Why Content Marketing Is an Ideal Strategy for Dentists
As we’ve often discussed on this blog, creating content is all about cultivating a relationship with your clients. When you reach out to them online, you’re not primarily seeking to push your business or promote your brand. You’re truly helping to educate them and solve their concerns, building goodwill and connections in the process.
All this makes content marketing services an optimal strategy, especially if you’re a dentist.
“Soft-sell” solves a tough sell
How exactly can you promote your main service if it’s something people might be nervous about, like a tooth extraction? What would convince prospective patients to come to you, if that means undergoing procedures not many people—or anyone at all—considers enjoyable?
The answer is to take a “soft-sell” approach, the very same approach content marketing is built on. Rather than directly advertising products or services, you must engage audiences in discussions about related topics that are directly relevant to them.
It’s something dentists can easily and creatively do. Rather than declare “Schedule a root canal!” or “This new procedure is best for you!”, you can ask your content marketing agency to make posts that teach the best ways to prevent tooth decay, bad breath, or any other condition that will help people not go to the dentist.
This tactic figures perfectly in achieving the goal of content marketing, which is to make audiences understand that businesses care about them not just as paying customers, but as people. More importantly, it gets right back to the heart of dental practice: caring for patients.
Long-term communication befits long-term care
That said, while providing such content might help people cut down on dental visits, it can help strengthen their trust in dentists. Knowing that a dentist has their best interests in mind will help people keep that dentist on their mind when they really need one.
Once they do, you can rely on content to reaffirm their trust, as well.
Blogs, infographics, and the like enable you to regularly communicate with patients not only about preventive care but on all manner of topics. These include what to do before a visit, what happens during that appointment, what happens next after the procedure, and what both you and your patient should do all throughout.
Content like this helps signal more positive things about your practice. By sharing it, you make patients feel more at ease with the product or service they choose. You empower them to be a partner in their own healthcare. And, by conveying it over the long term—beyond the space of a specific appointment—you emphasize that you truly are dedicated to their long-term health.
In the long run, you may find they keep coming back to you, too.
The dentist is always in
Content marketing platforms also enable you to connect with patients beyond consistently sharing information. Whether through your blog or social media, they can reach out directly by commenting on your posts or sending you a direct message. They may even help you expand your reach by sharing your content.
You, in turn, can actively respond to the communication your audience initiates. This can mean addressing their concerns directly, or for bigger impact, using their questions and comments as foundation for future content topics. What matters is that you engage the patients you already have, which can help you remain visible to the ones you can still have.
Again, it reiterates the message that a dentist is always there attending to a patient—online as well as offline. It’s something you really can do with the help of a content marketing agency.