Many dentists work with marketing companies and experience little success. This is a source of frustration and can waste time and money. Successful dental marketing comes down to tracking results. Don’t just hope your practice’s marketing plan is working, but see real, tangible results in the form of high-quality new patients walking in the door every month.

How To Tell If Your Marketing Plan Is Working

Dr. Huang with Ninth East Dental had worked with marketing companies and became frustrated with their lack of transparency. Dr. Huang and his staff had no way to know if the money and resources they spent on various marketing campaigns were actually working. This is a common problem with dental practices. Here are a few things your practice can starting doing today to make sure your marketing plan is working.

Track Your Practice’s Key Metrics

Total Number of New Patients Per Month. Aside from saying you’d like to get as many new patients possible, set a real goal of the number of new patients you’d like to see per month.

Sanity Tip! Create a goal that you can reasonably achieve, but will also be a sign of accomplishment once you reach it. You don’t want to set one that is too easy, but also steer clear of setting one that is completely unrealistic. Goals that are way out of the realm of possibility will suck away your energy and discourage you and your staff.

Total Monthly Website Visits or Clicks. How many potential new patients are visiting your website each month and, more importantly, where are they coming from? This is one of the best ways to tell if your online ad campaigns are working and if your website is attracting new patients.

Analytics Recommendation: Google Analytics is the best way to see who is spending time on your website and how they discovered it. While the system can seem daunting if you haven’t spent time using tracking software before, Google has a variety of training videos and tips designed to get you started.

Total Number of Phone Calls That Convert To New Patients. It doesn’t matter how many potential new patients call your office if they don’t make it in the door. By tracking this number every month you can make sure your office staff has the training they need to turn phone calls into new patients.

Action Step: Use the information you get from phone calls to create scripts. These phone scripts can be used to train your staff and prepare them to answer any question a new patient could ask.

In order to increase his new patient flow rate, Dr. Huang knew he had to find a way to better keep track of his practice's key data.

Dentists are trained to provide excellent patient service and don’t have time to try to market their practice. Yet growing a successful dental practice is nearly impossible when you don’t have time for marketing. It all comes down to how well you manage both your traditional and online marketing methods. Deciding which methods to try can be overwhelming with so many choices and recommendations, so I’ve put together a short list of my marketing “must-haves” to get you started.

Each dental practice is unique, so not every marketing technique will work in every dental office. However, the list below details some of the most successful techniques we’ve seen our clients put into practice.

Top 3 Marketing Must-Haves For Every Dental Office

A Patient-Focused Website. We talk a lot about the importance of a website, and if you don’t take anything else away from this blog post, I hope you’ll run with this tip. Your website is at the center of any marketing campaign. That means every part of your website needs to be focused on providing information a new patient needs.

Online Reviews. Building trust is at the center of your relationship with new patients and one of the best ways to do this is by using online reviews to manage your practice’s reputation. Focus on asking 1-2 of your best patients each day to leave a review for your practice on Google. This will not only increase your “star rating” on Google but will help legitimize your practice to potential new patients searching for a dentist.

Exceptional Staff At Your Front Desk. Like I’ve said before, there is no point to investing in marketing that drives patients to call your office if your staff isn’t trained to convert those calls into new patients. Make sure you have enough staff to answer the calls coming in as well as interact with patients walking in the door. Not only that, use phone scripts to train your front office staff to answer questions new patients have and book new appointments at every opportunity.