How to Get New Dental Patients in 2023

As a small dental practice owner, you want to focus on getting your dental brand in front of more new patients.

Even though you’ve already built up a loyal patient base, new patients are important to grow your dental practice and to ensure it thrives in the years to come.  

But the million-dollar question is – how exactly can you attract new dental patients in 2023?

The short answer is to make your practice relevant to appeal to your intended audience.  

The long answer, we’re going to explain here.  

In this article, we’re going to teach you proven and tested ways to get new dental patients.  

Without further ado, let’s get started!

1. Be More Authentic to Get Closer to Target Patients

Get to know your current and potential patients by gathering data online. This can be done through your website or social media analytics.  

See who is viewing and engaging with your posts. Use this data to build patient profiles you can use to identify who your best patients are.  

Then, using this information, you can create campaigns that target and appeal to similar types of patients.  

Once you know who your ideal patients are, the next step is to build a strong connection.  

To achieve this, be more authentic.  

Think of some of the most well-loved dentists online like the Bentist and Dr. Milad Shadrooh AKA The Singing Dentist. What is it about them that people love?

It’s their authenticity!  

Showing who you are, what you do, and why you’re doing it is humanizing your practice and showing people what you truly care about.  

This helps build trust, credibility, and attracts the right kind of new dental patients.  

To be more authentic, here’s what you need to do:

• Share your story of how you started and how your dental practice came to be. People love it when the underdog wins in life, so share your practice’s humble beginnings.  
• Don't make promises you can't keep. Make sure your marketing accurately reflects the tour practice's actual operations.  
• Talk about your mission on social media and revolve your marketing message around it.

• Think about what makes your dental practice stand out. What’s your unique value proposition?  
• Be more transparent by showing behind-the-scenes clips, featuring real patients, and showcasing your employees in your content.  

2. Publish More Video Content

Did you know that in 2020, 96% of consumers increased their online video consumption? 9 out of 10 said that they want to see more videos from brands and businesses.

Today, an average person spends around 100 minutes watching online videos per day. This shows that video content should be a critical part of your practice’s marketing strategy.  

If your practice doesn’t have a video presence online, you’re losing out on the opportunity to attract new dental patients.  

Your videos don’t have to be perfect to be effective. What’s important is for them to be authentic and offer value to your viewers.  

Yes, you can shoot straight from your phone and upload it on social media.  

Here are the different ways you can boost your presence online through video:  

• Build brand awareness by posting short-form videos on Instagram Reels and TikTok.  
• Do a live Q&A to engage potential patients and allow them to get to know you better.  
• Make educational videos like dental hack videos, and tutorials, and debunk myths. Videos help patients retain information better than text. They’re also more engaging and fun!
• Keep your viewers updated with what’s happening within your practice by posting on your Instagram or Facebook Stories. You can also use stickers to conduct a survey and boost engagement.  
• Promote time-limited promos through Instagram stories.  

• Showcase behind-the-scenes video to give people a peak at what goes on behind closed doors. What do you and your staff do on holidays? During breaks? How do you prepare for every treatment?  
• Repurpose your videos for different channels and platforms. You can turn your videos into audio and upload them as podcasts, short-form videos and upload them on social media, or a carousel post highlighting key takeaways.

3. Boost Your Online Presence by Claiming Business Listings

To ensure that potential patients see your dental practice first when they search for the products and services you offer, claim your business listings.  

Make sure you list your practice on Yelp, Google My Business, Facebook Pages, Instagram for Business, and other online business directories.  

Taking ownership of your dental practice page on various online business directories means you manage the information yourself.  

This allows you to optimize the page for maximum visibility by inputting important details like contact information, clinic hours, link to your site, special promos, photos, and many more.  

It's also a great avenue to generate patient reviews and respond to them. When you provide potential patients with the information they need, they're more likely to book an appointment with you or make an inquiry.  

Make sure you claim your dental practice across all relevant online business directories. Doing so will greatly expand your dental practice's reach and online presence.  

It also gives you the opportunity to manage your reputation online, which is crucial when you’re working to attract new dental patients.  

4. Update Your Dental Website

If you don’t have a website yet, make sure you create one that’s SEO-optimized and mobile-first. If you already have one, make sure it’s updated to follow mobile and SEO guidelines.

Modern consumers judge a business by its website. If your website is outdated or poorly designed, people will doubt your credibility.  

Yes, you read that right. Unfortunately, 94% of first impressions come from your site’s web design.  

75% of your website’s credibility also comes from design. To make a good lasting impression, your website should look professional, aesthetically pleasing, and functional.  

Google prioritizes showing websites that are mobile-friendly over those that aren’t on search engine results pages. A mobile-friendly website also tends to be faster, which improves user experience.  

It also helps to follow SEO best practices to boost your site’s performance in the search engine results pages, such as using the right dental keywords and creating content around them.  

Ultimately, if you want to impress potential patients and convince them to book an appointment with you, having a well-designed and SEO-optimized website will help.  

5. Encourage Your Patients to Give Feedback Online

Whether patients are looking for something as simple as a checkup or something lifechanging like veneers or dental implants, they are increasingly turning to online review sites to guide them to the right dental practice.  

In fact, 93% of consumers say online reviews impact their purchase decisions. 81% of people also use Google to evaluate local businesses.  

Use reviews to attract new dental patients to your practice this 2023! Start by encouraging your patients to give feedback online right after their treatment or send a follow-up email about their experience with you.  

The key to getting more reviews is to make it incredibly easy for your patients to leave them.  

For example, include a direct link in your emails where users can leave a review. You can also provide a template to make their life even easier.  

Aside from these, here are other ways you can encourage your patients to write reviews, leave a star rating, or give feedback:

• Create a system for asking for reviews.  
• Automate asking through emails.  
• Target satisfied patients.
• Personalize your emails by using their first name and being specific about their latest treatment with you.  
• Let them know why reviews are important for you and how they can be beneficial for them.  

• Follow up on your requests if you don’t get a response, but don't be annoyed about it. If they're not responding after a second follow-up, just leave it be.  

6. Invest Money in Paid Advertising

To attract more new patients, it’s not enough to rely on organic efforts to achieve results.  

Organic reach is in decline, across all social channels. When you post a photo on Facebook, only a few of your followers will end up seeing it.  

So, if you want to put your practice in front of more potential patients, you need to invest in paid advertising.  

Paid advertising comes in many forms. There’s pay-per-click, paid search advertising, social media advertising, affiliate marketing, retargeting, and more.  

Depending on your goals and budget, you can choose a type of paid advertising that works best for your dental clinic.  

If your budget is small, we suggest you go for social media advertising. It’s a great way to boost your brand awareness and connect with social media users.  

Since most people are on social, your target patients may be on one of those platforms too. You just need to figure out where they are so you know where to invest your money on.  

Are You Ready to Attract New Dental Patients to Your Practice?

Now that you know how to attract new dental patients to your practice, make sure you incorporate this knowledge into your marketing strategy this 2023!

If you need help creating an effective marketing plan that will help you grow and attract more patients, we can help!

At Digital Resource, our digital marketing experts will work with you to create a custom marketing plan and content strategy that will put you ahead of your competitors and attract the right patients to your practice.  

Contact us today to know how we can make it possible for you.  

‍