Dentist offices are more or less packed right now, BUT they face a big problem.
You see, most dental patients schedule their follow up examine just as they are leaving the office after their appointment. The problem is that Covid cause most dentist offices to be closed for almost two months.
The patients that would have re-scheduled during the office visit obviously never did because of the closure.
Once offices re-opened there was a surge because of backed up demand from patients not getting regular cleanings and standard dental work.
So offices are running pretty full right now. Some busier than they’ve ever been.
But if they are looking ahead into October-November 2020 they’ll see a big hole in their schedule that needs to be filled.
This hole is bigger than most offices have ever faced. About 80% of the average dentist office’s schedule is open during this time.
Most practices have never been tasked with filling 80% of their schedule for a month. And most front office’s don’t have the staff to call all the patients to remind them to come in, while also performing all their other duties.
What To Do
First, you need to recognize that this is a problem. Most practices do.
This has been the motivation for some of my dental clients to start back marketing their business, after climbing out of the hole of the shutdown.
Online Scheduling
Letting patients pick a time to visit your office, by having LocalMed on your website, Google listing, or social media properties is one of the easiest ways to get a schedule filled.
You can email your list of patients to let them know they are due for a cleaning. You’d also want to include a link to your online schedule, so they can pick a time that works best for them.
Phone
You can call this same list of patients. This is labor and time intensive, but if you get folks on the phone there is a high likely hood of them scheduling.
Google Ads
Google Ads are a good way to get new business from patients that are looking for a new dentist. Obviously costs money to advertise but it’s almost instant and can be worth it.
SEO
Having your website show up at the top of “dentist” related searches in Google is a great way to get new patients. The problem is it takes time to get working.
You could start SEO now, but you also need to incorporate some of the other ideas here as well to fill this upcoming schedule hole.
Social Media
Start letting your patients that follow you on social media know, if they need a cleaning, the best times to come in are during October and November.
Get this message out on ALL your social media channels, not just one. Use your practice’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and whatever else you have.
Other Marketing
You’re likely going to need to try several of the above methods to get the word out to schedule an appointment.
And it will also help to use some more original methods like my Simple YouTube SEO Tactic That Anyone Can Do For Free.
These are some of the best ideas that I’ve got for you. I’m sure there are some other great ways to get patients to fill the schedule hole that I haven’t thought of.
The point is, you need to get started on this problem now, so that in a month in a half, your practice’s revenue doesn’t drop off a cliff for the second time in 2020.
If you need help with putting your dental schedule online, search engine optimization for your website or Google Ads, I’d be happy to talk to you.
I specialize in helping dentist offices get found online, and getting “butts in the chair” with online scheduling.
If you would like to get started today, to avert the coming drop in patients, the please fill out my Discovery Form.
I look forward to working with you!