Marketing is about building your brand. It’s about getting your brand across to the right potential customer base and ensuring that they come to you rather than to a competitor. For a professional such as an orthodontist, marketing may use the same strategies as – for example – a retailer, but in a different way.
How do you get your point across to your customer base? What strategies should you use, and where do you start? That’s what we are looking at in this article. We’ve chosen seven effective marketing strategies that will work for an orthodontist. There are many more, but space is limited. Let’s begin with a simple one that is very effective: the blog.
Start a Blog
We have only space for seven strategies, but this great post at OrthoPatients covers many more and is worth a read. It’s also a great example of why a blog is important. It’s easy to start a blog: simply set up a WordPress account or use one of the many other available platforms and take the tuition tour.
But – and here’s the rub – what do you write about? And what if you find writing difficult? To answer the first, you should write about anything your readers may find interesting and engaging that is relevant to your business: a success story, an unusual procedure, something they want to read. As for the writing part, there are many writers who will create quality content for you at sensible rates, and they are worth investing a small amount in.
Blogs need to be added regularly with new, fresh, and original content to keep your readers engaged. You may want to consider hiring someone to manage your blog, and you’ll find that it is not expensive. Now we need to look at a giant in the realm of marketing – social media.
Use Social Media
It is impossible to overstate how important social media is in a 21st-century marketing campaign. Social media is massive. The three most popular platforms – Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook – have immeasurable numbers of users. You need to use them to promote and push your brand to the right audience.
Remember, you are targeting local people who are looking for orthodontic services. This is a niche market, and you need to ensure that your social media posts are in the right place at the right time. Comment on related business posts – suppliers of yours, for example, or other dental service providers in different areas of the market sector – and join conversations.
The thing about social media is that pretty much everybody engages with it. If you don’t have a footprint, you’re making no inroads. We suggest setting up accounts in the ‘big three’ as mentioned above, promoting your blog to those of others who may be relevant, and keeping yourself moving in the social media world. You will find it benefits you greatly.
Make a TikTok Video
Short video sharing platform TikTok rose to fame during the pandemic and remains a powerful method of getting the point across. For the orthodontist, it presents a valuable opportunity to create a fun look at your clinic – for example – or a simple and fun video relevant to your service. The emphasis here should be on the fun!
An orthodontist is not a fun professional to visit, but a platform such as TikTok can help you provide a light-hearted view of a serious profession. Try it; it’s great to use and easy, and you might go viral if you get your marketing advisor to tell you where to share it.
Use YouTube
YouTube is ubiquitous. Every single profession can be found on YouTube. If you set up a YouTube channel – it’s free and easy to do – you can create longer videos that provide informative and engaging content to your target audience.
You may want to talk about specific procedures or perhaps create an episode showing a day in the life of an orthodontist. With a patient’s agreement and approval, you could document their treatment on an ongoing basis. People will watch, as your potential clients will see this as a way of getting to know you and trust you.
If you want, get a professional to make your videos, and there are many sensibly priced YouTube video producers who will give you an excellent product with a professional look.
Tell Your Story
People love a story, and you can tell yours to your readers or viewers. Why did you choose to become an orthodontist? What funny episodes did you endure during your training? What are the most memorable incidents in your career?
You can start from childhood and move chronologically. Perhaps you are carrying on a family tradition, or orthodontic treatment in your youth inspired you to study and take up the profession? Whatever your story is, people will read it, and again it enhances their knowledge of and trust in you. Everyone has a story to tell, so get out there and tell it!
Use Local SEO
We’ll keep this one brief and stress that local SEO is essential for a business such as an orthodontist. Your potential clients are going to search for an ‘orthodontist near me, and that and your location should be a high priority in your SEO optimization. There are many SEO service providers who will help you ensure your site, blog, and social media are the ones that they choose to look at, so talk to an expert now and have all of your media optimized.
Build an Email List
Finally, despite what many people will tell you, email is still powerful and relevant. Ask your visitors if they would like regular email updates or perhaps a newsletter, and you’ll find most will say yes. This is because online consumers like businesses to communicate with them. Having a simple database of email addresses is a bonus in marketing terms.
That is our seven chosen orthodontic marketing strategies, and as we said, there are many more, so start planning your strategy now and watch your business grow.
