website is 50% more likely to appear on the first page of Google if it depicts one or more videos.

Or how about that 80% of online visitors will watch a video, but only 20% will actually read your website content in its entirety?

With these staggering stats staring you in the face, it’s clear that video dental marketing is the future. If you’re not sure how to market your practice using video, here are some great ideas.

The Types of Dental Marketing Videos That Are Perfect for YouTube

Get a hand-held camera, a webcam or any modern smartphone, smile and press record. You’re about to wow your online audience with:

1. A Video Introduction
It’s common for dental marketers to place photos of all dentists and staff on the website, but these are ‘still’ images, and there’s no way you can determine personality from a still image. This makes video so much more valuable.

By filming an introducing of yourself and your staff, not only can you show all your pretty faces, but you can showcase your personalities to boot. This means that people can become familiar with you and your staff before they ever set foot in your office. Talk about setting yourself apart from competitors.

2. An Office Tour
Many dental practices offer amenities to their patients like iPads to keep patients entertained and play areas for the kids while mommy and daddy are sitting in the dental chair. Instead of merely writing about these luxuries on the website, film patients actually using these conveniences for a far more powerful marketing message.

You can film patients sitting in your comfortable waiting area, and you can show off your state-of-the-art dental chairs and operatories. This makes patients feel comfortable with your office environment without actually having to visit, which is precisely the idea.

3. Patient Video Testimonials
Gather some of your most loyal patients and film them smiling as they relay how great you and your services happen to be. This adds credibility to your practice and backs up your claims that you can actually change lives. This type of video is ultra-powerful because it creates emotional appeal, which makes it one of the most persuasive tools in your marketing arsenal.

4. Video FAQs
Your dental practice is probably used to fielding the same types of questions over and again. Instead of merely writing the answers to these frequently asked questions on your website, film yourself answering them for the camera. This shows that you’re an expert in your field, and five to ten videos filmed separately will help to spread your online marketing message far and wide.

5. Procedure Demonstrations
To improve your case acceptance rates, film yourself describing some of your more complicated dental procedures. Be sure to mention the benefits and highlight your expertise in the areas you’re discussing. Whether it’s Invisalign, a root canal or a dental implant, you should act as though you’re explaining the procedure to your patient chair-side. Again, showcase your personality and use humor if possible to enhance the patient’s comfort before they ever schedule an appointment.

6. Anticipate and Overcome Objections
This type of video can help to further improve your case acceptance rates. Similar to the procedure demonstration videos, these discuss the typical apprehensions patients might have and, done correctly, will help prevent patients from saying, “I’d like to think it over.”

You’ve probably heard every objection in the book when it comes to explaining dental implants and other ‘premium’ procedures. Discuss these objections in a video and offer a few well thought out responses to these common obstacles to help move the decision forward. This way, half the hard work will already be done by the time the patient books the appointment, and all you had to do was film a minute to two-minute video before uploading it to YouTube.

Now that you know the types of videos to upload to everyone’s favorite video sharing site, let’s discuss how to optimize them properly so that they show up prominently in Google.

How to Optimize Your YouTube Dental Marketing Videos

Keep your videos short and sweet, and upload them to YouTube with your logo prominently displayed in the corner of the screen. If possible, add some professional music. YouTube has a video editor built-in that will allow you to easily brand your videos before they go live.

Other video marketing tips include:

Search-Friendly Titles: You have 100 characters with which to describe your videos in your title. For best results, include your dental practice name, area and the purpose of the video, such as, “Firegang Dental, Spokane, Washington – What are Dental Implants?” This, of course, would be a FAQ video. That title will also show up prominently in the search engines whenever someone types in Google ‘Dental Implants’ and ‘Spokane Washington’, just to use an example.

Keyword Tags: Come up with a few relevant keywords to use as YouTube tags. These will help to associate your video with other videos on YouTube in the ‘related videos’ section.

A Thorough Description: This is where you will describe what the video is about. For best results, place your website address at the very beginning so that it shows up first and foremost.

You might also want to include your email address and phone number to entice new patients to make contact. Then discuss the video and all that it contains to help drive views and shares.

Share Your Video Far and Wide: Speaking of sharing, once your video is live, your best bet is to start passing it around. Post it on Facebook, Twitter and send it to all of your prospects and patients via email. The more it’s passed around, the more social clout it will be given and that means great things for search engine optimization. You’ll also drive views, which can equate to more phone calls, walk-ins and familiarity with your dental practice.

YouTube is not only an easy and inexpensive way to promote your dental practice, it also sports the second largest search engine in the world. The first, of course, is Google, which owns YouTube. All of this means that if you’re not promoting your practice using YouTube videos, you’re seriously missing out on a great opportunity to get found and noticed online.

The best time to start filming your videos is right now. If you’re still not confident in your filming abilities, contact Firegang Digital Marketing. We’ll put our video marketing expertise to work for you to drive more new dental patients your way.