In the competitive field of private dentistry, marketing your dental practice can be quite the challenge, not to mention cripplingly expensive for the smaller or start up practice. So how can you attract new patients without breaking the bank?

Traditional advertising such as the local Yellow Pages, or radio and television, however small the station, are just too far out of the advertising budget that many dental practices have to work with. In addition, how well this kind of investment works is almost impossible to track. You may indeed be gaining a new patient as a result of a commercial they have seen or heard, but the chances are you will forget to ask, and they will hopefully be more interested in singing the praises of your skilled dentistry to mention how they heard of your dental practice in the first place. However, in order to survive and prosper, marketing your dental practice successfully is crucial.

There is another, very effective and economical method of marketing your dental practice that you may have never considered, or even heard much about. In today’s economic climate, the savvy dentist should consider the great power of online advertising. Thanks to the great spread of everyday Internet use by exactly the people you need to target and the power of major search engines like Google, you can target specific geographical areas for people searching basic keywords, in this case things like “dental care” “cosmetic dentistry” and even simply “dentist”. Even better, online advertising lets you target the specific demographic you are seeking. If you specialize in children’s dentistry for instance, you can tailor your online ads to specifically target nervous parents seeking specialized dental care for their little ones.

But how does this kind of marketing really convert into great dental practice advertising? Most effectively you need to direct the person who clicked on your brief little online ad to a more expansive “landing page”. On this page you need to create a great and compelling reason for this potential patient, or visitor (they are “visiting” your page now) to share their basic contact information with you. Offering a free consultation or discounted specialist dental procedure can be a great induction for your visitor to enter their name, telephone number and e mail address into a simple contact form. This information is emailed to you immediately, allowing you follow up with these potential new patients while their teeth are still a concern at the front of their mind.

The true beauty of using the Internet and this kind of dental practice advertising is how little it costs. You will only be charged for potential customers who take the time to “click” on your ad specifically, those people who are demonstrating a real interest in your practice. Online advertising like this really is the best and economically sensible way to make the best of your dental practice marketing dollar.