Growth is necessary and vital for any business. No matter how well your dental practice is doing, there is always some room for growth. Attracting new patients and retaining old patients are key fundamentals of a successful dental practice growth plan. In this article, we will be sharing with you some strategies and thoughts that can become part of your future dental practice growth roadmap.
The dental practice space is getting more competitive with time. As a dentist and a business owner, you need to think of strategies that can help you stand out. No doubt, patient care, and customer service are important but there is more to it. We are happy to share seven strategies to grow your dental practice:
Develop a Marketing Plan
Whether a start-up business or a well-established dental practice, a robust marketing plan is the need of the hour. It outlines what, where, and how you plan your marketing to-dos. It is good to have the following in your marketing plan:
- Setting a target number of new patients every month.
- Plan a marketing budget.
- List new ways in which you can reach out to people
Immaculate Customer Experience and Open Communication
When new patients inquire about dental procedures and services, be honest and upfront with them. Establish additional channels of communication with the patients to keep them informed and up-to-date. Make sure you address any questions that potential and existing patients may have regarding their insurance, bills, and health.
It is also important to learn more about the demographics of your patients. Their age, average income, communication preferences, etc.
Automate Your Services and Activities
Sending confirmation emails and reminder messages is important. Any missed opportunity means loss of revenue or a potential patient. Automating the entire communication such as email and text messages automation will make things easier for you.
It is always a good idea to have a customer relationship management system in place to manage your appointments and patient billing.
Keep your Website & Social Media Profiles Updated
Website and social media profiles are the first impressions of your dental practice. Often dentists build websites and forget about it. Make your website professional and well-designed, and it should answer the queries a patient is searching for. Please add customer testimonials for social proof.
You need to share educational content on your blog. If you don’t have a newsletter, we highly suggest that you start one now. It is all about providing quality information to your potential and current patients and staying on top of their minds. Your dental practice should be the first thing that comes to their mind when they need any dental help.
Referrals
Word of Mouth referral is the best form of marketing. Good patient care will get you referrals but it is always a good idea to ask for it. You need to have a system in place that requests referrals from your patients every month or every quarter. Make use of targeted emails, and texts and incentivize referrals – Offer discounts to patients on their next visits if they refer a patient.
Outsource Dental Billing
Outsourcing dental billing can help you focus on patient care. We advise that you should partner with a dental billing company and outsource dental billing, patient insurance verification, collections, patient follow-up scheduling, and appointment management. This will save you a lot of time and help boost your revenue. Imagine if your collections go up by 10%, you’ll have more money to spend on marketing.
Offer Patients Flexible Financing Options
If you are a well-established dental practice, you might want to introduce your own payment plans. In addition to cash transactions and insurance coverage include various other options for patients’ ease. For example, you might give patients an option to pay with personal checks. You can offer payment plans for patients who don’t have insurance. You may also introduce payment plans for yearly or quarterly dental check-ups.
Conclusion
Dentists need to think about their dental practice as running a business and just like any other business they need to have a growth plan in place. You can incorporate these seven strategies in your dental practice growth plan and see results within one year of execution. If you need help with dental patient marketing or dental billing, you can reach out to us at Zap Dental Billing. Happy to help.