As with most forms of marketing, online dental marketing is becoming more prevalent. As more and more patients have access to the internet more are going to go there to research 
your dental office. So you need to be positioned to attract them and give them a good reason to open up your website and investigate you further.
I am going to cover the 7 steps to online dental marketing you need to consider when building your online dental marketing strategies.
(1) Content:
Whether you know it or not, all businesses are now in the publishing business, because when it comes to online marketing, content is king. Great content makes you an expert. Great content solves problems. Great content earns you your potential patients business.
(2) Dental Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
If you want your practice to rank you need to produce content in the following forms: Blogs, social media posts and engaging whitepapers. Not only does this help with you show up higher in the searches, it helps patients share your content and it gives potential patients a reason to come to your website and download information.
(3) Email dental marketing:
Once they download a white paper or report you have written, they can only do so if they give you a name and email address. From here you can earn their business by nurturing them with helpful, valuable emails. Depending on what email they download you can segment them out and send them other important rich tips; for instance if you wrote a paper “5 things you absolutely must consider before you start whitening your teeth”, you may want to follow up with: What shade looks natural and how do you select the right color; what whitening formula is right for you; or Pros and Cons of over the shelf whitening products.
(4) Social Media dental marketing:
No one likes to see promotional products on their social media pages but everyone likes to share great tips, new products or services with their family and friends. Social Media is a communication vehicle and is a great way to tell your patient base what is going on. It also is a great place to demonstrate your differentiation: e.g. I am known for being the “No wait dentist” because we saw 50 people today and no one waited longer than 5 minutes before being seated.
(5) Pay per Click (PPC) dental marketing:
I am not a super huge fan of paying for online advertising, but in certain situations it can be extremely effective. This works particularly well when you have a unique specialty. Say you are the “Emergency Dentist - open 24/7”. When someone has an accident and a tooth is knocked out and a loved one runs to the computer and puts in dental emergency lost tooth, you want to show up at the very top as a specialist for this situation.
(6) Local and Mobile dental marketing:
With all the review sites popping up you need to claim your listing and make sure you have a consistent profile on the website. You will want to monitor these to make sure you respond to comments and protect your reputation. As far as mobile marketing, don’t forget that just because you have a website it doesn’t mean that it is formatted properly to show up on a mobile device which not only includes iPhones and android phones but also on iPads and all the other tablets.
(7) Analytics: Today’s analytics are so good they can tell you all kinds of valuable information about who is searching your website e.g. what location people are coming from, what keywords they used to find your site, what page is getting the most hits, etc. It also reports this information in real time, so you can tell what is working, what is not working and what needs to be adjusted to work better. Try this free analytic link by Google to track your website: http://www.google.com/analytics/. You will need to sign up for a gmail account, unless you have one. Once your website is linked to the gmail, cut and paste the code into the pages of your website you want to measure.
If you would like to learn more about having a Total Online Presence for your online dental marketing go to: http://www.redstarmarketing.com/duct-tape-marketing/Total-Online-Presence/Dentist-Marketing/Marketing-Dental-Practice/Dental-marketing-online/ and download your 44 page report: 7 Essential Stages of a Total Online Presence.
