Dental Practice Influencer Marketing Basics
Influencer marketing continues to grow at a rapid pace, as it’s become a highly popular method for attracting new customers. Statistics show that the influencer marketing size has risen to a whopping $16.4 billion in 2022, making it the go-to approach for brands looking to expand their reach. So, does this mean your dental practice should incorporate influencer marketing to land more patients?
The answer is a resounding yes! Influencer marketing taps into the human side of the business through social media engagement, and this aspect provides tons of benefits for dental practices. Having a person with a massive following promote your brand reinforces social proof and helps to develop trust with your potential patients.
But the question is, how do you employ an influencer marketing campaign for your dental practice? In this article, we’ll guide you through the ins and out of influencer marketing to level up your social media game and bring more patients to your clinic!
Why should you use influencer marketing for your dental practice?
We live in an era where people engage with social media daily. Smartphones are becoming more of a need than a luxury, and brands can take advantage of this by leveraging the power of influencers.
When you collaborate with influencers, you expose your brand to their dedicated followers. These people gravitate strongly toward the influencer’s recommendations, as they trust in the person’s character and credibility. These factors get amplified in dentistry, as dental care is a delicate topic that rarely gets addressed due to dentophobia (fear of the dentist).
By working with a credible individual, you establish the reputation of your practice as one that’s dependable and knowledgeable about their profession. Here are a couple of reasons why influencer marketing may be a good fit for your dental practice:
1. Generate brand awareness
Marketing to social media is a challenging endeavor, especially if you’re just starting as a business owner. With little to no fanfare regarding your practice, it can be difficult to attract patients and generate brand awareness.
Thankfully, influencer marketing helps address that. With hundreds if not thousands of followers, influencers can instantly boost your reach and positioning online. People will start hearing more about your practice, your services, and how you can improve their oral health. Think of influencers as loud megaphones that amplify your brand’s message online.
2. Reach your target audience in a convincing fashion
When you collaborate with the right influencer, you can reach your target audience more effectively than you would with other marketing strategies. Think about it; an influencer known for their bright pearly whites advertises your brand. Chances are you’re marketing to users interested in your services.
What’s even more compelling is that influencers help you build trust quickly with your target audience. Their reputation is at stake when marketing a product or service, and best believe they want to advertise a practice that provides quality dental care.
3. Enhance your content delivery
Whether through stories, reels, or Instagram/Facebook posts, users love engaging with relevant content on social media. Instead of posting the same vanilla content, you can elevate your social media game by collaborating with influencers.
One example is an Instagram takeover, wherein an influencer temporarily shares content on behalf of your dental practice’s social media accounts. The influencer goes live and shares their experience with your brand, further reinforcing the trust factor with their followers. Influencer marketing is a great way to enrich your content and draw more attention to your dental practice.
How do you start an influencer marketing campaign for your dental practice?
To make sure influencer marketing delivers the results you’re looking for, you need to create a structured campaign. Here’s the step-by-step process on how to do that:
1. Define your goals
You can make influencer marketing work for your brand in multiple ways, but the most important thing is to set clear goals from the beginning. What do you want to achieve by collaborating with an influencer? Do you want to boost sales with a specific product? Or do you want to generate awareness with your dental services?
For your first campaign, you want to set a realistically achievable goal for the influencer. For example, you can start by boosting social media engagement and build up from there. One targeted goal is better than micro-managing multiple goals, so keep that in mind when building your influencer marketing campaign.
2. Find an influencer that fits your brand
Once you have clearly defined your goals, the next step is to find an influencer that best fits your brand. Beyond the follower count, you want to collaborate with an influencer that’s well-received by their audience. By that, we mean an individual trusted not only by their audience but the public as well.
Look at their content and the way they interact with their audience. Are their tone and approach similar to that of your brand? Or do you find their online personality clashes with your brand? The best way to find relevant influencers is to use keywords or hashtags. Narrow down your list of influencers, and make a decision based on who you feel comfortable working with the most.
3. Contact the influencer and start negotiations
Most influencers have their contact information listed on their bio, like their email address and management accounts. If they don’t have one listed, you can send a private message stating you’re interested in collaborating with them.
You want to craft a compelling headline to capture their attention and follow it with a detailed proposal. Make sure to include details like:
- Your goals for the campaign
- The duration of the campaign
- The type of content you want them to create
Ask if they’re interested in working with your brand and their preferred payment structure. Will you pay per post shared? Or will it depend on engagement and analytics? Negotiation is crucial to landing a credible influencer, so communicate well and be straightforward with your expectations. Feel free to ask for their analytics to see how well their account performs. You want to ensure that the influencer can bring the numbers you’re looking for to maximize your marketing budget as much as possible.
4. Create a content calendar
To maintain consistency with their posts, you want to create a content calendar that schedules when the content will go live on their accounts. Having a content calendar helps distribute content evenly, especially if the campaign lasts for more than two weeks.
As the campaign progresses, check on the influencer’s posts and see how users engage with their content. Again, the analytics will provide information on whether their accounts live up to expectations. If something isn’t going according to plan, reach out to the influencer and see how they can address it immediately.
5. Monitor the numbers
Once the influencer marketing campaign ends, it’s time to do some number-crunching and see if the campaign delivered the results you’re looking for. Key performance indicators (KPIs) will come in handy when tracking the success of an influencer marketing campaign.
If your goal is to boost your online presence, look at your website traffic and see if you’ve gained followers on your social media pages. Hopefully, the numbers add up and bring a net positive for your dental practice.
Wrapping up
As influencer marketing continues to dominate the social media landscape, dental practices can leverage this unique opportunity to grow their business. Maintaining a strong presence online helps attract new patients to your practice, and influencer marketing can reinforce that by tapping into their massive follower base.
Hopefully, the information in this post will serve useful for you when you decide to create an influencer marketing campaign for your practice. Try it out and see how much of a difference it can make to your brand’s engagement!
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