If you’ve ever bought, subscribed, or considered something based on the experience and recommendation of a friend or colleague, you know the power of patient testimonials on your dental website to attract new patients.
The power of testimonial marketing isn’t mystifying.
Businesses of all stripes provide information about their products and services and why people should choose them, and people certainly need such information to make informed decisions. Yet testimonial marketing (a.k.a. reputation management) provides trust and credibility because they’re third-party social proof, and their importance and effectiveness bear out in the numbers.
According to a 2023 consumer survey by BrightLocal, 84% of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, and this trust is evidently growing. In 2020, BrightLocal found that 79% of people trusted online reviews, and such numbers directly apply to dental practices.
Per Dental Economics, 59.9% of surveyed patients said they choose a dentist based on positive dental testimonials, and 34.7% said a dentist’s online reputation is very important.
Because of the power of testimonial marketing, findings in our free 2023 State of Dental Marketing report unsurprisingly show while word-of-mouth advertising remains important for practices, 27% of practices are planning to cultivate more patient testimonials (versus 31% for offline word of mouth).
To put patient testimonials to work for your practice, this blog covers the essentials, from how to gather patient testimonials and the strength of the problem-solution format to channels to use to make the most of your testimonial marketing.
Gathering Patient Testimonials
Cultivating reviews from existing patients involves more than simply asking for a review either in person or through email communications. Cultivating reviews also involves timing, personal connection, and setting patient expectations.
The Best Time to Ask for a Patient Testimonial
Ask immediately after an appointment while a patient’s feelings about the appointment are still fresh in their mind.
Connect the Testimonial Request to a Person
Have someone at your front desk ask a patient if they would like to submit a review. This way, the request is connected to a person versus a task, which encourages patients to follow through.
Tell a Patient What to Expect
If you’ll be emailing a patient a link to a review site, for example, tell the patient when to expect the email so they know to look for it.
Other Ways to Collect Patient Testimonials
- Send an email blast to all your patients. PracticeMojo makes this easy with automated communications to reach the right patients with the right information at the right time.
- Ask on your Thank You page if you use online bill pay.
> Collecting patient reviews is easy with ProSites Reviews’ automated requests.
Look for Problem-Solution for More Effective Testimonial Marketing
Many patients fundamentally make dental appointments because of concerns or problems. So, as you gather patient testimonials on your dental website, look for testimonials that speak to solutions, such as patient testimonials about how you made a patient feel relaxed and at ease during an exam or treatment. Straight-praise testimonials are always great and help support morale at your practice. Yet problem-solution testimonials speak much more specifically (and therefore more impactfully) to why a potential patient should choose your practice over competitors.
The Problem-Solution Format Applies to All Forms of Patient Testimonials
Though testimonials can differ in focus, the problem-solution format can commonly be found in some of the most effective forms of testimonial marketing, including:
Procedures or Treatments
- How you spotted and addressed a dental condition before it became worse and costlier to treat.
- A patient’s initial reticence toward a dental procedure and how you smoothly completed a procedure with no discomfort or stress for the patient.
- How you supported a patient after a procedure with at-home oral care tips.
Exceptional Customer Service Experiences
- How your practice team went above and beyond for a patient.
- The story of a new patient who was nervous about an appointment, and how the welcoming and accommodating design of your practice set them at ease.
- The gratitude expressed by a patient for a flexible payment option that enabled them to get the dental care they needed.
3 Key Channels for Testimonial Marketing
Though patient testimonials tend to be effective no matter what channels you use for testimonial marketing, here are three key ones:
1. Use Them on Your Practice Website
If you want to use a patient’s image or name, make sure the patient has agreed to it beforehand in writing. Getting written consent right off the bat can help you avoid awkward situations and better ensure that you don’t accidentally offend or lose patients. Having written consent can also help you avoid being taken to court for publishing an image without permission or having a patient demand compensation for using their image.
Use short, impactful quotes from testimonials on your homepage to catch the attention of website visitors, then link them to full quotes in your testimonials section.
2. Spotlight Testimonials on Your Social Media Pages
- Share video testimonials on platforms like Instagram and Facebook to engage and attract potential patients.
- Create a weekly feature, such as “Testimonial Tuesday,” to regularly engage potential patients.
- Incorporate interactive elements where possible, like polls or questions to engage your audience.
3. Optimize Your Website for Search Engine Ranking
Testimonial marketing is only as powerful as discovery. If potential patients don’t find your practice website in search results, they can’t read the testimonials you’ve collected. So, testimonial marketing includes search engine optimization (SEO) to rank your practice website higher in search results and get your testimonials in front of more patients, and for practices, that edge comes by using SEO services specifically designed for dental practices and proven by industry experience.
>> On average, practices see over 300% ROI using ProSites SEO marketing services.
In addition to the above, display testimonials in your waiting area.
- Create a testimonial wall to display thank-you notes, photos, and stories from satisfied patients.
- Utilize digital screens in your practice to showcase rotating patient testimonials.
- Incorporate testimonial quotes into practice brochures and information pamphlets for potential patients visiting your practice either to accompany an existing patient or to ask questions and assess your practice.
Handling Negative Testimonials
If your chest just tightened a bit, you’re not alone. Nobody likes negative comments, but they have some benefits.
Negative testimonials can help you identify practice problems that you may not have been aware of, which gives you the opportunity to both remedy them and thank patients for their valuable feedback.
Testimonials are direct requests to a patient from your practice. This means, they stand outside of uncontrollable environments like Yelp and other online review platforms. You don’t have to feature a negative testimonial on your website or another testimonial marketing channel, but a negative comment presents an opportunity to privately communicate with a patient to address and solve the complaint. This can save a patient relationship and hedges against a patient making their complaint public.
Perhaps the Most Important Thing to Consider in Testimonial Marketing
Beyond their power of social proof to attract more patients, testimonial marketing gets its power from sheer reach. In a digital world, online testimonials reach far more potential patients than word of mouth can, and if managing it all feels complex, we’re here to make it easy.
We’re ProSites, and we’re dedicated to one thing—helping dental practices market more efficiently and save time. To that end, we provide a complete range on online solutions to simplify testimonial marketing (and more) so you can stay focused on patient care, including:
- Dental SEO, with a focus on tailored SEO services to meet your practice-specific goals.
- Social media management to effortlessly stay connected with current and potential patients.
- Dental websites built to attract more patients and keep your chairs full.
Don’t know what’s best to support your goals?
We’re here to help you figure that out.
Simply reach out to us, tell us your goals, and we’ll recommend solutions to get you there (no obligation) and even show you free demos of our solutions.
Reach out today.
Call (888) 932-3644, email sales@prosites.com, or schedule a chat.
