Proven Patient Acquisition Strategies

Acquiring new customers is always a battle, but it doesn't have to be a very difficult one. Customer acquisition is key when you are looking to scale your practice. Hence, to grow you need to attract new patients. While it might not be rocket science, it does have its own set of limitations and challenges.

There is no one thing that you can do to gain new patients. You will have to have several tactics and strategies in place to maximize your efforts. And here is a list of methods that you can use to attract new dental patients in 2022 and beyond.

Create a website to attract new patients

A personalized and branded website is a must if you want a digital presence. While social media platforms are a great way to start off, a website is a better way to build a presence online. Especially if you are looking to attract new patients to your practice.

Building a website allows you to:

• Build and manage your online persona
• Display all your products and services
• Create brand awareness
• Shape brand/clinic perception
• The central point of your practice's information
• Acts as a portfolio
• Improves credibility
• Makes you searchable on the web (SEO)

Why should you understand SEO to attract new patients?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of improving your website's visibility when people search for products or services related to your practice. Think of it as an index people use to search for things that are related with the help of identifiers.

Having a good SEO strategy can:

• Help you increase traffic to your website
• You don't need to pay for ads
• Improves ROI
• Builds credibility and trust

SEO may seem very hard to understand or implement, but that is just not true. There are several Google resources you can use to better understand SEO. There are even several courses offered by companies and universities.

Social media strategies

Your social media strategy is going to be the key factor to determine your customer acquisition rates.

Social media users spend about 2 hours and 25 minutes online every day.

And the users keep growing exponentially each year. Between these 2 hours and 25 minutes, you have so many opportunities to attract new patients that you might be missing out on.

In this day and age, having a social media presence or website is not enough. You need to strategize your social media approach and content to maximize your acquisition rates.

And this includes planning. You need to map out your who, what, why, when, and how before you start building up a profile. The better your groundwork is, the better outcomes you will have.

How to build a social media strategy:

• Set company objectives and marketing goals (both long term and short term)
• Find your target demographic and your secondary demographic
• Decide on your platforms (this depends on your demographic)
• Conduct a survey and research competition
• Keep up with trends
• Provide high-value content
• Build relationships and create a community
• Keep updating your strategy

Think of it like this: without a social media strategy you are bringing in customers who happen to walk by your practice (if they are even looking for specific treatment). And with a social media strategy, you are bringing in customers from anywhere in your town/state who are looking for a dentist.

Q&A sites to attract new patients

Building a community is very important for a business, especially a healthcare business. However, it can be very difficult to achieve. While social media platforms are a great way to connect with your community, there is a better way to build a community. And the answer is Q&A websites. Having a presence on at least one Q&A site has become necessary for business.

How can Q&A sites help you attract new patients?

• Increase credibility and trust.

The easiest way to set yourself up as an authority and expert in your field is to provide high-value content to your customers. And this is where Q&A sites come in. The users of such sites are actively looking for answers and solutions to their questions and problems.

This means that you do not have to extensively look for your audience and identify their problems. You are getting your audience and their problems on a platter for you to solve.

• Boost traffic to your website and social media platforms.

While answering the question, you have to back up your claims. Always use valid information and provide quality answers. You can always add statistics to help validate your claims.

Along with this, you can also include links. These links can be your website or social media or other sources that support your answers. Anyone who comes across your answer will be redirected to your website or social media where they can browse your services and products. This means your traffic numbers will increase. Better brand awareness leads to new patients.

• Become searchable on Google.

All answers that are on Quora are google searchable, this means that if anyone were to look up a similar question, your answer could pop up. This again ties into your increased credibility and boosted traffic.

Reviews can help you attract new patients

Reviews are one of the greatest ways to have your patient advocate for you and help you build trust and attract new patients. According to oberlo.in, 9/10 consumers read online reviews before they buy something. About 97% say that they trust reviews as much as personal recommendations. Moreover, reviews can be instrumental in converting a potential customer into a patient.

All reviews, good and bad, will help you in building your brand and help you attract new patients. While good reviews will help garner trust and credibility. Bad reviews will help you improve in areas you are lacking. the more information you have on areas you can improve on, the easier it will be to identify a problem.

There are several ways in which you can deal with bad reviews. However, the way you deal with bad reviews will set your brand's perception and reputation. Hence, always encourage your patients to leave reviews.