Your practice gives exceptional treatment and builds lasting relationships with patients and their families. Current patients rave that they’re so glad they found you and wouldn’t go anywhere else. As a dental practice, you walk the walk and deliver the kind of experience that countless potential patients in your area are seeking. Why, then, are the countless people in search of a new dental home scrolling right past your social posts or bouncing immediately from your website without reading or clicking?

The answer likely has something to do with the raging battle for consumer attention. For reference, at the turn of the millennium, when the dot-com bubble was at its zenith and people were spending more time online than ever before, the consumer attention span was about 12 seconds. Today, in a digital landscape almost unrecognizable from the year 2000, it is only 8 seconds – more than a 30% decrease. Today, dental skill and acumen will still help you grow as a practice, just as they did then. The difference is that you now need an expanded repertoire of tactics to capture that attention span and drive traffic through the door.

A nearly surefire way to accomplish this in 2021 is through the use of video content. Did you know that 90% of consumers say that video content helps them make purchase decisions and that they are more likely to buy from or patronize a business after watching a video?

Here are a few ways to utilize video content in your practice’s marketing strategy so you can catch the eye of more great patients.

Website video content is a lightning rod for consumer attention. Placing a video on the homepage of your site, for example, can encourage potential patients to stick around longer, and get to know your practice in more detail without needing to read a word. For example, Big Buzz recently placed the video below, a reel of some of our past work, on our website’s homepage, and it is already pushing 800 views.

While you could do something similar, like a slideshow of before and after cases, it may be more pertinent to make a short video introducing yourself, your team and your office. This can help visitors put a face to the name of your practice and feel like they already know you. Videos are also great for SEO purposes and are shown to increase organic traffic for the pages on which they are featured. For this reason, consider making videos for your service pages in which you or a team member briefly describe the offering and answer common questions. This will help drive traffic from search engine queries around specific services.

Video also has the same attention-grabbing effect on your social media. As of last year, 15% of all the content on Facebook was video based, and the reason is simple: people like to watch it. Video can stop even the quickest thumb mid-scroll; it catches people’s attention. Some suggestions for videos include introductions (you can even share the video you make for your homepage to help your backlinks), office tours, or employee spotlights. Patient testimonials are another great option but be sure to have them fill out a HIPAA-compliant consent form before posting.

With these tips in mind, your practice can start capturing the attention it deserves and start winning the patients that deserve your stellar treatment.

If you have questions about where to start in creating or promoting great video content, contact us now to get scheduled.

Big Buzz is a marketing agency delivering a steady stream of move-in-ready leads to teams serving the senior living industry. For more than 15 years, Big Buzz has helped senior living marketing and sales teams nurture leads to increase occupancy, grow and scale. CEO Wendy O’Donovan Phillips is the author of the book Flourish!: The Method Used by Aging Services Organizations for the Ultimate Marketing Results, has been published in McKnight’s, has been a regular contributor to Forbes, and has been quoted in The Washington Post, ABC News and Chicago Tribune. The Big Buzz leadership team regularly lectures in front of audiences ranging from 25 to 3,000 attendees, including at Argentum and various LeadingAge chapters. Agency awards and accolades include recognition for excellence by the American Marketing Association, Gold Key Award Winner by the Business Marketing Association, HubSpot Academy Inbound Marketing Certification, and Top Advertising and Marketing Agency by Clutch.