You could be the most qualified, skilled, and affordable dentist in your area, but that doesn’t guarantee you customers. If people don’t know about you, they don’t know to book you for their dental needs. So, how do you spread awareness of your business, keep up with your competitors, and get people to book appointments?

Our list of 25 marketing tips for dentists and orthodontists will give you ideas for gaining loyal customers so your business can aim toward success.

What exactly is Marketing? Why is it important to your dental practice?

Marketing is the communication to a specific group of potential clients to increase awareness of your business and increase sales. To market successfully you must:

use the right language to communicate with your audience
know your target market (who you want to connect with)
establish an effective communication style
specify who you are and what you do
know what makes you unique compared to your competition

Marketing will be more effective once you understand communication styles, have a defined target audience, know your brand, and have strong self-awareness.

Before you work through the marketing tips below, answer the following questions:

Who am I (as a dentist/orthodontist)?
What makes me different from the rest?
Who is my ideal target market?
What is the message they want to hear?
What is the best way to communicate it to them?

In marketing, there are two main goals – brand awareness and lead generation. Great marketing will achieve both. In the earlier stages of business growth, lead generation is usually more important as you need clients to start booking in to cover outgoings. Once the dentistry business is established and you’re booking appointments steadily, you can shift to a brand awareness campaign to keep your business top-of-mind in the target market.

25 tips to market and grow a successful dentistry business

1. Use SEO to rank high in Internet Search results

SEO is a vital digital marketing strategy for dentists and orthodontists in today’s medical environment.

Gone are the days when people reached for the yellow pages to search for a business. Now, most people use a digital device to type or speak into Google and find what they’re looking for. The Search Engine Journal says “93% of online experiences begin with a search engine”. It is, therefore, crucial to incorporate Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) into your dentist or orthodontist marketing plan.

Ideally, your business will be #1 in Google searches for the keywords being used by your potential clients, or at least appear on the first page. This makes it easier for clients to find you and enables your business to be more profitable without huge advertising bills or stress. Most dentists will get clients from their local area, so use a local SEO strategy to drive more business to your dental website. SEO can be done in-house, or you can hire a professional that specialises in the field.

If you want to keep your overheads down and have complete control over the SEO marketing for your business, start by reading SEO for Dentists and Orthodontists: Search Engine Optimization for Dentist and Orthodontist Websites by Georgie Hope.

This eBook focuses specifically on dentists who want their business to be found by people in their local area, including everything you need to rank a dentist/orthodontist website in Google and other search engines. It’s written in plain English, so even a complete novice can learn and implement the included strategies successfully! You can find out more about the book here.Or book a free 15min zoom or phone call with Georgie to discuss your website. Contact me if there are no times that suit you.

Book a Free 15min SEO Chat

2. Create a Google My Business page

Google is the largest and most popular search engine. When looking for a dentist or orthodontist, most people use it to shortlist local options. Because the potential client is most likely in close proximity to the business’s location, most dental practices include geographical location as part of their ideal target market, and Google My Business (GMB) is a great strategy to target a specific area.

GMB should be a key online marketing strategy for your business. It allows you to:

Add images to increase your visibility online and boost your brand identity
Encourage potential clients to contact you
Obtain more leads for your business by increasing your online exposure
Engage with potential clients
Attract more clients with special offers

Create your FREE Google Business page and ensure you complete all the details for your profile. Keep the business name, address and phone number consistent across all online listings and your website. Also, make sure you select the correct category for your business so you appear in relevant searches. Your business description will help you stand out from your competitors, so it is worth spending some time on this. Add relevant and enticing photos. Finally, ask previous and current clients to leave positive reviews.

Aim to get as many good reviews as possible. Two-thirds of people say they trust consumer opinions posted online. It is the third most trusted form of advertising. [Nielson]

We’ll talk about reviews more in Tip #20.

3. Automate Social Media posts

Clients can’t hire you if they haven’t found you, so being visible on social media is a top strategy for successful businesses. You need to maintain an online presence where your target market is. Dentistry businesses don’t tend to lack clients due to low demand because everyone needs their services. But they need to stay front-of-mind in potential clients, increase awareness, and most importantly, build trust.

Social media is an ideal marketing platform. It’s FREE and can have a huge impact on getting you more clients. Some of the best platforms for dentists are Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. You need to research where your specific audience is, and focus on the platforms you’re best at using. But most importantly you should use social media to show off the amazing results your skills bring, and feature your happy clients.

Social media marketing for dentists is still in the early roots of adoption, but more dental practices are seeing the power of being active on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. For an industry that leaves 15% of the population quivering with dread, what better way to earn a loyal patient than to consistently show them there’s nothing to fear? – Sprout Social

Use the following suggestions to make your social media presence a successful marketing tool for your dentistry business:

Many people visit the dentist/orthodontist for cosmetic reasons, so focus on image-based platforms like Instagram (see Tip #21)
Keep content focused on building trust – post pictures of your practice, your staff, happy customers, etc. to ease potential clients’ minds
Repost content created by customers and work with influencers
Respond quickly to comments and messages
Interact with local businesses and potential customers
Always link back to your website from social media pages (these are called backlinks and help with SEO)
If you use Pinterest, Pin directly from your website to Pinterest – when somebody clicks on the Pin, it takes them to your website.

A new social site making waves is TikTok, which is also worth checking out, even if you just share posts back to Instagram via Reels.

Posting regularly on your social platforms is time consuming, especially when you have many channels to post to. It’s worth utilising a website that lets you upload content to many sites with one click, and schedule posts for future dates and times. This will create a steady stream of fresh content on your social media, keeping your followers happy, and streamlining the amount of time it takes to create marketing content. Try Hootsuite or IFTTT.

4. Promotional giveaways

Holding a competition for anything from a free toothpaste to a full set of braces can be a very effective way to generate leads and create awareness of your business.

Use social media platforms to drive leads back to your website, where clients must enter their information to be in the draw for their chance to win. Posts are easily liked and shared on social media pages, and with enough momentum, your promotion could go viral and create thousands of leads for your business.

For an even bigger promotion that has a wider reach, team up with other businesses in the same industry. For example, partner with a local healthy snack company for some free ‘dentist-approved’ food and a free checkup.

5. Blog to your website regularly

Blogging is a brilliant way to show off your uniqueness and express your brand’s personality. Your viewers get to know you as well as your business. You have the opportunity to engage with them honestly and intimately. Ideally, your blog content will also do well in Google searches and convert the blog audience into new clients.

The content of the blog is important. You can maximise your online presence by posting relevant content that your potential clients are searching for. Tweak the blog content to work towards higher Google rankings and more organic traffic by adding keywords.

Here are some suggestions:

Share stories of exciting and interesting dentistry projects you have worked on – what have been some of your bigger challenges, and how did you overcome them?
Share location-specific blogs to boost local SEO
Give your audience an idea of what will happen in their appointment
Discuss items that need to be taken into consideration when visiting the dentist/orthodontist – i.e. what to bring to an appointment
Turn testimonials from customers into story-structured blog posts
Offer tips and tricks for better dental hygiene (this shows your expertise)
Deliver content that your readers are interested in – write for the customer, not for the sale
Use your well-researched SEO keywords throughout blog posts to improve your organic Google search result rankings (as discussed in Tip #1)

6. Business cards are powerful

Don’t underestimate the power of a business card or brochure. Hand out as many as you can. When you finish an appointment with a client, make sure they have some of your business cards to hand out to family and friends. A lot of future business will come from word of mouth, and this spreads much easier when all of your information can be handed to someone on a card!

Your business card or brochure is a mini-introduction of you and your business. Make sure it includes:

Your name & business name
Logo
Brand colours
Contact details
Website
Social media links
Design that fits your industry
A call to action

7. Create photo slideshows and professional videos

If the old saying is ‘a photo is worth a thousand words’, a video must be worth a million.

90% of customers say a video will help them make buying decisions, and 64% of customers say seeing a video will make them more likely to buy. [Forbes]

Slideshow videos are a great way to display your business. Pick 10-15 images and create a 30 second slideshow video which loops. This video should be saved to your website and shared to your social media platforms. Make sure to add an engaging caption that tells a story about your business. Some popular tools to create great images and slideshows are Lightroom, Adobe Spark and Animoto.

Video is another media form to utilise in marketing:

Create a behind the scenes video by having someone take video footage of you working
Create an educational video sharing your expertise on dental hygiene
Create a video blog to give your viewers the chance to see and hear you, and connect with you

8. Create a YouTube channel

It’s definitely worth having a YouTube channel for your dentistry business. YouTube is the second most visited website in the world after Google [Alexa Internet rankings].

Make sure you link back to your website from your YouTube channel so people can easily find you and get in contact with you. Share links to your YouTube videos on social media, and embed them on your website. You can also break your videos into smaller snippets for your other social media channels, and even consider trialling newer mediums like TikTok and Instagram’s IGTV.

Post the videos you have already created for your website, but try to make some content specifically for YouTube, like vlogs and tutorials.

9. Build your email list and send newsletters

Part of your dentist marketing strategy should be emailing past and potential clients regularly.

You put in a lot of effort to get contact information from potential clients, even if this is just a first name and email address. Don’t waste that information. When they first made contact with you, the potential client may not have quite been ready to make a booking. Keep your connection with them by communicating via email, and when they’re ready, your business will be one of the first to come to mind.

Reminding your potential clients that they need to book an appointment is a great dentistry strategy because people really do need to – they just forget, or don’t want to make time. This is why sending personalised reminders is so important.

For email marketing, services like Mailchimp make the process easy and save time. You can even schedule emails and set up automations based on different types of customers.

Remember to keep your mailing list happy so they don’t unsubscribe. So they don’t lose interest, you might include:

Personalised anniversary emails – Send an email wishing them “Happy Anniversary”, “Happy Birthday”, etc.
Special Occasion emails – send an Easter and Christmas email to everyone on your email list, updating them of any office closure times over the holidays, and include a special holiday gift to them, such as “10% off your next appointment if booked before …”
Monthly Wrap-up email – send to all past, present, future and potential clients. Include a summary of the month for your business.
Personalised reminders – have an automation send people reminders to book in every few months

10. Ask for referrals from your past clients

Marketing is continually evolving but one constant always remains – just how powerful word of mouth referrals are! The most credible advertising comes straight from the people we know and trust. 83% of people say they completely or somewhat trust the recommendations of friends and family. [Nielson]

Get your past clients to recruit for your dentist/orthodontist business. You never know who may have a friend about to need your services. If you make sure your past clients had a great experience with you, and have stayed front-of-mind through marketing, they should recommend you.

You can reward your past client by giving them a referral bonus and offer the new client a similar offer if they let you know they were referred on by a past client. That’s a WIN-WIN-WIN situation. You have a new booking, the past client receives something for their effort, and the new client receives something for booking with you!

11. Send letters

Mail is still a great way to connect with your audience – especially if they’re of an older demographic and/or may not be online.

A letter can feel much more personalised than an email or social media post, so sending the occasional appointment reminder or marketing material to your clients’ letterboxes is a great way to make memorable contact and build trust. This will likely be in the form of manually sending letters to past clients, but you can also hire a third party to deliver flyers with discount codes to letterboxes in a chosen area.

Make sure your letters have an easy-to-read and memorable style. It should display your logo, brand colours, contact details, etc. and the writing should feel personal and reflect your brand. Tell people why they should visit the dentist, why they should choose you, and encourage them to book their appointment today.

12. Title all photographs with relevant file names

Why does it matter what the photograph is named?

Offline it may make sense to keep the image’s original file name, as this is easy to reference. But online, photographs should be renamed to include subject, location and any other relevant information (e.g. braces Brisbane dentist; Sydney orthodontist office). The photograph names also appear in internet search results, so someone specifically looking to get a filling in Melbourne might type ‘Melbourne dentist fillings’ into Google.

It takes longer to rename photographs before uploading them to your website, but it is definitely worth that extra bit of effort!

13. Create a dentist FAQs page

Since the hesitation behind booking a dental appointment is often based on fear and lack of trust, you should do everything possible to make potential clients feel comfortable. A great way to do this is to cover all frequently asked questions – especially ones based on rumours – to ease potential clients’ minds. This can be added as a page on your website.

Clarify your experience, qualifications, skills, etc.
Disprove any harmful dentistry rumours
Clarify pricing so potential clients feel safer financially
Add a CTA that leads to your reviews/testimonials to build that final level of trust

This page should also lead back to a detailed and friendly About page that details your practice, your staff and your services. Make sure people see you as a real person they can trust – not the faceless, intimidating dentist they’re already hesitant to see.

14. List in medical directories and/or directories relevant to your industry

Online directories are designed to connect your business with clients looking for your services. There are thousands of business directories, so it’s important to find the right match for your business and niche.

With a medical business, you should feature your skills and experience on all free website directories related to your niche market. You can also ask your clients to review your business on the directories, which will help build your online reputation.

These directories will be different in every area, so do your research to find as many as you can to get your name in. Once you’re signed up, you need to fill out the information in clear detail:

Your address
All contact details (make it easy for people to contact you, with many options)
Your website (to create a backlink)
Your social media platforms
A short bio with a hook and call to action

15. Define your niche

Many dentists and orthodontists specialise in a certain area, based on their education and experience. Within these niches, your target audience and skillset can be defined even further.

Ask yourself:

What is my greatest skill as a dentist/orthodontist?
What do I enjoy doing most in my job?
Who do I want to work with?
What work hours am I comfortable with?
What are my resources?
What sets me apart from competitors?
What offerings will be most profitable?

From here, define your business and ideal client as specifically as possible. This will greatly help with your marketing, as you’ll always be clear on who you are, what you want, what your target wants, and therefore how to communicate with them.

16. Community involvement – how can you give back?

Any business that’s involved in its local community will win loyal customers, because you’re showing that you’re loyal, too.

Giving back can come in many forms. Here are some ideas:

Donate to silent auctions
Donate to local charities/create fundraisers
Sponsor local events or youth sports teams
Offer discounts to those in need
Be responsible environmentally and ethically
Teach free dental hygiene classes/seminars

Also think of causes you’re passionate about in your area that you would like to become involved with personally. Even if you’re not volunteering as a dentist, it’s a great way to meet like-minded people who could become clients.

17. Invest in Facebook Ads

Although it’s great if you can get social media working for you organically, sometimes you need an extra push.

It’s widely accepted now that most social media platforms won’t show your posts unless you put money behind them (especially if you’re running a business page). This means you may have to spend some money to bring in the audience you’re looking for.

Facebook ads can take some time to test before you start seeing many conversions, but it’s worthwhile if you have the budget. The great thing about Facebook ads is they can be targeted so specifically you can reach the exact customer you want, just at the right time.

Here are some tips for giving your ads the best chance:

Use enticing, relevant images that capture the audience’s attention
Select a specific target audience for each ad, and cater the ad directly to them
When creating an ad, Facebook will give you options for the outcome you want (leads, clicks, engagement, etc) – choose carefully based on what your goal is for the campaign, and curate the ad with the goal in mind
Focus on the client – what do they want, and what can you offer them so they can get it?
Finish with a call to action that leads them to click (i.e. book now!)
You can even choose to target ads to people who have already visited your website

18. Attend professional conferences

Especially if you work in a small practice or rural area, conferences and events for your industry are a great way to meet people and network – you never know who knows who!

Here are some benefits of conferences:

Being an attendee shows people you’re serious about your job
You’ll meet people with new opportunities
You’ll learn more about your industry and see how others are running their businesses
You’ll be able to upskill by attending training sessions and talks

Research conferences in your area, but don’t be afraid to travel to some if you have the means. You’ll leave feeling inspired and invigorated after immersing yourself in your industry!

19. Go above and beyond to get positive feedback

For many businesses, reviews are everything. This is especially true for dentists and orthodontists, who rely heavily on word-of-mouth marketing.

Here are some ways to ensure your clients will not only leave reviews of you online, but tell everyone about you:

Make a personal connection with them – don’t just do the job, but talk to and get to know every client
Surprise them by throwing in bonuses or discounts
Send a follow-up or reminder message to leave a review
Listen to your client’s needs and communicate effectively

Train yourself and your staff to ask clients for reviews after their appointment, and to send a follow-up email as a reminder.

20. Engage in local Facebook groups

A great way to get your name known in your area is to be a regular voice in community forums. Often, people will use their local group to ask for recommendations for medical professionals, so you need to be active there and make people remember you.

Some tips for Facebook Groups:

Don’t advertise or spam – reply to people who ask only
Be genuine and friendly
Interact however you can, even if the topic isn’t related to dentistry
Create your own group as a way to interact with potential clients

21. Use user-generated content with Instagram

By building your Instagram community, you’re creating an exciting way for your customers to share. User-generated content is a fantastic tap of community content to use – and it’s free! Your clients may already plan to post a photo of their fresh smile after their appointment with you, so make sure they follow you and tag you when they do.

First, you have to make sure your work is ‘insta-worthy’. What can you do to make dentistry shareable? A popular idea for dentists is before-and-after images for services such as braces or teeth whitening.

Start with some generic dentistry hashtags to get your posts more exposure in the right markets, then create your own hashtag (usually #’yourbrandname’) for people to use when posting photos relevant to you. After a while searching through the generic hashtags, you should find ones more specific to your niche. Specific hashtags are often better to use, since there’s less competition and the viewers will be more targeted.

Fans also love when you re-share their posts to your page. You should aim to like and comment on as many posts as possible that mention you (either with a tag or your hashtag) and re-share a few of the best each week. This encourages people to share more from you, in the hopes of a reward!

Also add an Instagram widget to your website, so people can see your feed in real-time and be encouraged to interact with you.

22. Work with the press

Make it not only easy, but valuable, for press to share news about your dentist or orthodontist business. You may have some very interesting dentistry stories to tell, so leverage these in your marketing strategy.

Use these tips to start connecting with press:

Post regular press releases on your website
Connect with local journalists
Re-share any news stories about you to your website and social media (rewarding the media site with a backlink/share)
Create news by doing interesting things in your community and business

23. Gift Giving

Sending gifts to clients is a unique strategy that has a great impact. It’s all about making an emotional connection and telling a story. And with a 100% open rate, it’s certainly worth trying.

Gifts could be an incentive, reward, thank you, etc. They show the client that you care about them and know them well, which will help build brand loyalty. When giving gifts, make sure you consider the client and the message. What is something they would actually like? What are you trying to tell them? Avoid sending random gifts without purpose.

For a more in-depth explanation of this marketing strategy, plus ideas for gifts and messages, check out the book ‘27 Direct Mail Marketing Ideas: To Make Your Message Stick’ by Oksana Koriakova.

24. Google Ads

Google is the first search engine most people will use to find anything. So when they’re looking for the perfect dentist to meet their needs, you need to make sure you show up. Organic SEO can work really well for this, but Google Ads give you an extra push to make sure you show up for the right keywords in customer searches.

Here are some tips to get your Google ads performing at their best:

Evaluate your website: is it easy to navigate and does it load quickly? If not, you’ll be wasting money sending traffic to a website that doesn’t convert
Use Google Keyword Planner to select the best keywords for your ads and get in front of the right audience
Place different keywords under different ad groups, for ads that cover two offerings
Consider the value you offer to potential customers and use this to motivate them to take action (click). What do they need that you can give them?
Use Google Analytics to see how your audience interacts with your ads and use this information to improve future campaigns

25. Website Design and the importance of Speed

Potential clients must feel a connection with your business when browsing through your website, as this makes them more likely to contact you and make a booking. Use your visual branding and brand voice across the website to cultivate a more inviting and memorable relationship with viewers.

Your website design should display the specific services provided by your business and have your contact information clearly visible. Ideally the business website will also perform well via Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), as we discussed in Tip #1.

Here are some key marketing suggestions for a dentistry website:

Your website is the virtual storefront for your business – make sure the website design looks professional, as this reflects on your entire brand
Make sure you have a page for services/products offered
Showcase photos of happy clients
Make it easy for potential clients to contact you – have a phone number, email and address visible, plus a contact form
Update the website regularly with fresh content
Always direct potential clients to your website from all other platforms (it’s the one platform you have complete control over)
Make sure your website is able to be viewed on mobile devices

Don’t underestimate the importance of speed. Potential clients don’t have the patience or time to wait as each page of your website loads, so your website needs to load fast if you want people to book. Here are some tips to increase speed and optimise your website:

Compress images to reduce bandwidth and space required (but don’t alter quality)
Convert raw files to JPGs
Select the image size required (larger images will hinder website loading speed)
Embed YouTube videos
Use a content delivery network (CDN) to provide fast delivery of content (by using geographically distributed groups of servers)

There it is!

We hope you found our 25 tips for dentist and orthodontist marketing helpful.

For a detailed plan on using SEO to drive traffic to your website, don’t miss our new book SEO for Dentists, available on Amazon.