FOCUS ON…
Practice Marketing
Mirror your practice image online to increase the number of patients in your care
Whether patients find out about your practice from a friend or by driving past a billboard sign, there's a good chance they will stop to check out your website before making an appointment. So, if your practice website is poorly designed, hard to navigate—or worse yet, you have no web presence at all—it could be an instant dealbreaker.
While marketing your practice in an online world may seem costly and overwhelming, it's essential to getting more patients in the chair. Without a way to mirror your practice image online, patients will never know how talented and friendly your dental team is, or the quality treatment you provide.
“I’m a big believer that you have to spend money to make money,” said general and restorative dentist Daniel Casel, DMD, who just purchased his sixth practice in South Florida. When it comes to practice marketing, he's tried everything under the sun, which means he knows a thing or two about what works versus what doesn’t.
“The 2 things that have been most successful for me in terms of practice growth are building hygiene to establish new patients and marketing to emergency patients who might be suffering from tooth pain or broken teeth,” said Dr. Casel. “Hygiene is the backbone of the practice, so we try to fill the hygienists’ schedules, which then fills the doctors’ schedules with routine bread-and-butter dentistry.”
A Partner in Practice Marketing
Establishing a solid online presence across multiple practice locations takes a village, and part of that village is VivioSites—a website design and digital marketing company that specializes in the dental industry. Over the past few months, VivioSites has been working with Dr. Casel and his team to build a dynamic search engine optimization (SEO) plan that ensures his practice websites are easily found by prospective patients, as well as to deploy digital marketing campaigns and create engaging social media and blog posts, among other projects.
"We try to fill the hygienists' schedules, which then fills the doctors' schedules with routine bread-and-butter dentistry."
-Daniel Casel, DMD
For example, VivioSites helps Dr. Casel promote new patient specials for those without insurance and builds out the practice's social media pages in a way that gets people familiar with the dental team and treatment offerings.
Dr. Casel has already seen a drop in his marketing spend after handing over a few of his key marketing efforts to VivioSites. “In addition to cost savings, I appreciate that the VivioSites team is very on top of things—my questions and emails are answered very quickly and anything I need is done promptly.”
Hit the Restart
VivioSites is on a mission to help independent dentists grow their practices—even in the midst of challenging times. Visit viviosites.com/blog for tips on how to reconnect with patients after a temporary office closure.
