If you’re doing dental content marketing, and you should be, you already know that it can be tough to keep coming up with new ideas. New content is what allow you to stay in front of your dental prospect, establish a virtual relationship, and ultimately influence him or her to choose you to solve their dental problems.
Dentistry is not a very fast-moving profession. Compared to many other areas of society and business today, it’s positively glacial. Dentists don’t get to latch onto social crazes like Pokemon Go, the latest smartphone, Chia Pets (remember them?), or even the Macarena (better forgotten).
In an industry that rarely has “groundbreaking news,” how do you find new and interesting topics to write about? You turn to the Internet.
Back in June, Cision published a good guide to services that will alert you to trending topics. But unless you have the creativity to work dentistry into almost everything, that may not help you come up with ideas for your content writing.
Fortunately, you’re not the only one writing content that’s suitable for dental patients. You can get ideas from articles in trade journals, from the ADA website, and even from other dentists. Now, no one is suggesting that you use their content. But ideas are fair game, and if you can put your own unique, interesting spin on an idea, by all means do.
A couple of caveats: when you’re building off others’ ideas, you’ll do well to run your own writing through a plagiarism checker. You can invest in a paid app, or you can use one of the free online services. It’s all too easy to unconsciously borrow someone’s phrasing while you’re writing about their idea.
There are companies out there offering paid dental content. In general, I’m not a fan of these services for one reason: that content won’t be unique to your website. Google favors content that is unique, fresh, helpful, and authoritative. And Google has a really long memory. Since you’re unlikely to be the first purchaser of packaged online content, you won’t get the SEO credit for it. In fact, your website or blog is likely to be penalized in search rankings.
You can also get content ideas from your interactions with patients. For instance, by some estimates, over 140 million people in this country have some degree of dental fear or anxiety. If you come up with a novel idea to help someone deal with dental anxiety, that’s something your prospects will definitely want to read about.
Patient success stories are always a good read. If you intervened early and decisively in a patient’s periodontal disease, tell people about it. If you have the patient’s permission to use their name, and a glowing testimonial, your writing will find an eager audience.
Lastly, not all your content writing has to be, or should be, about dentistry. Your prospects want to get to know the person behind the dental mask. You can write about everyday events outside the practice, goings-on with your staff, or last Sunday’s sermon in church.
Your content writing should inform, educate, and entertain. Above all, it should subtly influence your reader to see you as the trusted dental expert to solve their problems. Ultimately, you want them to pick up the phone or make an appointment through your website.
The goal of content marketing is to get more and better patients. You’ll achieve that by using your online content to build trust and credibility.