Podcasts: Dental Marketing's Biggest Secret

Given the fact that more than one-third of Americans (104 million) regularly listen to podcasts, it makes sense that many businesses have chosen to launch their own.

But how do podcasts fit into a dentist's marketing strategy, and how do you make one that’s high quality? Don't worry! These are the two questions that we will address in this article.

How Do Podcasts Fit into a Dental Marketing Strategy?

Let's look at the top three advantages of having a high-quality podcast and how it can fit into your dental marketing strategy.

1. Podcasts can help you raise brand awareness.

Podcasts have grown in popularity over the last decade and continue to do so.

As you may know, brand awareness is critical for a company's growth, and podcasts can help any company gain praise and recognition. As a result, your content must meet the needs and interests of your target audience. This allows you to develop a strong brand voice, which leads to more conversions and sales.

2. Podcasts can help you build strong client relationships.

From web-based entertainment to online classes like webinars, dental professionals have already recognized the importance of communication in their practice. These are just a few of the tools that today's successful clinics use to stay in touch with current and prospective patients.

But what sets podcasting apart is that it allows you to take that connection to the next level. Once you start podcasting, your current and prospective patients will feel a genuine connection through your voice. 

And, if you regularly broadcast podcasts, your audience will become very familiar with you—your clinic and its staff, the services you offer, and everything else related to your practice. This will keep your audience coming back for more.

3. Podcasts can help you become an authority in dentistry.

As a dentist, you should constantly rev up your dental marketing strategies to keep your brand fresh, creative, and in the minds of your patients and other dental professionals.

Why not use your voice to become an authority in your industry?

Getting a random person to listen to your podcast is anything but simple. But, knowing how to position yourself as an authority in your field will help speed up the process. So, if you want to improve your skills and share your knowledge with others while earning the respect of other dental professionals, start creating podcasts now.

How Do You Make a High-Quality Dentist Podcast?

Now let's dive into the podcast creation process.

Step #1: Determine why you want to start a podcast and what you want to discuss.

Let's start with why you want to create a podcast. You may have already recognized podcasting as an excellent method to increase brand awareness, develop strong client relationships, and establish yourself as an authority in your industry.

So, what is the point of all of this?

Defining your goals and what will motivate them are two ideas that are well worth considering as you build the foundation of your podcast.

Initially, you may want to start with raising brand awareness for your dental clinic. In this case, you can begin discussing your clinic in your podcast. Here are three podcast starter topics to get you started:

• What New Patients Can Expect During Their First Appointment
• Our Dentists' Profile
• What Services Do We Offer?

The Glenn Dental Podcast is a great example of a dental podcast that aims to raise brand awareness.

Once you've covered everything your clinic has to offer, you can move on to another goal like building connections with your patients. With this, you'll need to shift to more patient-focused topics. Topics which your patients can relate to, or stories about your patients, such as:

• How To Have Healthy Gums
• Is An Electric Toothbrush Right for You?
• Patient X's Root Canal Story

Here's the Mayo Clinic's take on creating an educational podcast to connect with patients and prospects:

In some cases, dental professionals will create podcasts to educate and establish themselves as authorities in their field. As a result, they may wish to develop topics such as:

• Tooth Decay 101
• Oral Health in Adulthood
• What Your Tongue Says About Your Overall Health

Here's an example of a podcast that aims to establish itself as an industry authority:

Whatever your motivation for starting your podcast was, stick with it, and it will become easier over time to identify the best topics.

Step #2: Identify your target audience.

To begin, consider answering the following questions:

• Do I want to target a particular age group?
• What geographic region do I want to focus on?
• Should I target parents who are looking for a certain kind of dentist (e.g., periodontist)?

The answers to these questions are critical. If you create a content strategy without understanding who you’re targeting, your message is much less likely to resonate with the people who will have the biggest impact on your business.

Similarly, it helps if you determine what is most important to your audience, what excites them, and what they are passionate about. You can then tailor your content accordingly.

Remember that your podcast will fail if you feed your audience the wrong content. So, before you begin creating content, make sure you know exactly who you want to reach.

Step #3: Create a plan and stick to it.

There is no point in sticking to a plan just to stick to a plan. On the contrary, there is enormous value in a planning process that keeps a plan alive by reviewing and refreshing it regularly.

Make sure your podcast plan is SMART. It should be specific, measurable, attainable, results-oriented, and time-bound.

You can make a SMART plan by creating a visual outline to guide each podcast episode using Milanote.

After that, keep your plan updated as your goals, environment, resources, and assumptions change.

RELATED: How Do I Make a Podcast?

Allow Digital Resource to Promote Your Podcast

Dental marketing is no longer just about traditional paper or TV campaigns. A well-rounded dental marketing strategy should include a variety of mediums for building brand awareness and engaging your audience.

People are listening to more audio content than ever before. That means now is the time to capitalize on this trend to meet your patients wherever they are.

Allow us at Digital Resource to help you promote your first podcast episode in the digital space once you've finished recording it.

Contact us today to learn how we have helped dentists convert their target audience into actual sales.