Dentistry is one of the most important health care relationships that people have and although they know they should be having regular checkups, they also lead busy lives and booking their next appointment is not always top of mind. As a practice owner or Office Manager at a dental office, you need to be proactive, make it as convenient as possible for patients and potential patients to book an appointment, and ensure your practice is the first practice that comes to mind when they decide it’s time to see a dentist.
If you were to ask 100 residents that live within 5 km of your location to name the first dental practice that comes to mind in their neighborhood, how many do you think would say your practice? If you didn’t say 100, there’s room for improvement. The people living within 20 minutes of your practice represent one of the best opportunities a dental office has for new patient prospects. Regularly promoting your brand image to this group and showcasing the type of dental office you are will give you a big competitive advantage. This is where geofencing comes in. If you’re looking for an effective digital marketing vehicle to professionally build your brand image, you’ll want to learn more.
Geofencing allows your dental practice to target individuals in a specific location, and push notifications, text messages, or even advertisements to these people. Implementing geofencing is a great way to ensure your advertising efforts are going to individuals you want to see in your practice. For example, you may want to target potential patients within a 5 km / 20-minute radius of your practice to ensure your advertising dollars are going to individuals capable of coming in to see you.
Let’s get into the five most important reasons your practice should be using geofencing.
Build Brand Awareness
For any health care practice, including dentistry, having the people living in your community / local area know who you are is a real competitive advantage. Geofencing is a great way to introduce potential patients to your practice before you start directing lower-funnel call-to-actions towards them, such as booking a dental exam or other services you offer. Your patients are more likely to book with you if they are introduced to your practice beforehand.
It is imperative for your dental office to regularly promote its brand image in order to introduce and showcase the type of dental office that you are. Is your practice Family Care Focused? Cosmetic Focused? Child Focused? Think about what makes your practice unique and ensure you capitalize on that in your messaging.
Using geofencing to showcase your dental practice brand allows you to increase brand awareness without launching a large, extravagant, and potentially costly marketing campaign.
Reach the Right People at the Right Time
Using location-based marketing for your dental practice allows you to reach out to the right people at the right time with the content they want to see. Using geofencing affords you tons of targeting options and the ability to individually personalize the content your target is seeing based on their location. Moreover, you can precisely target as large or small of a demographic your business requires. For example, you can choose to target an entire city or specific streets close to your office. Convenience is a very significant factor in people’s decision-making. The people living within a 5 Km / 20-minute commute represent one of the best opportunities your dental practice has for new patient prospects.
In addition to flexible targeting options, your practice can communicate with potential patients using various types of marketing collateral. In other words, you can customize your specific message to meet your goals. From coupons to landing pages, ads to text messages.
Increased Engagement
Think about it. Your potential patients are overwhelmed with ads every day on most digital platforms they visit. People are so used to advertising and tune out most of the areas ads can be found. However, recent studies have found that 70% of consumers find location-based notifications valuable, and 53% are likely to engage with location-based advertising.
While it may be difficult to specifically target your audience based on their interests (because everyone needs a dentist, right?), targeting individuals with homes or places of work close to your practice will increase the likelihood of visiting. According to a customer experience study, 47% of consumers stated they would be likely to shop from a retailer that offered promotions when they were nearby.
Targeting your audience with a quick and easy geofencing notification when they are close by will increase the likelihood of them stopping by to book an appointment. Try sending dental exam reminders or promotions such as complimentary teeth whitening.
Cost-Efficient
Your dental practice does not need a massive marketing budget to see a return on your investment when using location-based marketing tactics because you are carefully choosing and targeting the most likely patients for your practice. Marketing your practice this way allows you to invest a small budget with a more significant ROI.
Choosing to market your practice on platforms such as Facebook or Instagram can be a good choice, depending on your goals. However, if you think about how many users are on those platforms, it would cost you millions of dollars to market to everyone. Moreover, most of the individuals you would end up reaching would most likely not be interested in your practice.
The cost of location-based advertising is limited to the number of people around your dental practice. Even if you targeted a great distance, you would still spend less and target people likely to visit your practice.
Personalized Messaging
Finally, geofencing allows you to create specific and unique customized content for people in your local area. For example, if you want to target people who work in the office building across the street from your practice, you can create specific messaging relating to their work or taking a lunch break to get a dental exam and/or cleaning.
Sending messages or displaying advertisements unique to these individuals will increase engagement and the likelihood of them taking you up on your offers.
Using geofencing ads for your practice is easier and more prominent in the industry than ever before. People are constantly on their smartphones, so it’s easy for your practice to target its ideal audience with location-based advertisements.
Key Takeaway
At the end of the day, when someone in your community starts thinking about looking for a new dental office relationship / dental care provider for their family, you want them to think about your dental office in a very positive light. If your practice is looking to boost your monthly new patient acquisition, consider implementing geofencing into your marketing plan right away.
At SmileShop Marketing, we listen to the needs of your practice and create custom geofencing strategies to reach the right people at the right time with the proper messaging. To learn more about geofencing, connect with us. We’re happy and excited to chat.
