What to Look for in a Dental Marketing Agency

Leveraging a marketing agency can help your dental practice establish trust with potential clients. The experts working on hitting your dental practice KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) will create comprehensive campaigns that attract new patients and retain them in the long term. Furthermore, a dental marketing agency helps you plan promotions, create a digital marketing plan, and build trust with current clients and prospective patients.

With that said, you should be aware of the crucial services that any marketing agency worth its salt brings to the table. Read on to learn the top four services to look for in a dental marketing agency. 

What’s a Dental Marketing Agency?

A dental marketing agency is a business that offers various services to dental practices. Such services include digital marketing strategies like SEO, website design, Google ads, and social media.

Dental marketing agencies understand dental practice customers, their unique buying journey, and the touchpoints necessary to drive engagement and revenue. They develop campaigns that both attract the dental health-curious as well as bring them into an ecosystem that encourages them to become years-long clients.

Why Outsourcing Your Marketing Helps

Many dental practices are overwhelmed by the number of modern marketing channels available to them. With so many avenues to choose from, it can be challenging to decide where to focus your efforts.

The sheer number of options can result in confusion and an inability to design and execute a campaign that generates ROI. A dental marketing agency helps you simplify the time, money, and energy spent on marketing by providing insights about what works and what doesn’t.

They can also design and execute your campaign(s) for you so you can focus on the core operations of your practice. Let’s look at four major services a dental marketing agency should offer before you work with them. 

   1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

When someone types a specific word or phrase into their Internet browser, what do they see? The results are the search engine results pages (SERPs), or how well a page is search engine optimized (SEO’d)  for a specific phrase.

Once someone has found your website by way of strong Dental SEO, the goal is for them to click on your ranked page and stay on your site as long as possible. The keywords your marketing agency uses are arguably the most important aspect of SEO, and any agency you hire should have years of experience picking keywords relevant for dental practices. 

While search engine algorithms are ultimately determined by human input, they are designed to run automatically–and they do. As such, it’s wise to choose a marketing agency with a proven track record of their content ranking months after being written. If someone searches for “how to naturally prevent cavities”, the blog post your agency wrote should not just answer questions people are asking lately, but address the content in an evergreen way. This means the content will be relevant in six years just as it is in six days. 

   2. Website Design

The look and feel of your website are important because it’s your clients' first impression of you. Having a website that answers your prospects’ most pressing questions before they ever set foot in your office fosters the trust necessary for them to make a buying decision. 

Some tips for selecting the right web design service include ensuring they have experience working with dental practices and reviewing their customer testimonials. You want to get a website that will last for a few years or more with a company that provides great support. 

An excellent dental practice website does more than communicate information in a visually attractive way. It positions your practice as the authoritative choice for your ideal client. The right dental practice marketing agency will know exactly how to create a website with all of these characteristics.

It’s also important to update your website if you haven’t done so in a few years. Dentistry isn’t an industry usually known for its digital marketing savviness, and there are at least five reasons why dentists should update their websites.

   3. Google Ads

The average cost per click (CPC) for Google Ads has increased over the last few years. This has left many dental practices wondering if pay-per-click (PPC) is even worth the effort.

Google Ads for dentists are still a cost-effective way to drive traffic to your website if it’s leveraged by knowledgeable professionals. PPC is the perfect pairing to an organic strategy like SEO and a worthwhile dental marketing agency will be skilled in both. 

If your dental practice is new, it may be best to leverage PPC before you invest in SEO. This is because it takes at least two to four months to see lasting results from SEO, whereas PPC is instant as long as you have the budget for it. Ask your agency what they recommend for your practice based on the growth stage it’s in for in-depth insights. 

   4. Social Media

Social media has become an essential marketing strategy for many businesses, including dental practices. With so many platforms to choose from, though, it’s difficult to determine where to focus your efforts.

A dental marketing agency can help you choose the right channels to build an engaged social media presence and drive traffic to your website. They’ll look at your target demographic and then develop a content calendar based on what works best for your given platforms. 

It’s also important to remember that social media is a two-way street. You don’t want to just post something on Instagram or TikTok and then forget about it. You want to reply to comments and messages, ideally within the same business day, and create bite-sized posts about clients’ success stories or dental advice that your audience can apply immediately. 

Wrapping Up

With so many potential dental customers online, it’s important to use all the tools at your disposal to reach them. A marketing agency can provide these services and more to help your dental practice reach its full potential.

With the right strategy, you can attract new patients to your practice and keep them happy. Here are the key points we covered in this article: 

• A dental marketing agency is a company made up of dental industry experts (or at least digital marketing pros) who market dental practices so owners can focus on serving their customers. These companies leverage industry-specific marketing strategies to generate new business for dental practices. 
• Outsourcing your dental marketing efforts to an agency saves immense amounts of time better spent growing your business. Everyone has their area of expertise and dentists succeed when they can focus on patients and patient relationships. 
• SEO is one method your marketing agency may use. It’s the process of optimizing several website pages or blog posts to rank higher in the organic search results pages. 
• Website design is another marketing method. A good website communicates more than information; it solidifies your business as the right choice in your ideal customers’ minds. 
• Google Ads, which is a type of PPC, is another great marketing strategy. Dental marketing agencies use PPC to drive a lot of website traffic in a short time. 
• Social media is an increasingly important marketing strategy that dental practices can benefit from. Your marketing agency can create a content calendar based on which social channels and audiences are likeliest to book an appointment with your practice. 

Dentalfone is a leading provider of digital marketing services for dentists. Learn more at https://www.dentalfone.com.