Every practice owner knows that marketing is part of growing a patient base, so when they see their front desk manager’s smiling face, they might think, “Aha! Now that’s a person who’d be great on social media!” That may be true, but it probably wasn’t part of their original job description. From an HR perspective, is this something you should ask your employees to take on? When is it better to bring in a professional digital marketing team? Likes and subscribes are nice, but good dental practice marketing brings patients in and keeps them coming back.
Building Your Dental Marketing Toolkit
Digital marketing, especially on social media, creates the kind of familiarity your patients want to see. That’s what makes a patient choose one practice over another (aside from insurance coverage, of course).
- Create a reliable website. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but your site does have to be real, relevant, up to date, and visible.
- Learn local SEO (search engine optimization). Your patients aren’t far from your practice, but they’re searching for you online. Make it easy for them to find you.
- Ask for reviews. Reviews create a steady stream of unfiltered comments from patients, and it puts your practice’s reputation on display.
- Exist on social media. You don’t have to become an influencer, but sharing your practice’s personality and community involvement makes you memorable.
- Establish patient referral programs. Word of mouth is one of the strongest ways to market, and referral programs encourage your patients to talk to each other.
- Send emails and newsletters. Email and direct outreach keeps your patients from falling off the planet. You might know their prophy schedule, but chances are, they forgot. A well-timed email can keep your patient flow going.
Decide Who’s Handling Your Dental Practice Marketing
You know what needs to be done, but who’s actually doing all this work? Is it someone on your team? Is it a professional service? Is it a mix of both?
When Marketing Counts as “Other Duties As Required”
Your team knows your practice better than anyone, and featuring them on social media is genuinely effective. People love watching people doing what they love. That’s what makes social media so much fun! So when your hygienist celebrates a work anniversary, why not share it? If your endodontist celebrates National Root Canal Appreciation Day (it’s a thing), set up the camera. You can find both patients and new hires with good dental practice marketing.
If marketing isn’t part of the official job description, it works best when it’s voluntary. Team members who feel pressured to post or are shy in front of the camera aren’t going to create posts that everyone wants to see.
Hiring a Professional Dental Marketing Service
When you outgrow the front desk team handling all your social, you end up with less consistent posting. Worse, they lose track of their primary work. Marketing grows as your practice does, so at a certain point, you’ll probably need to look into hiring professional support.
Using a dedicated digital marketing service means you’re getting strategy and specialized expertise, on top of the execution. Choose a service that understands what patients expect and what makes a practice stand out. Digital Resource is a great example of how a full-service digital marketing agency can help practices grow, not just get popular online.
How to Get Your Employees Involved in Marketing, Without it Becoming an HR Issue
Whether you choose to DIY it or bring in a pro, your team is probably going to get involved in your marketing. They’re going to be the ones whose great work gets highlighted on social media, and patients will recognize them immediately. This kind of employee engagement can really help your team feel seen (literally and figuratively) and when they feel valued, they become your grassroots marketing team anyway.
On the other hand, it doesn’t take long before marketing just becomes extra work. That’s why there are entire agencies dedicated to this exact situation. There’s nothing wrong with having a current team member take on the role of practice marketing if they want it. If it makes sense for their job and they have the time, go for it. From an HR standpoint, just keep it balanced.
- Watch out for wage and hour considerations. If your employee is working extra hours to handle social media, it becomes billable overtime.
- Consider how this impacts their formal job and what this means for performance management.
- Create a social media policy and gain signed consent for any use of likeness. That goes double for patients.
- Update job descriptions if the addition of marketing tasks changes the role a lot.
Market Your Practice Your Way
However you decide to handle it, using the right tools makes dental practice marketing a million times easier. HR for Health can help you with the compliance side. If you need to update job descriptions, keep paperwork sorted, or figure out overtime, we’ll help you formalize the role and keep it all compliant. If you’re ready to get intentional about marketing but don’t have the time, team, or strategy in place, contact Digital Resource to see how better marketing can grow your practice fast.
