If your dental practice is trying to generate new dental implant patients, you’re probably doing it wrong — and throwing away marketing dollars in the process.
Why do we feel confident saying this? Because most dentists we’ve worked with don’t realize that marketing dental implants is not like attracting new hygiene patients.
Far from it, in fact. That means if you’re using the same tried and true marketing strategies you’ve always relied on to bolster your GP business, you’re almost certainly going to fail.
To understand the difference between implant marketing and regular dental marketing (and how to get implant marketing right), you need to understand one essential concept:
Lead nurturing.
If you’re not familiar, we’ll help you get acquainted.
What Is Lead Nurturing?
Lead nurturing is the effort you put in to warm up a lead — a potential new patient — until they are ready to say yes to treatment. And the truth is, when you’re marketing to regular dental patients, you don’t need to do all that much of it.
After all, most people don’t take months to decide which practice they’re going to go to for their biannual cleaning.
But when it comes to attracting implant patients, lead nurturing is the difference between success and failure. Given that a single implant case can cost as much as $90,000, patients are understandably wary to commit to treatment — which means you have put in significant time and effort to get each lead from “no” to “yes.”
Think about it: Would you spend tens of thousands of dollars on a whim? Probably not.
Dental implant patients typically operate on what’s called a long buying cycle. This is more common in business-to-business sales than it is in consumer-facing services, but it means that many implant patients will spend months (or even years) researching, talking to practices, and weighing their options before moving forward.
If you’ve got potential patients calling you asking about implants — or even scheduling consultations — that doesn’t mean that they are ready to buy. In fact, you should assume yours isn’t even the only practice that they’re considering.
For your marketing effort, that initial contact is only one more step in the process.
What Does Great Lead Nurturing Look Like?
Closing a sale on a long buying cycle is all about follow up. How you build on your momentum from an initial phone call or consultation — how you nurture a lead — will often be the deciding factor as to whether or not your practice ends up at the top of a patient’s list.
Typically, this involves making consistent, ongoing efforts to communicate with your potential implant patients. This can include outreach over the phone, SMS, or email (or all three).
However, you don’t want to simply be pushing hard for a sale or you’re going to get annoying, fast. Instead, your outreach needs to bring some real value to your leads.
For example, think about creating a series of emails aimed at leads who have already contacted your practice inquiring about implants. You would send these out over a period of weeks or months, and use each email to educate your potential patients on topics like the benefits of implants, the treatment process, common mistakes when choosing a doctor, and FAQs.
You’ll also want to feature testimonials from happy patients speaking about how their implants have transformed their lives. (Don’t skip this part, as social proof is essential to success in marketing.)
Consider employing discounts as a part of your lead nurturing strategy as well. Try offering five or 10 percent off the first implant — but only to leads who are already warmed up a little after having received your first month’s worth of emails.
Your overall goal here is to build as much of a relationship with your potential implant patients as you can. The more you can stay on their minds (even if only while they delete your latest email), provide value, and help them make a good decision on treatment, the better your chance of becoming their practice of choice.
In other words, always think long-term here. If regular dental marketing is like trying to get someone to go out on a date, implant marketing is more like aiming for a successful marriage proposal.
Act accordingly.
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