Branding is such a buzz-word in today’s industry. If you’re not familiar with the basic branding concept I highly recommend you read more about branding your online business. Here are three simple techniques to emphasize your business branding. With so many hundreds and thousands of dental businesses out there, it’s quite hard to stand out above the rest. That’s where branding comes in, allowing you to place yourself in a unique tier of dentists.

1. Define Your Online Personality

A personality may be anything from a sense of humor and warmth you portray in your social media and website content. It may be a service technique you highly emphasize, such as a method of doing business. At Dental Marketing Ninjas we highly encourage you to write a very brief branding mission statement. Clearly explain in a couple paragraphs who you are as a business and what you want to achieve with your online marketing efforts. But most of all, explain what makes you stand out above the rest. That’s the very start of your brand.

You don’t have to share this document with anyone except your immediate team. This is for you alone, and it serves as a basic blueprint from which to use as a foundation in your campaigns. Working with a professional team of online marketers will give you the benefit of drawing from their expertise. They’ll lead you through the process of how to use this branding mission statement to your advantage.

2. Talk With Your Social Media Followers

Now that you have a clear idea what you want to achieve, it’s best to start right away by talking with people. Let’s say you have 100 followers on either your Facebook or Twitter. Those people are very important! Before you can think about greater numbers, you need to take advantage of the follow numbers you currently have. Engage with them, socialize with them. Perhaps it’s a good idea to start by asking questions on your social media. Encourage response. Make the questions thought-provoking, exciting. Draw those social responses. Start conversation. From there, respond to every message you get back. This is so important!

People don’t want to feel like they’re being marketed to, so simply talk with them.

Responding to all social media messages/replies/comments, you’re showing the public you’re genuinely interested in a relationship with them. This is the warmth aspect that is so critical to a marketing campaign. People don’t want to feel like they’re being marketed to, so simply talk with them. A patient looking for a dentist will often check the Facebook or Twitter profiles of the dentists they’re interested in. Having a very warm and engaging presence will be a very critical aspect of their final decision!

3. Start a Newsletter / Mailing List

To keep that conversation going, you’ll want a way to deliver content straight to your patients. A mailing list or newsletter is perfect, because it’s delivered straight to their email. These days, people online are quite hesitant to enter their email, so you may have to come up with an incentive. Start a raffle where a random subscriber to a mailing list or newsletter will receive a free teeth cleaning appointment or check-up. Maybe it’s a Starbucks gift cart. Be creative! The whole goal is to get subscribers.

Once you have a group of people subscribed, now it’s time to really emphasize your brand, your business, and lure them in to make the final step to schedule an appointment. Direct them to your website or social media accounts. Keep the conversation going, because as long as there’s conversation, there’s conversion.