Dental patients are unique in such a way that they are everywhere. They are the Silent Generation. They are the Baby Boomers. They are the Millennials. They are Generation Z. In a way, they are even the Alpha Generation. So, as a dentist, how can your dental patient marketing speak to all these different generations? Should you make specific campaigns for these generations or will one generic marketing strategy work for them?
Categorizing Your Audience
The first thing you need to do is group your audience together. Who are more likely to have the money for a dental procedure? Who’s going to check out your website before booking an appointment? Who are going for regular and routine checkups? If you want a most cost-efficient way of capturing your audience and engaging them, you need to understand first how to reach them. Are you going to reach them individually or by group? Do they even belong to the same category? Where can you find them?
The Baby Boomers are more likely on Facebook. The Millennials are on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The Generation Z are probably on Instagram and Snapchat. What about the Silent Generation? There’s a good chance you won’t find them online. This is the generation you’d have to reach by traditional advertising means.
Based on the example given above, you can group the Baby Boomers and Millennials together. You can target both these generations on Facebook. You can also reach out to Millennials via Instagram, though they’ll be mixed with a lot of people from Generation Z. As for the Silent Generation, you have to do some old-school snail mail or cold calls marketing for them. They’ll answer the phone. They will let you make the pitch. They’ll have lots of answers. But this is no guarantee that they’ll sign up for it.
Understanding Their Psychological Traits
People have different personalities, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles. All of these will affect the way they decide on booking an appointment with you. Are they afraid of dentists, perhaps? Fear is the number one reason why many Americans don’t go to the dentist until the problem has already magnified.
How about their lifestyles? Do they have an active one? Do they have sedentary lifestyles? You have to know how you will best reach them and how they will react to your marketing campaign. Once you have an understanding of these different traits that make us unique, then you’ll have a better chance of crafting a dental patient marketing strategy that will be effective on your audience.