The beginning of the school year is always a good time to spring into action with marketing your practice. After a tumultuous year and a half of schedules turned upside down, remote schooling, and unprecedented health concerns, parents and kids alike are ready to get back to a familiar routine. Now more than ever, your marketing should remind families of the importance of a positive oral health regimen - which includes biannual dental visits!

If you're looking for ways to gain traction and new patients this year, consider adding these helpful marketing strategies to the list:

Get Involved in Your Community

People want to know that they can trust their healthcare providers, especially after a pandemic and especially when it comes to pediatric care. That's why community involvement is so important! Showing up to educational events (like back-to-school fairs) is a great way to establish trust and recognition, and it lets people know that you're dedicated to the area you serve. Getting involved is also a great way to develop rapport with parents and children alike, and the conversations you'll have with prospective patients will feel natural and organic.

Keep Current Patients Engaged with Promotions

Initiating new marketing promotions is a great way to keep loyal patients engaged and attract new ones! Raffles add a fun element to healthcare and even just the prospect of a prize will make your office memorable. This is also a great way to grow mailing lists and collect contact information for other marketing endeavors like newsletters, reminders, and more! (Of course, only contact a patient or potential patient for marketing purposes if they sign up and agree to subscribe.) Be sure to let patients know how to enter, what they will win, and when the raffle ends!

Prizes to consider: Offer a gift card to a family restaurant that all members of a household can enjoy, tickets to a summer blockbuster (now that theaters are open again), or a new backpack filled with school supplies to commemorate a new start!

Start a Referral Program

While raffles and giveaways are fun promotional events, a referral program can last all year long. This is a great way to reward loyal patients for their return visits as well as encourage new patients to book an appointment. Referral programs are completely customizable to your specific practice, so offer a reward that makes sense for you! The reward can be anything from a free cleaning to tickets to a sporting event. What would your patients appreciate most? What would make them feel valued?

Grow Your Practice with Marketing Essentials from SmileMakers!
At SmileMakers, we proudly support our customers as they work to grow thriving healthcare practices. We want to see your practice thrive in 2021 and beyond, and we hope you and your team have fun with these marketing tips! Check out our marketing essentials to see how we can help support your goals when you're out at community events, promoting raffles, or developing a referral program. We can't wait to see what this year has in store for you and your practice!