Open New Doors: Finding new patients with teledentistry

Part 1: Capitalize Teledentistry In Your Office

In the first of a 2 part series on how to Capitalize Teledentistry In Your Office, OralEye explores the different kinds of patients that teledentistry appeals to and how to reach them.

Teledentistry can be used to access different patient demographics from traditional marketing. Used in conjunction with a digital marketing campaign, you can dig deep into the groups you want to target and find new loyal patients.

Families, working parents

• Audience: Families, particularly those with working parents, find teledentistry appealing for the convenience it provides in their busy schedules.
• Message: Emphasizing convenience is a plus here, as well as the idea that there can be a digital dental home for the whole family.
• Channels: Social media and websites/blogs for parents are a good means of reaching this audience.

Millennials, young professionals

• Audience: Working 25–35 year olds tend to be highly digitally literate and use a host of apps on a daily basis.
• Message: Many in this demographic are yet to find a dentist they trust. They also tend to move around a lot which makes this even more difficult. Helping them find their dental home should be the focus of your campaign.
• Channel: The best approach to reach this audience is paid campaigns on Facebook or Instagram.

Remote populations

• Audience: These are people who live far away from their dentist and need to take a sizable journey for their checkups.
• Message: The best message for these groups is to invite them to get a teledental checkup as a gateway to an eventual office visit. They can manage their expectations before making a big journey.
• Channel: Geo-fenced ads that target remote regions are the best avenue here.

Old patients

• Audience: These are your patients who have fallen off the radar and not scheduled an appointment in 18 months or longer.
• Message: This is a gentle invitation to get a teledental consult after someone hasn’t shown up in a long time.
• Channel: You most likely have contact details for this audience. Think about putting a nice email campaign together in Mailchimp to promote this.

Your Dentist In Your Pocket

Teledentistry on a smartphone

“My dad is a dentist, and while working late one night, I was
concerned about a gap I’d noticed in my lower gum, so I called him
to ask what I should do. Of course, he couldn’t help over the phone
but suggested I send him a photo. On doing so, he called straight
back with a diagnosis and recommendation and mentioned how
the quality of the photo was as good as those taken by professional
dental cameras. That’s when I realized how much technology could
help dentists and patients. The original Toothpic was born.”
Mark Moore (Toothpic CEO)

What is Toothpic?
With Toothpic, patients take 1–6 photos of their mouth, teeth, and gums on their smartphone. Along with some dental history and habit questions, this is sent to a Toothpic Network dentist licensed in their state. The dentist annotates the patient’s photos, and this is returned to the patient as a dental report in the Toothpic app.

How can I get involved in the dental network?
Toothpic has a dental network across the United States and often experiences demand for new dentists in certain states. Signup at www.oraleye.com/join and one of our representatives will be in touch or reach out to the Network Manager on network@toothpic.com to express your interest.

Did you find this piece useful? What more would you like to know? Let us know in the comments how your experience has been with social media and get in touch with us if you need any more advice.