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The Three Marketing Mistakes that Cost More than Money

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If you’re a startup practice, then you’ve most likely invested in your own dental practice, providing advanced procedures. Cash flow may be a priority right now. That means that you need a strategy that will give you online visibility and help you bring in more of your ideal patients. Because the right strategy helps you achieve results from day one. But before you put a digital marketing strategy in place, you want to make sure that your dental practice is on solid marketing ground. Your marketing foundation is what holds you up and propels you forward and it needs to be strong. In other words, it’s better to start off right than have to work backward to fix what’s wrong. That’s why we’ve gone ahead and outlined the three marketing mistakes that can cost you more than money and how to avoid them.

Mistake #1: Making Your Dental Practice’s IP and Logins Accessible

Security is key and ensuring that your intellectual property and all logins are safe and secure should be one of your main priorities. Consider what information you’re using, where it’s located, and who has access to it. You want this information to be accessible for team members, staff, and other partners who need it, but you also want it to be protected from anyone who’s not a part of your dental practice. This not only includes logins to important websites, but also your digital intellectual property including logo files, videos, and photos.

Mistake #2: Rushing to Change Your Dental Practice’s Name

Maybe you’ve been considering refreshing your brand and updating or changing your practice’s name. While this is a great idea, you don’t want to rush the naming process. Just like anything, there’s a right way to go about this, and changing your practice’s name without the proper considerations can set back your online presence in search results and potentially damage your well-built online reputation. Search engine optimization (SEO) is how your dental practice gets found online, so when there’s a sudden change in how people are searching for you it can directly impact your search rankings. You also want to build in a transition phase when updating your practice’s name, so that patients have time to get accustomed to the new name and can continue to promote your business.

Mistake #3: Keeping Your Personal and Professional Presence the Same

While you want to maintain a social media presence for your practice, you want to make sure there’s a clear distinction between your personal and professional presence online. To be clear, personal posts are not the same as professional posts. You want to consistently check who’s following and engaging with your dental practice online. If your practice’s Facebook or Instagram page has many dentists, dental companies, and family members following you, you may want to consider a different focus for your practice’s social media. With very few exceptions, a practice’s social media should be educating current and future patients about your practice, sharing patient testimonials, and updating them about new procedures. Social media is also an effective way to attract and engage new patients, so take into account how much you’re sharing your expertise and building a community online. 

Implement the Right Digital Marketing Strategy from Day One

Once you have a solid marketing foundation in place, you can work on implementing the right digital marketing strategy for your practice. Since more and more patients are tech-savvy and ready to do their research, you want to have a strong online presence that includes a website, SEO, social media, online advertising, and more. You want to look at your digital marketing as a system since that’s how it’s most effective and can give you the best return on investment. If you want to reach future dental patients where they are online, you need a comprehensive digital marketing strategy to improve your visibility in online searches, turn website visitors into new patients, and continue to build your expertise and authority among dental patients. At Dental Marketing from Day One, we help dentists secure new business by bringing in more ideal patients for their practice. Together, we can identify the right growth plan for your practice and help you reach and achieve your business goals. Learn more about our digital marketing services here.