Traditional Dental Marketing – The Tool of Yesterday

Inbound Marketing is the tool of today and tomorrow.

Think of all the strategies you use to try and connect with patients – sending out note cards, renting a billboard, placing an ad on the radio. Okay – so stop thinking about how much it all cost you – as we agree – its a lot!   For decades now these have been the traditional methods of dental marketing, and for a long time, they worked.  But things have changed!

If you are using the tools of yesterday to connect with the patients of today and tomorrow (we call them the modern consumer) you are probably wasting a big part of your marketing budget!  Just consider these eye-opening statistics:

• 44% of direct mail is never opened.
• 86% of people skip television ads.
• 84% of 25 to 34 years olds have left a website because of irrelevant ads.
• 91% of people have unsubscribed from a company email they opted into.

So why is traditional dental marketing declining so quickly?

The answer is simple – it’s irrelevant, obtrusive, and frankly boring. Instead of answering people’s questions about dentistry and oral care in an engaging way, it relies on flashy gimmicks, unwanted offers, and tone death sales pitches.

If you are trying to run a successful dental practice, it’s time to rethink the way you reach out to new and returning patients. The strategy that today’s practices rely on is called inbound marketing, and in almost every instance it produces better results while lowering the total cost of marketing. These statistics illustrate just how big of an impact inbound marketing can have.

• 54% more leads are generated by inbound tactics than traditional paid marketing.
• Inbound leads cost 60% less than outbound leads.
• 79% of companies with a blog report a positive ROI.

Companies save on average $20,000 by investing more in inbound marketing than traditional marketing. Tweet This

At this point, you are probably wondering what inbound marketing is.

How it works can be complicated, but in short, it is focused on directing and driving traffic to your web presence, turning that traffic into leads, and then turning those leads into repeat business. Unlike traditional dental marketing, SEO services connect people with content they actually want and need and establishes the dental practice as a business that is relevant to people’s lives.

So what inbound marketing strategies do dentists use? Lots, in fact. They write blogs that answer people’s questions about braces, getting kids to brush regularly, and cosmetic dentistry. They use low-cost search engine optimization tools to improve their ranking. And they rely on automated processes to deliver targeted messages to patients exactly when they will have the biggest impact, to name just a few.

The results speak for themselves.

If traditional dental marketing is not dead, it’s at least irrelevant. If you are ready to revitalize your practice and fill up every spot on your calendar, it’s time to commit to a new kind of marketing.

If you are ready to upgrade to performance-driven marketing, which targets the modern consumer, contact us for a free consultation.