Thanks to an increased awareness of oral health in the past generation, some serious advancements in dental tech, and the growing demand for cosmetic dentistry, the dental supply industry finds itself experiencing a period of rapid growth.
So, if your dental supply company wants to make its mark, then it’s time to optimize your marketing strategies to tap into this growing market and see the success you’re looking to achieve.
However, there are several common marketing mistakes that, if not identified and immediately addressed, can hold your brand back! So, what are those mistakes? And, more importantly, how do you fix them or avoid them altogether?
We’re glad you asked.
Whether you’re a dental supply manufacturer, distributor, or retailer, today’s blog is taking you through the most common marketing pitfalls so that your dental supply brand can better connect with your target market and establish itself as a key player in the game!
About the Dental Supply Industry
The dental supply industry, though not as public as the dental clinics seen everywhere, plays a very important role in providing dentists all over the country with the tools, software, and machinery they need to provide the best care possible to their patients.
It includes a huge range of products, such as dental instruments like chairs, tools, and X-ray machines, consumables like gloves and masks, and advanced tech like the digital imaging devices and practice management software that clinics use every day.
Common Dental Marketing Mistakes Suppliers Make (And How to Fix Them)
If you’re ready to take your dental supply brand to the next level, then we’re ready to help get you there!
See if your brand is making one of the most common marketing mistakes dental supply brands make and get the insight you need to fix it and start doing things right!
1. Not Enough Market Research
Many dental supply brands launch headfirst into their dental digital marketing campaigns or product launches without first fully understanding what their target audience is looking for.
Sure, this saves time but running a campaign or going through the trouble of production for a product that isn’t aligned with what your audience wants leads to wasted resources and missed opportunities.
How to Fix It
Instead, conduct some thorough market research on your target audience's wants, needs, and pain points.
You can do this through surveys, interviews, or even by assembling some focus groups made up of dental professionals. Be sure to also monitor dental industry reports to keep yourself updated on any emerging trends and technologies.
And don’t stop there. You should also do some analysis on your competitors as well. This will help you identify any gaps in the market that your brand can take advantage of.
2. Not Marketing Online
Dental supply companies may not be public facing but that doesn’t mean that you don’t still need a strong online presence.
In today’s world, if you want your brand to succeed, you’ll have to move past sending out brochures via mail or relying on sales reps or word-of-mouth referrals and harness the power of dental digital marketing strategies to get it done.
How to Fix It
Instead, take advantage of digital dental marketing and social media marketing. This will give your brand a huge number of opportunities to connect with dental professionals, distributors, and key decision-makers who influence purchasing decisions for the brands whose attention you need to get!
Build up your online presence and don’t be overshadowed by your competitors who are taking advantage of everything the internet and social media have to offer!
3. Overlooking Their Branding
Though it would make your sales teams’ job a breeze if it was the case, remember, you’re not the only supplier that your potential customers have to choose from.
If your branding is weak or inconsistent, it’s going to make it very difficult for your customers to remember you amongst all of your competitors. And a dental supply brand that isn't memorable and doesn't stand out in a meaningful way is not going to be top-of-mind for any clinics that find themselves in need of the products you supply.
How to Fix It
Instead, put some serious effort into developing a strong and cohesive brand identity for your company.
Create a brand guidebook that nails down every aspect of your brand including your logo, your color scheme, tone of voice, fonts, and everything else that makes you unique.
Really use your messaging and visuals to tell your brand’s story and highlight your value proposition. Doing this will better connect with your customers and help to differentiate you in a sea of competitors.
Once your brand’s visuals and tone of voice are set, be sure to keep it consistent. Everyone who creates social media posts, marketing material, and visuals for your brand should have access to your brand guidebook to keep all of your collateral consistent across all platforms and touchpoints.
If you need some help establishing brand guidelines, then hit us up here on our brand guidebook services page. We’d love to help you out.
*For more on the importance of dental branding, stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog post!
4. Not Listening to Customer Feedback
If there’s something your customers are consistently telling you, then it’s time to pull up a chair and listen up.
Many companies get too stuck in their routine and either stop listening to customer feedback or stop requesting it altogether, leading to a serious disconnect between the products and services you offer and what your customers actually want or need for their clinics.
This leads to not only poor customer satisfaction and no brand loyalty but also hampers your digital and local dental marketing techniques as your strategies and offerings are no longer lining up with your customer needs.
And if you aren’t listening to your customers, then they’ll likely go to someone who will.
How to Fix It
If you aren’t actively gathering customer feedback, then it’s not too late to start!
Your customers want their voices to be heard, so put some systems into place to make it easier for them to tell you how you’re doing, such as sending automatic customer survey requests a week or so after closing a deal, requesting Google Business Profile reviews from your customers, and monitoring your brand mentions on any dental social media accounts.
This will make it much easier to really gauge if you’re meeting your customers’ needs and how to adjust your strategies to improve your products or processes to bump up your customer satisfaction levels.
5. Neglecting Content Marketing
Brands that don’t put much effort into their content marketing (or don’t have the resources to allocate to this effort) will have a very difficult time establishing authority, trust, and a relationship with current and potential customers.
Audiences want to see the “WHY” behind choosing your brand for their dental supply needs and without valuable content to explain that to them and to highlight your value, they won’t see why your brand is the best solution and will take their business elsewhere.
How to Fix It
Develop a strong content marketing strategy, one that addresses all of the potential questions your target audience might be asking themselves while they consider your brand over other similar dental suppliers.
Your content should be informative, engaging, and effectively answer your audience's questions and hit their pain points and points of resistance.
Mix it up, too. Your content should be a balance of long-form content like blog posts, case studies, and articles, as well as visual content like videos and infographics to educate your audience about how your products are the best solution to their dental supply needs.
Once you’ve got a team working on producing valuable and engaging content, create a content calendar and release your content steadily on a variety of channels, like your website, email marketing campaigns, and your social media channels.
And speaking of social media …
6. Avoiding Social Media
It’s 2024, friends, and if your brand doesn’t have a strong online presence on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and X (Twitter), then it’s high time you got on the bandwagon.
These days, social media is huge for engaging with your followers, connecting with new audiences, and promoting your brand.
How to Fix It
Get on those socials!
Do your research to see what platforms your target audience would most likely be found on and then work to establish a strong presence there.
Remember that content marketing we talked about earlier? Your socials are a perfect place to share that valuable content that explains all of the benefits of your products, like blog posts, infographics, case studies, and anything else that will educate, engage, and entertain your existing and potential audience.
Be sure your content is shareable too. Highly entertaining and valuable content is more likely to be shared and reposted, bringing your brand to new eyes and more potential customers.
Your socials are a great place for your customer service team to be as well, to field questions for everyone from a dental practice’s social media manager to curious dentists wanting to know more about you and your products.
7. Underestimating SEO
Every time a potential customer Googles something related to your products, it’s a chance to increase your brand awareness and get yourself in front of a new set of eyes.
This is why your website is one of your most important assets. The problem is, if it’s not optimized for SEO, you’ll end up missing out on a ton of organic traffic.
SEO is crucial for online visibility. And yet, many dental supply companies underestimate its importance, resulting in low search engine rankings, loss of traffic, and missed opportunities.
How to Fix It
Optimize for SEO, friends.
To do this, you’ll need some tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to conduct keyword research and gain a better understanding of how your audience is searching for your products and services.
Once you’ve gained some insight, use it to identify the keywords and phrases your audience is using in their searches and sprinkle those words and phrases throughout your website in places like product descriptions, blog posts, articles, case studies, FAQs, and even meta tags and alt tags for your images.
It doesn’t stop at keywords, either. Work on your technical SEO as well by doing the following:
- Slow load times and poor visuals negatively impact your SEO rankings, so be sure to use high-quality images on your website and optimize load times.
- Check that the links on your website are functional and build up quality backlinks.
- Regularly update your site with fresh new content because the longer a visitor spends on your website reading your valuable content the better your rankings will be!
8. Not Differentiating
We touched on this a bit earlier in the article, but in a crowded market, the key to success is differentiating your brand and really hammering home what makes your brand stand out.
If you’re a brand that doesn’t do a good job of differentiating yourself, then you’re not memorable and your customers won’t have a reason to choose you instead of any other brand to meet their dental supply needs.
How to Fix It
Instead, highlight your unique value proposition.
What makes your products better? Why should dental clinics choose your products over any of your competitors?
Is it your exceptional customer service?
Is it because you’ve got new tech that no one else in the industry is using just yet? The fastest shipping? The best prices? The highest quality materials?
Whatever it is, lean on it! Dental clinics need to know exactly why choosing you is a better option than any of your customers. Do this and you’ll be more memorable, build up better customer relationships, and enjoy more customer loyalty.
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There’s One More Mistake You’ll Want to Avoid …
Let’s not forget the most important mistake that dental supply brands make with their marketing efforts.
Choosing the wrong partner for your creative marketing assets can lead to low-quality, inconsistent, and, ultimately, ineffective marketing collateral.
But luckily, there’s a solution.
Why not partner with Designity for all of your creative marketing needs?
Designity is a Creative as a Service platform that gives your brand instant access to the top 3% of the thousands of graphic designers, SEO experts, copywriters, social media experts, video editors, animators, and more that apply each year.
What that means is that you’ll always have the best of the best, with access to the best dental marketing tools and software, producing collateral for your brand. You’ll also benefit from a designated Creative Director, who will act as your single point of contact, manage and source your creative team, keep up with your projects, and make sure that all of your deliverables are delivered on time and are of the highest quality.
And instead of paying freelancers per project, paying costly retainers with expensive agencies or dental SEO services, or signing lengthy contracts, all of these services can be yours for flat, predictable fees.
Choose from one of three subscription-based plans to get the exact set of services to meet your brand’s creative needs and enjoy predictable pricing with unlimited revisions and no unexpected charges ever.
Sound like a plan?
Check out our portfolio to see how Designity’s innovative Creative as a Service platform has elevated the marketing efforts of brands just like yours and, when you’re ready to give our services a shot, book your demo call to get started with a two-week, no-obligation trial.
Is your dental supply brand ready to leave marketing mistakes behind?
